Viva Frei on Rumble and the future of free speech

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This is just an excerpt from The Ezra Levant Show. To see new, ad-free episodes, which air Monday - Friday @ 8 p.m. ET | 6 p.m. MT, become a subscriber to RebelNews+. This episode originally aired on December 26, 2023.

David Freiheit, widely known as Viva Frei, joined The Ezra Levant Show to discuss free speech, censorship efforts by the Canadian government, and how platforms like Rumble and Twitter should respond.

Ezra prefaced the conversation with a brief history of the Canadian government's crooked relationship with the media, saying:

"You mentioned the Blacklock's story revealing hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to Twitter influencers. Then there was over $100 million... paid by the government to the regime media during the lockdowns. There's the annual media bailout. So there's the carrot but then there's now the stick, because, you know, you can't force people to watch the CBC... The CBC's viewership is falling even by their own acknowledgement. People will find interesting things on their own... But now in Canada, you got [Bill] C-11, which grants the government domain over the internet, [Bill] C-18, and other bills yet to come. They have something called the Online Harms Act that they're planning to reintroduce. So if the government couldn't get people to watch the regime media with a carrot, here they come with a stick."

Viva commented on how the Left views Rumble as a threat and why, reminding us that "it never had to do with principled free speech."

"It had to do with narrative control. And the only way certain people can maintain control is by suppressing and censoring those who would otherwise destroy their ideas in the open market of ideas. Rumble has been pivotal... It's taking some heat, it's taken some flak, it's taken some massive DDOS attacks, which is always a good sign ideologically. But people are gonna soon appreciate how lucky they are to have this alternative to YouTube."