I don't particularly like Russell Brand, as I don't get a sense he really believes everything he's saying, but your complete dismissal that there might be a deliberate agenda here seems really weird. That part seems entirely plausible to me.
Did you not read the Twitter Files and Facebook Files reporting? There's pretty overwhelming evidence that there's a large network of media orgs and political NGOs that spend A LOT of time trying to get certain opinions banned from the internet. The 2 biggest issues on which they've done that has been Covid and the Ukraine war. Brand has pissed them off on BOTH of those issues.
Also your framing of it being Russell himself who threatens them is silly. It's the opinion that threatens them, not the person. They desperately don't want certain opinions to become popular. Support for further funding for Ukraine has declined massively in the US over the last year. That absolutely worries them. It's the exact same pattern you saw with something like the war in Vietnam, and it's the exact same reason they desperately tried to ban disagreement on that back in the 60s. (You could make your same dismissive argument in that case too: "You really think the federal government is threatened by some college kids?")
I don't think it's weird at all. It's Occam's razor. What's more likely: that YouTube is also part of a collective strategy to silence voices like Brand's in spite of hosting his videos for years, or that YouTube see a potential risk to revenue and move to reassure advertisers?
If it was quite so simple all social media companies would have distanced themselves from Brand. Only YouTube did so far. Twitter’s owner came out in support. Big time. And is filling the airwaves with Brand defenders like Tucker Carlson.
Google/YouTube have been far better than the likes of Meta, TikTok et al in removing hate speech. Is it for commercial reasons? I don’t know and I don’t care. I like it.
Banning Brand is fair. Should have been done long ago. He has been peddling misogyny and harmful conspiracies for a loooon time (including US being behind 9/11, etc).
As one of the tinfoil hat wearers you so easily mock in your piece, I think you completely underestimate the media. Where was the outrage when Russell Brand was working for the very same media outlets that are now accusing him? Why didn't they care when he was behaving horribly towards women while employed by them? Anyone who paid the slightest bit of attention knew he was a misogynist and mistreated women, but instead of being outraged they laughed about it and gave him awards. It seems like their concern for his victims is a little bit fake and a lot too late.
“Media” isn’t one person. Nor one organisation. Many journalists and media outlets tried to hold Brand to account over the years. Unless you can show me how the journalists behind the Dispatches and the Times investigations supported Brand, your point sounds like a conspiracy theory.
The Sun, one of the papers reporting on him now, awarded Russell Brand the title of Shagger of the Year during the same time this type of behavior was happening. I guess it was ok for them to laugh about it then, but act appalled now. I am definitely a Conspiracy Theorist.
Why are you calling the Sun “them”? That does make you sound like a conspiracist - among other things. Who said its OK? Not me. The Sun is a tabloid. And? Daily Mail called for him and for his BBC executive to be fired around 2007. And it succeeded. Just shows there are different people with different opinions in the media.
In any case, “shagging” and “raping”/“assaulting” are not synonymous. See the dictionary.
I know that shagging is not the same thing as rape and/or assault. However, giving someone an award for shagging the most people in a year is misogynistic.
Also, the fact that these women did not file charges against Russell Brand until after a full documentary was produced does beg the question of how believable these accusers are. Right now Russell Brand has NOT been charged with a crime and yet he HAS lost multiple sources of income just because of the accusations. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? I guess #believeallwomen is what you support no matter what the facts are.
1. The whole point of the Dispatches programme was to highlight that parts of the British media tolerated and even encouraged misogyny. Glad you agree.
2. Thousands of reasons why these women have not filed charges. Rape trials are nasty affairs. Its not something they want to relive. Conviction rates are very low. It’s particularly hard when poor women are pitted against a multi millionaire celebrity who can afford the very best lawyers.
3 Conviction rates for defamation in Britain are very high. Britain has draconian libel laws. I find it noteworthy that Brand hasn’t sued for libel. He certainly has the means to do so.
4. “Innocent until proven guilty” is for criminal cases in courts. Its because the punishment is prison. The standard of proof is also very high: “beyond reasonable doubt”. None of it applies for a private company like YouTube when it evaluates if they want to be associated with someone like Brand. Personally, I think he shouldn’t have been allowed to spread his misogyny, racism and conspiracies (lies) even before the Dispatches. The reason he was permitted was because C4, BBC, YouTube, Twitter, etc benefited from it. It was a business decision. Now calculation changed. Its a good thing.
In my opinion anyone who was allowed to get away with the disgusting comments broadcast by Brand and Jonathan Ross, some years ago, should not have been given any airtime on UTube or anywhere else. At least the BBC took action at the time.
Other media channels have lower standards...or no standards....
Yes, audiences can be gullible and easily impressed and it is deeply depressing that we've reached a point where mock expertise can be idolised.
We have self-declared experts who actually just sell opinions, with no expertise, that people fall for and worship - mindlessly.
I don't think we can pull back now as money controls all media. And people seem to like, and need, 'gurus'.
Of course he is allowed. Having a brainless misogynist conspiracist sexual predator expert promote an antisemite makes total sense. Just not sure its a good use of public money.
Great analysis Stephen. Your Tweets have given me hope, I've been pretty shocked at the vilification of Brand's victims on Twitter. We seem to have gone back to the dark ages. I thought there might be a few misogynists out in support of his actions, but it seems more like 80/20 pro-Brand, or maybe that's just the tweets I see.
You could equally conspiracy theorise that Brand has deliberately built an army of online crackpots to cushion himself from the opprobrium he knew was coming from decades of sex assaults.
Twitter World isn’t real world. Musk is promoting Brand’s “THEY are out to get me” conspiracy. I am staying away from Twitter and most people seem reasonable.
I don't particularly like Russell Brand, as I don't get a sense he really believes everything he's saying, but your complete dismissal that there might be a deliberate agenda here seems really weird. That part seems entirely plausible to me.
Did you not read the Twitter Files and Facebook Files reporting? There's pretty overwhelming evidence that there's a large network of media orgs and political NGOs that spend A LOT of time trying to get certain opinions banned from the internet. The 2 biggest issues on which they've done that has been Covid and the Ukraine war. Brand has pissed them off on BOTH of those issues.
Also your framing of it being Russell himself who threatens them is silly. It's the opinion that threatens them, not the person. They desperately don't want certain opinions to become popular. Support for further funding for Ukraine has declined massively in the US over the last year. That absolutely worries them. It's the exact same pattern you saw with something like the war in Vietnam, and it's the exact same reason they desperately tried to ban disagreement on that back in the 60s. (You could make your same dismissive argument in that case too: "You really think the federal government is threatened by some college kids?")
I don't think it's weird at all. It's Occam's razor. What's more likely: that YouTube is also part of a collective strategy to silence voices like Brand's in spite of hosting his videos for years, or that YouTube see a potential risk to revenue and move to reassure advertisers?
If it was quite so simple all social media companies would have distanced themselves from Brand. Only YouTube did so far. Twitter’s owner came out in support. Big time. And is filling the airwaves with Brand defenders like Tucker Carlson.
Google/YouTube have been far better than the likes of Meta, TikTok et al in removing hate speech. Is it for commercial reasons? I don’t know and I don’t care. I like it.
Banning Brand is fair. Should have been done long ago. He has been peddling misogyny and harmful conspiracies for a loooon time (including US being behind 9/11, etc).
As one of the tinfoil hat wearers you so easily mock in your piece, I think you completely underestimate the media. Where was the outrage when Russell Brand was working for the very same media outlets that are now accusing him? Why didn't they care when he was behaving horribly towards women while employed by them? Anyone who paid the slightest bit of attention knew he was a misogynist and mistreated women, but instead of being outraged they laughed about it and gave him awards. It seems like their concern for his victims is a little bit fake and a lot too late.
“Media” isn’t one person. Nor one organisation. Many journalists and media outlets tried to hold Brand to account over the years. Unless you can show me how the journalists behind the Dispatches and the Times investigations supported Brand, your point sounds like a conspiracy theory.
The Sun, one of the papers reporting on him now, awarded Russell Brand the title of Shagger of the Year during the same time this type of behavior was happening. I guess it was ok for them to laugh about it then, but act appalled now. I am definitely a Conspiracy Theorist.
Why are you calling the Sun “them”? That does make you sound like a conspiracist - among other things. Who said its OK? Not me. The Sun is a tabloid. And? Daily Mail called for him and for his BBC executive to be fired around 2007. And it succeeded. Just shows there are different people with different opinions in the media.
In any case, “shagging” and “raping”/“assaulting” are not synonymous. See the dictionary.
I know that shagging is not the same thing as rape and/or assault. However, giving someone an award for shagging the most people in a year is misogynistic.
Also, the fact that these women did not file charges against Russell Brand until after a full documentary was produced does beg the question of how believable these accusers are. Right now Russell Brand has NOT been charged with a crime and yet he HAS lost multiple sources of income just because of the accusations. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? I guess #believeallwomen is what you support no matter what the facts are.
1. The whole point of the Dispatches programme was to highlight that parts of the British media tolerated and even encouraged misogyny. Glad you agree.
2. Thousands of reasons why these women have not filed charges. Rape trials are nasty affairs. Its not something they want to relive. Conviction rates are very low. It’s particularly hard when poor women are pitted against a multi millionaire celebrity who can afford the very best lawyers.
3 Conviction rates for defamation in Britain are very high. Britain has draconian libel laws. I find it noteworthy that Brand hasn’t sued for libel. He certainly has the means to do so.
4. “Innocent until proven guilty” is for criminal cases in courts. Its because the punishment is prison. The standard of proof is also very high: “beyond reasonable doubt”. None of it applies for a private company like YouTube when it evaluates if they want to be associated with someone like Brand. Personally, I think he shouldn’t have been allowed to spread his misogyny, racism and conspiracies (lies) even before the Dispatches. The reason he was permitted was because C4, BBC, YouTube, Twitter, etc benefited from it. It was a business decision. Now calculation changed. Its a good thing.
#istandwithrussell
I refuse to believe that a narcissistic sex addict could have done these things.
In my opinion anyone who was allowed to get away with the disgusting comments broadcast by Brand and Jonathan Ross, some years ago, should not have been given any airtime on UTube or anywhere else. At least the BBC took action at the time.
Other media channels have lower standards...or no standards....
Yes, audiences can be gullible and easily impressed and it is deeply depressing that we've reached a point where mock expertise can be idolised.
We have self-declared experts who actually just sell opinions, with no expertise, that people fall for and worship - mindlessly.
I don't think we can pull back now as money controls all media. And people seem to like, and need, 'gurus'.
But I hope I'm wrong!
BBC invited him on political talk shows as Brand was promoting Corbyn.
Isn't he allowed to promote Corbin?
Of course he is allowed. Having a brainless misogynist conspiracist sexual predator expert promote an antisemite makes total sense. Just not sure its a good use of public money.
Great analysis Stephen. Your Tweets have given me hope, I've been pretty shocked at the vilification of Brand's victims on Twitter. We seem to have gone back to the dark ages. I thought there might be a few misogynists out in support of his actions, but it seems more like 80/20 pro-Brand, or maybe that's just the tweets I see.
You could equally conspiracy theorise that Brand has deliberately built an army of online crackpots to cushion himself from the opprobrium he knew was coming from decades of sex assaults.
Twitter World isn’t real world. Musk is promoting Brand’s “THEY are out to get me” conspiracy. I am staying away from Twitter and most people seem reasonable.
That's a relief