During the week of the 22nd anniversary of the September 11 attacks, fringe streaming platform Rumble promoted at least three 9/11 truther videos pushing debunked conspiracy theories about the attacks as “Editor Picks.”
On September 11, a video titled “The Shocking Masterminds Behind 9/11” was listed under Rumble’s curated list of Editor Picks. The video’s description includes language suggesting that former U.S. government officials engineered the attacks: “Kevin explores, in a very fact based way, who could have been behind the 9/11 plot and he mostly points to Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld,” referring to the then-vice president and then-secretary of defense.
During that September 8 video of her streaming show, “Rumble Exclusives” creator and conspiracy theorist Kim Iversen interviewed 9/11 conspiracy theorist Kevin Ryan. Iversen baselessly claimed, “Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and all of these others” who were “deep state or CIA, you know, operatives in the United States, and business people who are connected to this, who helped” plot the attacks. She said that included “explosives involved in these buildings” which were “demolished on purpose.” When asked if then-President George W. Bush had foreknowledge of the attacks, Ryan claimed the former president “knew enough about the plan” at the time, as did the Secret Service.
Media Matters identified two other Editor Picks featuring 9/11 conspiracy theories.
On September 11, Rumble Exclusives channel The Quartering posted a video that included “9/11 Hot Takes” in its title. The video’s thumbnail also included an image of the attack on the World Trade Center.
In the video, streamer Jeremy Hambly aired footage that falsely claimed that World Trade Center Building 7 was demolished by pre-rigged explosives, a theory he described as “pretty interesting.” “I think we would know a lot more if it happened today because … we would have a thousand cell phone angles of it,” Hambly said. “There are gaps in the record.” He also commented that such conspiracy theories are the type of “stuff that we can only talk about on Rumble.”
Another video listed among Rumble’s Editor Picks, from a channel called “Revenge of the Cis,” referenced a conspiracy theory that claims Israeli employees of a New York-based software company called Odigo had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks. In the video, one of the channel’s co-hosts said, “Guys, Islamic terrorists flew planes into buildings that day, OK? Never mind the fact that Jewish people had the Odigo messaging app and told them not to go to work the next day or whatever.” (The Anti-Defamation League deemed the conspiracy theory antisemitic and noted: “Employees at Odigo’s Israel office did receive e-mail messages on 9/11 warning of an impending attack but the messages were vague and made no references to the World Trade Center or the Pentagon. Nor were the employees familiar with the sender of the emails.”)
