A supporter of Donald Trump made headlines last year when he said: "We are uncancellable by big tech." The defiant claim came from Devin Nunes, who is the chief executive of Trump Media and Technology Group, the firm set up by Mr Trump in 2021 to run his social media app Truth Social. Appearing on Fox News, Mr Nunes added: "This is the future of taking on woke companies." His defiance is not based on the technology of Truth Social, rather it relies on a relatively unknown Canadian internet company called Rumble. Rumble started out in 2013 as a video-streaming website. While that is still its main focus, in recent years it has branched into web-hosting - offering computing services for companies like Truth Social. Aiming one day to rival the likes of Google and Facebook, what makes Rumble controversial is its pledge to rally against censorship, and allow freedom of speech as much as possible. As a result of this, Rumble has become the home to a great many video channels - more often politically conservative - where people can say things that might get them kicked off other social media sites, like YouTube and Twitter. A US-Canadian comedian and political commentator called Steven Crowder is a case in point. He is now predominantly to be found on Rumble after YouTube temporarily suspended him in 2021 for breaking its rules on "hate speech". This followed comments he made on transgender issues. Rumble is now at the forefront of so-called "alt-tech" - internet service providers and social media sites that critics say are popular with conspiracy theorists and the alt-right. But for Rumble's supporters, such as Mr Nunes, who moved Truth Social across to Rumble's infrastructure last year, it means "we are not relying on any tech tyrants". BBC Radio: What is Rumble? Mr Nunes is on one side of a debate about how social media should be managed. In one camp there are those who advocate for greater content moderation. They say that sites like Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube need to make a greater effort to tackle hate speech and misinformation on their platforms. On the other side are the people who argue this has become too politicised, and see it as censorship. For years, the battle has largely been played out on the big social media websites. Now, companies like Rumble are trying to change that. In a note on its website, Rumble chief executive Chris Pavlovski wrote: "Rumble is creating the rails to a new infrastructure that will not be bullied by cancel culture." In this vision of the future, there would be a rival, alternative internet, making its own rules. Yet at the same time, Rumble denies that it only attracts users with right-wing viewpoints. It described itself to the BBC as a "neutral platform that welcomes a wide variety of views". For example, Rumble is now home to left-leaning UK comedian turned political commentator Russell Brand. What is undeniable is that Rumble's user numbers have risen sharply in recent years, at the same time as its bigger rivals have raised their content moderation efforts. For example, in 2020, YouTube removed more than 34 million videos around the world. These included videos deemed to be harassment, incitement to violence, hate speech or misinformation. "People get kicked off the major platforms, and they don't disappear," says Evelyn Douek, assistant professor at Stanford Law School, and an expert on the regulation of online speech. "They look for a new home." There was a market opportunity and Rumble took it, emphasising its commitment to "free speech". Its monthly active user count reportedly jumped from 1.6 million in mid-2020 to 33 million at the start of 2021. Prof Douek says that the events of 6 January 2021, when thousands of demonstrators stormed the US Capitol Building, gave Rumble and its plans for an independent internet a boost. She says the aftermath was "one of the radicalising moments for alt-tech". She points in particular to Parler - a twitter-like platform popular with Trump supporters - being removed from the Apple and Google app stores. Parler's website was also dropped by Amazon, upon whose cloud-based Amazon Web Services servers it had been based. "Losing access to the cloud and losing access to these app stores can really hamstring a platform," says Prof Douek. She adds that the episode showed people in the alt-tech space that their apps and websites couldn't rely on mainstream internet providers. So, Rumble has been building its own infrastructure, which also includes its own advertising and payments-processing technology. To help fund all this, the firm raised $400m last year when it floated on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York.