Chatter on Rumble about Upcoming Solar Eclipse

The upcoming April 8 solar eclipse has been the subject of conspiracy theories—more so than the last eclipse in 2017

TLDR

• A solar eclipse will pass over the continental US on April 8, 2024. The event has triggered conspiracy theories across online media. 

• Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones released a video on X about the eclipse in mid-March, implicating the US Department of Homeland Security and referencing the Bible.

• Much of the content about the eclipse on Rumble, an alt-tech video sharing platform, struck a similar tone as the Alex Jones video.

• Chatter on Rumble during the last 2017 US solar eclipse was noticeably milder, consisting primarily of shared mainstream news articles. 

Background 

The April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse, which will be visible in the skies over eight US states, has been sparking widespread public interest. Additionally, however, some individuals in the far-right media space have been positing conspiracy theories related to the astronomical event that have been gaining some traction online. 

Alex Jones, a conspiracy theorist, media personality, and owner of the controversial outlet InfoWars, posted a video on X (formerly Twitter) about the solar eclipse on March 18, 2024. The video attempted to underscore biblical implications of an eclipse and expressed concern that the US Department of Homeland Security might be playing an unsavory role in the event. It is noteworthy that while Jones’ Twitter account was banned in 2018, it was restored in December 2023.

Tweet by Alex Jones sharing a video from InfoWars about the eclipse.

Researchers at Open Measures wanted to understand more about what the discussion of the solar eclipse looked like on alt-tech platforms. We focused our research on Rumble, a Canadian video sharing platform known to host extremist content. Rumble was founded in 2013 and has a cloud services business that hosts Donald Trump’s microblogging platform Truth Social (more on our most recent research on Truth Social can be found here).

Chatter about the 2024 US Solar Eclipse on Rumble

Mentions of the term “eclipse” within Open Measures’ Rumble dataset have increased in the past month, garnering over 1,200 mentions in relation to videos uploaded on the platform. 

Mentions of “eclipse” in Open Measures’ Rumble video dataset from February 26 to March 27, 2024. This chart shows videos that contain “eclipse” in the title.

Many of the videos have a similar tone to content posted by Alex Jones, alluding to the Bible and raising concerns about the associated actions of the US government. 

A sample of videos published to Rumble with the term “eclipse” in their title found on Open Measures. Many of them have alarmist language and suggest biblical or political significance behind the eclipse.

Content about the eclipse increased on Rumble following Jones’ tweet, more than doubling from 32 mentions of “eclipse” on March 17, 2024 to 69 mentions on March 18, 2024. In the week leading up to Jones’ tweet, there was an average of 20 mentions of “eclipse” per day within Open Measures’ Rumble dataset; in the week after the tweet, mentions averaged around 65 per day. While the proximity of the eclipse is likely playing a role in this increased activity, it also raises questions about the role right-wing influencers play in driving discourse across alt-tech platforms. 

Chatter about the 2017 US Solar Eclipse on Rumble

For a point of comparison, researchers at Open Measures examined chatter on Rumble surrounding the August 21, 2017 solar eclipse, the last one to pass over continental US.

The 2017 US solar eclipse was the subject of noticeably lower post volume on Rumble, with only 467 mentions of “eclipse” in Open Measures’ dataset for the entire month of August 2017.

In contrast, the 2024 solar eclipse has garnered over 1,200 mentions on the platform over the past month, though this may be a result of the likely growth of Rumble’s user base in the intervening years. Interestingly, much of the content reviewed from that period appears to be benign, information-oriented news about the eclipse, the majority of which occurred on the day of the eclipse itself.

Much of the eclipse-related content on Rumble in 2017 was related to sharing basic news stories.

Conclusions

The change in tone between the 2017 and 2024 solar eclipses is striking. Members of the far-right mediasphere, such as Alex Jones, have peddled conspiracy theories related to the 2024 US solar eclipse. Interest in the solar eclipse has been evidenced on the video sharing platform Rumble for the past few weeks, and mentions of “eclipse” increased noticeably following a tweet Jones made about the topic. Much of the eclipse-related content on Rumble links to conspiracy theories, a marked contrast from discussion of the 2017 eclipse on the same platform. This suggests far-right influencers may have a generalized impact on chatter across alt-tech platforms, even platforms on which they don’t have personal accounts.

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