Canadian YouTube competitor Rumble video has threatened to sue free speech video platform Odysee over a post from the latter company’s Twitter account which repeats a circulating claim that Rumble uses bots to artificially inflate its view and user counts.
The original tweet from Odysee was posted on Wednesday, and stated “We would never use bots like rumble to generate fake traffic in order to swindle investors Avg usage time doesn’t correlate to the traffic!” accompanied by a screenshot appearing to show a significantly shorter average session time on Rumble, in comparison to Odysee.
We would never use bots like rumble to generate fake traffic in order to swindle investors
Avg usage time doesn't correlate to the traffic! pic.twitter.com/rYEfe3v5pi
— odysee (@OdyseeTeam) December 8, 2021
On Thursday, an attorney for Rumble sent a letter to Odysee threatening “aggressive action” in the form of a lawsuit if the post was not deleted by 5 p.m. EST on December 10.
The letter demands that Odysee “immediately retract your company’s tweet of December 8, 2021 at 1:37 p.m., which falsely claimed that Rumble has misled its investors with respect to its user engagement statistics, and issue a correction.”
“We value openness and transparency, so we have not used and will not use SimilarWeb’s statistics as part of our communication to investors,” the statement continues, claiming “For the same reason, we do not use bots to inflate traffic on Rumble. Any claims to the contrary – including your tweet – risk misleading potential investors in Rumble as well as users, partners, and others in the marketplace.
Rumble maintains that SimilarWeb counts video views from users who interact with the Rumble player on third party websites incorrectly, and this was the reason for the incongruity noted by Odysee.
Rumble is threatening to sue us over a tweet.
Go ahead, show everyone who you really are. pic.twitter.com/Bfr10e8GHq— odysee (@OdyseeTeam) December 9, 2021
The letter concludes by threatening, “Please confirm no later than 5:00 Eastern Standard Time on Friday December 10, 2021, that you will retract your misleading tweet and issue a correction. If Rumble does not receive a satisfactory response by that time, the Company will take aggressive action to safeguard its interests.”
Odysee responded on Twitter by writing simply, “Rumble is threatening to sue us over a tweet. Go ahead, show everyone who you really are.”