Russell Brand was demonetized on YouTube last week, and the U.K. government is trying to extend that to TikTok and Rumble as well.
Brand was a hugely popular comedian, TV, and movie star in the early 2000s. He has talked openly about his struggles with drugs and alcohol and has said he was very promiscuous at the height of his fame.
His life has taken a big turn since. He got married – twice – but seems to have settled down. He gives advice on getting sober. He is now popular on YouTube and Rumble, with millions of followers. And he talks a lot about anti-mainstream ideas – railing against censorship and questioning vaccines.
Why’s he being demonetized? A joint investigation by British media – The Times, Sunday Times, and Channel 4 television – published allegations by four unnamed women who say they were sexually assaulted by Brand. One of the women says the assault happened when she was 16 – the U.K. legal age of consent if she did, in fact, consent. Another says Brand raped her in 2012. The paper says they have evidence she visited a rape crisis center the day she says the attack occurred.
Brand has denied the allegations (on YouTube, naturally):
He says,
“Now during that time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely, always consensual. I was always transparent about that then, almost too transparent, and I’m being transparent about it now as well, and to see that transparency metastasized into something criminal, that I absolutely deny, makes me question, is there another agenda at play?
Particularly when we’ve seen coordinated media attacks before, like with Joe Rogan, when he dared to take a medicine that the mainstream media didn’t approve of, and we saw a spate of headlines from media outlets across the world, using the same language.”
He “seriously refutes” the very very serious criminal allegations and says there are witnesses who can contradict the “narratives that these two mainstream media outlets are trying to construct.”
U.K. police said Monday they have opened an investigation into allegations of “non-recent” sexual offenses. They are encouraging anyone “who believes they may have been a victim of a sexual offence, no matter how long ago it was, to contact us.”
Now what? YouTube has demonetized Russell Brand. For anyone with millions of followers, this equates to shutting down your business. A U.K. government official then sent letters to Rumble and TikTok, implicitly requesting they demonetize him as well.
I don’t know if the allegations against Russell Brand are true. I’m suspicious of joint investigations into media figures who go against the mainstream. I’m definitely suspicious of investigations into media figures who question the government and then get punished by that same government.
Brand hasn’t been convicted of anything. At the time of this writing, he hasn’t even been charged with anything. But YouTube, and the British government, are punishing him regardless.
Kyle Rittenhouse faced a similar problem when GoFundMe took down his page. They reinstated it after he was found not guilty, well after that money would have been useful paying for his defense. At the same time, GoFundMe allowed several other fundraisers for people charged with violent crimes.
Fortunately, in a statement on X (formerly Twitter), Rumble told the U.K. government to stuff their letter up their crumpets.
"We regard it as deeply inappropriate and dangerous that the UK Parliament would attempt to control who is allowed to speak on our platform or to earn a living from doing so. Singling out an individual and demanding his ban is even more disturbing given the absence of any connection between the allegations and his content on Rumble."
There’s also no end in sight. If Brand is never charged with a crime, does he stay demonetized forever? If he is actually innocent, how do you prove a negative? And wasn’t this part of the reason we here in the States decided on the opposite standard in the first place?
Thank goodness something like this could never happen here.
The rush to judgment is so predictable nowadays, and so are the apologists who rush to defend men from mounting accusations. There has to be a middle ground between "Cancel him!" and "Men's rights!" I think thoughtful people can balance the principle of innocent-until-proven-guilty with the reality that if multiple women are credibly accusing a man of bad behavior, there's probably something there. But can we as a society take a nuanced position like that? Apparently not.
Shows how Big Tech works day1
IE online censorship