Is free speech for everyone, including Russell Brand?

[Appalonia]

Firstly I want to say I 100% believe the victims and think he should be held accountable for what he's done. But the demonetising of his YouTube channel, and being basically scrubbed from all media channels doesn't sit well with me. And, this is creating a massive backlash online from the many pp who already think these allegations have only come out now as ' The Establishment ' doesn't like what he's saying.

So many women have been 'cancelled' for saying things like men aren't women and women need safe spaces ( JKR ) and more recently Roisin Murphy for objecting to puberty blockers. It's tricky, but if we believe in free speech for us, shouldn't it be the same for everyone?

The private thing is an excuse people use when they want to silence people who disagree with them. Maybe in this climate when so called private companies aka Google aka alphabet who have a large majority of the Internet should not be able to cancel people. The Internet has already been mostly homogenised, do people want even the margins gone?

I can forsee a time when irc makes a comeback.

I agree that YouTube exposure is not a right. It is a commercial operation and can choose to protect its reputation to some degree by removing monetisation from people who it might see as bringing it into disrepute if they're funding them. I don't think Brand will be penniless without it.

YouTube has millions of things that bring it into disrepute, things people have consistently reported and they failed to delete, all of those weird elsagate videos, honestly so many things. They allow porn with people marking things as "yoga" so so many distasteful things.

If you don't think them banning anyone who goes against the mainstream is political, you are lost.

No one has a "right" to post on YouTube...

He hasn’t been cancelled or silenced or banned, though.

I think posters don't understand that these platforms are profit-making businesses, with users, advertisers and shareholders to answer to. They don't have a duty to "give a voice" to anyone.

Russel Brand, Donald Trump, and anyone else who feels disenfranchised or gets banned by mainstream social media spaces is free to start his or her own platform or newspaper or podcast, or indeed stand on a soapbox in Speaker's Corner. But that doesn't mean anyone has to listen...

Well exactly "fact checking" what a fucking joke. There's no getting through to people though. The news is right and true (no source demanding there though). Even when it is proven that the "news" in fact turned out to be false, it's fine, because they were just acting on the information that they had at the time.

But they do, these are also then banned, in fact they do have a lot of people listening.

@Choppysue banned from their own proprietary communications channels? Banned from Speaker's Corner?

I'd guess that some advertisers also didn't want to have their ads appear on his videos. I'm not sure how YT advertising works though.

YouTube is still profiting from his videos. They haven't removed them. They have just stopped sharing the advert revenue with him but they're quite happily pocketing it for themselves. So when they say they've done it because of moral reasons they are full of horse shit.

I've just looked, I picked two videos (his most recent one and then a random older one) and they both started instantly without adverts.

Obviously YT have still made the decision for commercial reasons rather than moral ones though. But they aren't just not sharing advertising revenue with him, they have removed the adverts.

I could have sworn there was a platform that was banned but obviously can't find it on Google. Tbh most "free speech" platforms might as well be banned. Who is going to take something posted on bitchute or rumble seriously. Nobody even takes anything posted on YouTube seriously.

A lot of stuff is ridiculous on these platforms, will always be the case, but if people are forced off mainstream sites into these spaces, eventually they will become more legetimised. James Corbett was forced out of YouTube, Whitney Webb also, these people I would say are independent journalists who do not dabble in loon fodder. They have fully sourced interesting content.

I'd say most people who see the gender agenda are confined to seeing only that. They discount any evidence of any other agendas for some bizarre reason despite seeing how universal and insidious it is. I don't understand myself, I have given up.

That's exactly my point: If there is no audience for someone on any platform, tough shit. Society doesn't "owe" anyone an audience. Let alone private businesses.

For me it's not about YouTube - I agree they can choose who to host on their site and nobody has a 'right' to a platform from a private company.

For me the concerning part is the parliamentary committee writing to social platforms urging them to 'cancel' Brand - that is deeply disturbing. Regardless of what we believe he hasn't been convicted of a crime - he hasn't even been accused of a crime officially. Why is the parliamentary committee involving itself in a matter that is between Brand & SM platforms?

This.

FFS, bloody depressing this has to be said and YouTube haven't blocked him entirely just aren't going to pay him any more (i.e. he's now in the same position as many others who don't make money off YouTube including kjk)

So YouTube aren't denying him free speech, they're just not paying him for what he says.

He hasn't been found guilty of anything, so as it stands, it's a cruel witch hunt.

This is not about supporting Brand, but about prortecting civil liberties and not falling into the trap of a Chinese social credit type of system - whereby people can be completely cancelled for going against the dominant moral/political/social system.

I was thinking exactly the same thing. Social credit is on its way west - it's starting already - and I think an awful lot of people assume that they are the 'good guys', so it'll never be an issue for them. This will go way, way further than just deliberately committing actual crimes.

All of those people who say conspiracies could never happen because someone will always leak the truth...hmm. How exactly do they think that anybody could leak the truth and gain traction? Drives me insane.

I never get how anybody ever questioning the motives of western governments is automatically a crazed loon, whereas anybody who doesn't suspect countries like Russia, China and Iran of ulterior motives and deliberately hiding the truth by default is a hugely naive idiot. Even on the occasions where they agree with us on global issues!

Quite a few posters have said the government have written to Rumble but it’s worth pointing out that it was a parliamentary committee (chaired by a Tory MP) which did so and it will therefore be a cross party group of MPs.

If you're under investigation for serious offences by employers and then also the police (as yet to be established but highly likely given the circumstances and one woman going to the police) you'd definitely be suspended. I assume with pay.

His sources of income are different. Rumble is subscription. People choose to watch.

YouTube is a bit different- he's still there just not making money from ads. Which could be seen to be akin to suspension. I can't square continued money from ads for products on his channel. That does not "sit right."

On the rest of SM He's absolutely not silenced. He's got multiple places to post and speak

He's still on iPlayer on QI. Bake off was pulled specifically due to the content.
No

Not sure why a No got in there

No it's not that simplistic.

The bbc and C4 have found that they are culpable of some serious judgement errors and potentially much worse. The investigation was as much into them as him.

They're being transparent according to their own policies. Most of which were strengthened post JS.

He's news partly as a result of that.

being transparent around areas of safeguarding and codes of conduct is safeguarding- it means that abusers are much less enabled and potential victims more able to raise issues quickly.

All this is as much about protecting future potential victims from any future abusers employed by these companies.

Many celebrities accused of various things hide behind NDA's; the bbc has recently banned these. C4 still uses them. None of it goes to the police.

Ah no they've taken his QI too - but that's not to do with free speech. Thats suspension pending official investigation.

Roisin's situation was entirely different. That was a group people making a decision based on their opinions. There was no allegation of criminal wrongdoing.