Rumble Scores Discovery Win In Defamation Suit Against Founders Of Left-Wing Censorship Org
The online video platform and web-host company Rumble scored a victory on Friday when a federal judge held Rumble could proceed with discovery in its defamation lawsuit against Nandini Jammi and Claire Atkin, the co-founders of Check My Ads.
The court’s ruling also suggests the efforts by the Check My Ads co-founders to have Rumble’s civil case tossed will fail, meaning the country may soon learn much more about how the censorship-industrial complex functions — including Democrats and Media Matters’ alleged role.
In late November, Rumble filed a two-count complaint in a federal court in Florida against Jammi and Atkins and ten unnamed John Doe Defendants. According to the complaint, Jammi and Atkins are co-founders of Check My Ads, a 501(c) tax-exempt organization purportedly serving as “an independent watchdog reshaping the digital advertising industry.”
The complaint further alleged that “John Does 1–10 are Check My Ads, Media Matters, and/or Dewey Square Group employees,” with Media Matters being David Brock’s organization that targets conservative media outlets. The Dewey Square Group is a Democrat consulting group which, according to the complaint, provided an analysis of advertisements displayed on Rumble, allegedly paid for by Media Matters and then used in a 2022 article Check My Ads published.
But it was an October 24, 2023 article Check My Ads ran, allegedly written, edited, and published by employees of Check My Ads, Media Matters for America, and/or Dewey Square Group which, along with X posts by Jammi and Atkins, served as the basis for Rumbles’ defamation claims. That October 2023 Check My Ads’ article told readers:
Rumble is heavily monetized by Google Ads. Rumble loves to boast about being free from Big Tech. In reality, the business appears to be heavily dependent on Google Ads, by far its largest advertising partner — and advertisers often have no idea their ads are appearing there. Rumble is part of Google Video Partners, which means Google dumps inventory there that many advertisers assume is going to YouTube. And it seems to know brands wouldn’t appreciate appearing next to some of Rumble’s content: it has taken steps to minimize the risk of advertisers waking up to screenshots of their ads next to Alex Jones’ face. Its two-tier system for ads monetizes the worst videos through Rumble Ads, its in-house ad platform, while featuring Google Ads on mainstream channels, such as Reuters.
In addition to this article, both Jammi and Atkins published posts on X that branded Rumble beholden to Google advertisements. For instance, Jammi wrote that “[w]ithout @GoogleAds, Rumble would not be viable.”
Atkin was more specific in her claims, tweeting that “Rumble, the most toxic place on the internet, is 90% funded by @GoogleAds.”
With these posts, both Atkin and Jammi, “put public pressure on advertisers to stop doing business with Rumble,” and “encouraged advertisers to ‘block Rumble from [their] ad campaigns,’ providing detailed instructions on how to do so. And they have urged Google to ‘drop Rumble[].’”
But Rumble’s defamation claims focus on a different harm defendants’ allegedly caused by falsely stating “that Rumble is 90% monetized by and is economically dependent upon Google Ads.” According to the complaint, at the time defendants made these statements, “Rumble’s ad revenue generated from Google AdSense was miniscule,” with, in October of 2023, it totaling “less than 1% percent of the Company’s total revenue.”
Rumble’s complaint alleges that “Defendants’ false claims about Rumble’s ad revenue imply — as Defendants intended — that Rumble is susceptible to a material financial risk (i.e., the risk that Google may decide to pull nearly all Rumble’s ad revenue) that simply does not exist.” Rumbles also alleges that “Defendants’ false claims have diminished Rumble’s brand in the eyes of its users, shareholders, putative investors, and a substantial and respectable minority of Florida’s citizenry,” because dependency on Google is inconsistent with Rumble’s purported mission, shared by its stakeholders, “to free itself — and its users — from the shackles of Big Tech’s censorship and dominance in the U.S. economy.”
According to the complaint, defendants acted with malice in making these false statements. Here, the complaint highlights interactions between Rumble and the defendants which plaintiff alleges shows they knew the claims about dependency on Google were false. Rumble further alleges that Atkins and Jammi knew their claims were false because the duo were familiar with Media Matter’s statement from 2022 that “Google’s ad network made up [only] 2% of total advertiser spending on Rumble.com in the last year.”
Interestingly, in making that argument, Rumble alleged that “[u]pon information and belief, Jammi and Atkin have been working directly with Media Matters and Dewey Square Group as part of a broader public affairs campaign to target Rumble …” And given Dewey Square Group’s connection to the Democrat party, that’s where things may get very interesting, because to prove its case, as well as to identify the 10 John Doe defendants, Rumble will need discovery from Jammi, Atkin, Media Matters, and Dewey Square Group, and such discovery could well expose how tightly connected the Democrat Party is to efforts to censor conservative outlets.
The defendants attempted to forestall any such discovery, but on Friday, the district court rejected their motion to stay discovery pending the court’s ruling on the defendants’ Motion to Dismiss the complaint. In doing so, the court noted that “[h]aving taken a ‘preliminary peek’ at the Motion to Dismiss, the Court does not find it to be clearly meritorious and case dispositive.”
In other words, the defendants’ efforts to have Rumble’s case against them summarily tossed out, which is set for argument on October 9, 2024, is unlikely to succeed. In the meantime, Rumble can start demanding documents from the defendants and issuing subpoenas to third parties. Things could get interesting real soon.
Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion, National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
