YouTube jumped too soon and no UK Parliament are wading in!

[MetaverseMavis]

No matter what my personal thoughts are about RB, I feel very uncomfortable with this trial by the media. YouTube has taken it too far by deciding he has violated their T&Cs and removed his channel. Now UK Parliament want his Rumble channel down.

Why is Parliament getting involved today? what are they scared of, I'm not a conspiracy theorist but this is absurd.

I seem to remember the media accusing Cliff Richard - turns out he was innocent.

Really glad you're not in charge of anything like this.

A private company gets to choose who uses its platform. That's how companies work and why they have clear T&C's that cover this.

Why is it absurd to not enable a man accused of serious sex crimes to make money off of those accusations?

I don't think they have asked for his channel to be taken down but they want Rumble to demonetise the channel.

YouTube continue to profit from his income even though they have demonetised it.

I think he's probably guilty as accused but I don't think the UK government should be getting involved in something that is not a criminal case yet.

The press are free to report on this story but I think the government intervening could call the possibility of a fair trial into question.

There wasn’t documented, contemporary evidence of the accusations against Cliff Richard though, was there?
And yes, as @Begsthequestion says it’s up to YouTube what they think violates their terms and conditions. Nobody is ‘scared’ of him. They just think he shouldn’t make money out of the accusations against him. Personally, I think YouTube should have got rid when he went full conspiracy theorist. That shit is dangerous.

I think some posters are not aware that Dame Caroline Dinenage, Chair of the Culture, Media and Sports Committee has written to the CEO of Rumble asking them to demonetise RB's channel.

Rumble are less likely to demonetise. They make money if RB does and are a Conservative hotbed.

I'd guess the government is asking them to take the action in full knowledge they won't take the action themselves. Whether it is legal or not, I can't say.

The accusations against RB have an awful lot of weight behind them compared to the ones against cliff Richard. Anyway CR was never found to be “innocent” as far as I remember. I thought the charges were dropped/withdrawn due to insufficient evidence. Not the same thing as being innocent, whether he is or not.

Tbh the less exposure Russell Brand gets the better imo. Odious bastard.

Do we stop anyone with a SA allegation against them - made by the media, from working immediately whilst they await a police investigation, possible charge and eventually a trial?

No. Just him.

If we did, half of our media and government would be hanging around jobless.

You Tube get to choose who to demonitise. It's their platform

It's a private company not a public utility. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Exactly. It's like Tesco deciding not to stock a product.

I think some posters are not aware that Dame Caroline Dinenage, Chair of the Culture, Media and Sports Committee has written to the CEO of Rumble asking them to demonetise RB's channel.

One more time for those not aware of the most recent developments.

Rumble have refused.

YouTube made the decision without government intervention.

A member of parliament asking a company to do something is not parliament asking. Just as it is not the government asking. If a Parliamentary Committee Chair writes to a US based company saying “do this” I suspect the undertone of the response will be “who are you?”

This is a police matter now and politicians should be keeping clear. Politicians have a habit of polluting investigations and should know that. The chances of finding something at this time line is very low but no one should want a politician getting involved and making it worse.

You OK, Mavis? You realise he's hardly penniless?

I think that the letter sent by DCMS is political overreach and plays into the hands of those who believe RB is being targeted because of his beliefs.

The pedant in me is also horrified by the use of ‘Dear Firstname”

https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/41488/documents/204326/default/

I think that the letter sent by DCMS is political overreach and plays into the hands of those who believe RB is being targeted because of his beliefs.

Absolutely and it's giving other YouTube channels of the same "genre" plenty of conspiracy material.

A number of the historic allegations against the likes of CR were not "we couldn't find evidence" but actually the claims were not possible given the other evidence (certain people were not in the same physical location at the same time, etc.).

It is not a court finding "innocent" which really only happens with convictions of the accuser like Carl Beach or Jemma Beale. That is not to say obvious false accusations where the accused wad clearly innocent should not be described as such.

There were a number of accusations where it turned out at trial the accused was innocent (evidence showed it not to be possible), many involving teachers facing decades old accusations.

I’m not sure people are understanding. See the link below -

https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/41488/documents/204326/default/

Parliament are asking TikTok & Rumble to demonetise his videos. It’s not about Russell Brand specifically, I suspect he’s guilty but it’s a really dangerous precedent for the government to involve themselves in cutting off income streams of people who as of yet have not been charged with anything!

It’s irrelevant how much money the person has etc. If Kevin working in Tesco was accused of a crime but not yet charged or convicted of anything, the government writing to Tesco and asking for him to be sacked would be incredibly inappropriate. Tesco would be entitled to do so depending on their own policies but the government should be upholding the justice system!

I don’t feel comfortable with such a gross overstep. The government can’t be allowed to promote punishment for people who as of yet haven’t been charged or convicted of anything!

Oh good. Another ‘I’m not a conspiracy theorist but it’s definitely a conspiracy against Russell brand’ thread.

short answer: there is no conspiracy against brand. He isn’t actually an important person. No government fears him.

It's not DCMS.

There is a difference between parliament and government which many on this thread need to learn!

This is what I was trying to articulate. Thank you @pinksunglasses for being more eloquent than I can ever be

Yeah, the government are supposedly accountable to parliament. Making parliament our most powerful and significant institution, so it’s still incredibly inappropriate.

The Select Committee aren't finding Brand "guilty" or "not guilty" of anything. They're just writing to four media companies:

• To TikTok to understand if Brand is still monetising his posts
• To C4 and the BBC to ask for updates on their internal investigations
• To GBNews to remind them about their duty to cover the story impartially.

I think it's reasonable the Committee do this.

Firstly, traffic to Brand's TikToks will have gone up over the past week, because of the allegations. This is an issue beyond just Brand - if he's monetising TikToks by being a notorious sexual abuser, that creates monetary incentives for other creators to do the same thing (think Andrew Tate). That's not something we want to incentivise.

And secondly, certainly the Committee should be asking questions about the corporate culture and investigations at C4 and the BBC. Both those organisations gave Brand a public platform for years, despite it apparently being well-known that he wasn't safe around female staffers.

That letter doesn’t even ask tik tok to demonitise brand.

The committee asks two things:

1. if tik tok will confirm whether brand is able to monitise content in which he seeks to discredit his accusers.
2. what are tik tok doing to prevent content creators using their platform to undermine the welfare of others.

It’s not a conspiracy. At most brand is an example (he isn’t the only person making money out of using SM to bully people) and the CMS committee are looking at how social media platforms can be used by people to further harm people who may have objected to their conduct.

It doesn’t say ‘please stop letting brand make money off this stuff’.

Nope. If criminal charges are filed and he’s found guilty after being questioned in court, it would then be appropriate for an inquiry into how corporate culture might have enabled him and how it could be prevented in future.

It is in all of our interests that the law and the justice system is upheld. It’s not about Russell Brand, it’s about the precedent it sets. Protecting due process protects us all.

It seems to me that, alongside basic comprehension issues, there are quite a lot of people with no understanding of how parliament and government work in this country.