{"id":2343252,"date":"2024-09-19T08:16:01","date_gmt":"2024-09-19T12:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rumble-to-get-discovery-in-suit-against-check-my-ads-founders\/"},"modified":"2024-09-19T08:18:08","modified_gmt":"2024-09-19T12:18:08","slug":"rumble-to-get-discovery-in-suit-against-check-my-ads-founders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rumble-to-get-discovery-in-suit-against-check-my-ads-founders\/","title":{"rendered":"Rumble To Get Discovery In Suit Against &#8216;Check My Ads&#8217; Founders"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Frumble-to-get-discovery-in-suit-against-check-my-ads-founders%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2343252&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Rumble, an online video platform, recently\u200b achieved a legal victory when\u200c a federal judge \u2064allowed it to proceed with discovery in\u2064 its \u2063defamation lawsuit \u200cagainst Nandini\u2062 Jammi and \u2063Claire \u200cAtkin, co-founders of the \u200cadvocacy group Check My Ads. This ruling suggests that \u200battempts by Jammi and Atkin to dismiss the case are likely to fail, potentially revealing more about the operations of what Rumble refers to as the &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-trump-derangement-gave-birth-to-the-censorship-industrial-complex\/\" title=\"How Trump Derangement Gave Birth To The\u00a0Censorship-Industrial\u00a0Complex\">censorship-industrial complex<\/a>,&#8221; including alleged\u2063 connections to Democrats and Media Matters.<\/p>\n<p>In its lawsuit filed\u200d in late \u200bNovember, Rumble accused Jammi\u2062 and Atkin of spreading false\u2062 claims about Rumble&#8217;s dependence on Google Ads. \u2063The\u200c complaint \u2063mentions that Jammi and Atkin pressured advertisers to withdraw from Rumble,\u200c claiming that Rumble was 90% funded by \u200bGoogle, \u2063contrary \u2064to Rumble&#8217;s assertion that Google\u200b Ads actually accounted for \u200bless than 1% of its total revenue. Rumble contends that these\u200d statements undermine its reputation and financial health by suggesting a greater vulnerability to Google&#8217;s advertising practices \u200dthan actually exists.<\/p>\n<p>Rumble&#8217;s case hinges on proving that Jammi and\u200b Atkin acted\u200d with malice,\u2063 relying \u200con prior knowledge from\u2064 Media Matters that confirmed the minimal\u2062 role of Google \u2064Ads in Rumble&#8217;s revenue. The ongoing discovery process could reveal deeper links between the \u2062defendants and Democratic Party affiliates, as Rumble investigates connections with the Dewey Square \u200cGroup, a Democratic consulting firm.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>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. <\/p>\n<p>The court&rsquo;s ruling also suggests the efforts by the Check My Ads co-founders to have Rumble&rsquo;s civil case tossed will fail, meaning the country may soon learn much more about how the censorship-industrial complex functions &mdash; including Democrats and Media Matters&rsquo; alleged role.<\/p>\n<p>In late November, Rumble filed a two-count <a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.flmd.421291\/gov.uscourts.flmd.421291.1.0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">complaint<\/a> 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 &ldquo;an independent watchdog reshaping the digital advertising industry.&rdquo;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The complaint further alleged that &ldquo;John Does 1&ndash;10 are Check My Ads, Media Matters, and\/or Dewey Square Group employees,&rdquo; with Media Matters being David Brock&rsquo;s organization that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/non-profit\/media-matters-for-america\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">targets<\/a> conservative media outlets. The Dewey Square Group is a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/for-profit\/dewey-square-group\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Democrat<\/a> 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.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>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&rsquo; defamation claims. That October 2023 Check My Ads&rsquo; article told readers:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>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 &mdash; 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&rsquo;t appreciate appearing next to some of Rumble&rsquo;s content: it has taken steps to minimize the risk of advertisers waking up to screenshots of their ads next to Alex Jones&rsquo; 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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>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 &ldquo;[w]ithout @GoogleAds, Rumble would not be viable.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>Atkin was more specific in her claims, tweeting that &ldquo;Rumble, the most toxic place on the internet, is 90% funded by @GoogleAds.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>With these posts, both Atkin and Jammi, &ldquo;put public pressure on advertisers to stop doing business with Rumble,&rdquo; and &ldquo;encouraged advertisers to &lsquo;block Rumble from [their] ad campaigns,&rsquo; providing detailed instructions on how to do so. And they have urged Google to &lsquo;drop Rumble[].&rsquo;&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>But Rumble&rsquo;s defamation claims focus on a different harm defendants&rsquo; allegedly caused by falsely stating &ldquo;that Rumble is 90% monetized by and is economically dependent upon Google Ads.&rdquo; According to the complaint, at the time defendants made these statements, &ldquo;Rumble&rsquo;s ad revenue generated from Google AdSense was miniscule,&rdquo; with, in October of 2023, it totaling &ldquo;less than 1% percent of the Company&rsquo;s total revenue.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Rumble&rsquo;s complaint alleges that &ldquo;Defendants&rsquo; false claims about Rumble&rsquo;s ad revenue imply &mdash; as Defendants intended &mdash; that Rumble is susceptible to a material financial risk (i.e., the risk that Google may decide to pull nearly all Rumble&rsquo;s ad revenue) that simply does not exist.&rdquo; Rumbles also alleges that &ldquo;Defendants&rsquo; false claims have diminished Rumble&rsquo;s brand in the eyes of its users, shareholders, putative investors, and a substantial and respectable minority of Florida&rsquo;s citizenry,&rdquo; because dependency on Google is inconsistent with Rumble&rsquo;s purported mission, shared by its stakeholders, &ldquo;to free itself &mdash; and its users &mdash; from the shackles of Big Tech&rsquo;s censorship and dominance in the U.S. economy.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>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&rsquo;s statement from 2022 that &ldquo;Google&rsquo;s ad network made up [only] 2% of total advertiser spending on Rumble.com in the last year.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, in making that argument, Rumble alleged that &ldquo;[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 &hellip;&rdquo; And given Dewey Square Group&rsquo;s connection to the Democrat party, that&rsquo;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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rep-eric-swalwell-humiliates-himself-when-attempt-to-snare-ben-shapiro-in-gotcha-question-backfires\/\" title=\"Rep. Eric Swalwell Humiliates Himself When Attempt to Snare Ben Shapiro in &#039;Gotcha&#039; Question Backfires\">censor conservative outlets<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The defendants attempted to forestall any such discovery, but on Friday, the district court rejected their motion to stay discovery pending the court&rsquo;s ruling on the defendants&rsquo; Motion to Dismiss the complaint. In doing so, the court noted that &ldquo;[h]aving taken a &lsquo;preliminary peek&rsquo; at the Motion to Dismiss, the Court does not find it to be clearly meritorious and case dispositive.&rdquo;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In other words, the defendants&rsquo; efforts to have Rumble&rsquo;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.&nbsp;Things could get interesting real soon.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist&rsquo;s senior legal correspondent. Margot&rsquo;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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/democrats-alito-freakout-is-a-false-flag-operation-to-take-down-the-court\/\" title=\"Democrats are falsely targeting Alito to undermine the Court\">nationally syndicated radio programs<\/a> 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&mdash;the law school&rsquo;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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/5-media-lies-about-the-latest-special-counsel-revelations\/\" title=\"5 Media Lies About The Latest Special Counsel Revelations\">full-time university faculty member<\/a> 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&mdash;her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The online video platform and web hosting service Rumble achieved a significant win on Friday when a federal judge ruled that it could move forward with discovery in its defamation lawsuit against Nandini Jammi and Claire Atkin, the co-founders of Check My Ads. This ruling indicates that the attempts by Jammi and Atkin to dismiss Rumble&#8217;s civil case are likely to fail, potentially revealing more about the workings of the censorship-industrial complex, including alleged involvement from Democrats and Media Matters.<\/p>\n<p>In late November, Rumble filed a two-count complaint in a Florida federal court against Jammi, Atkin, and ten unnamed John Doe defendants. The complaint claims that Jammi and Atkin lead Check My Ads, a 501(c) tax-exempt organization described as &#8220;an independent watchdog reshaping the digital advertising industry.&#8221; It further alleges that &#8220;John Does 1-10&#8221; are employees of Check My Ads, Media Matters (an organization targeting conservative media), or Dewey Square Group (a Democratic consulting firm). The complaint states that Dewey Square Group analyzed advertisements on Rumble&#8217;s platform\u2014reportedly funded by Media Matters\u2014and used this information in an article published by Check My Ads in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>The basis for Rumble&#8217;s defamation claims stems from an October 24, 2023 article published by Check My Ads. This article claimed that Rumble is heavily reliant on Google Ads while portraying itself as free from Big Tech influence. It suggested advertisers might be unaware their ads were appearing alongside controversial content on Rumble. Additionally, both Jammi and Atkin made posts on X (formerly Twitter) asserting that without Google\u2019s support, Rumble would not survive financially.<\/p>\n<p>Rumble contends these statements falsely imply it is largely dependent on Google for revenue when its actual earnings from Google AdSense were minimal\u2014less than 1% of total revenue at the time those statements were made. The lawsuit argues these false claims have harmed Rumble\u2019s reputation among users and investors because they contradict its mission to liberate itself from Big Tech censorship.<\/p>\n<p>Rumble asserts malice behind these statements since it believes Jammi and Atkin knew their claims were untrue based on previous data indicating Google&#8217;s ad network constituted only a small fraction of total spending on its platform. Furthermore, there are allegations suggesting collaboration between Jammi\/Atkin with Media Matters and Dewey Square Group aimed at targeting Rumble.<\/p>\n<p>Despite attempts by the defendants to halt discovery proceedings until after their motion to dismiss was resolved\u2014a motion deemed unlikely to succeed\u2014the court allowed discovery to proceed immediately. This means Rumble can begin requesting documents from defendants as well as issuing subpoenas for third-party information which may reveal deeper connections between Democratic entities and efforts aimed at censoring conservative platforms.<\/p>\n<p>Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist who serves as The Federalist\u2019s senior legal correspondent; her work has appeared in various prominent publications. She holds degrees from Notre Dame Law School where she received top honors before serving nearly twenty-five years as a law clerk for a federal appellate judge<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":499,"featured_media":2343253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/pexels-ekaterina-bolovtsova-6077326-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[41208,6970,4585,32869,9343],"class_list":["post-2343252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-check-my-ads","tag-discovery","tag-lawsuit","tag-legal-battle","tag-rumble"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/pexels-ekaterina-bolovtsova-6077326-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/499"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2343252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2343253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2343252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2343252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2343252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}