It Could Happen Here - Anti-Racist Hoods Fighting in Ukraine (with Jake Hanrahan)

Episode Date: June 28, 2022

We sit down with Jake Hanrahan to talk about his new documentary.   Ukraine's Anti-Fascist Football Hooligans Fighting the Russian Invasion: https://youtu.be/nsodbPkjO3cSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We're talking about things falling apart. And you know, a place where things have fallen apart a bit is large chunks of Ukraine due to a Russian invasion. And, you know, we've chatted about this a bit on the show. We've had some interviews with some folks who are living and fighting over there. And today we're going to talk with Jake Hanrahan, a friend of the pod, who has been over a couple of times this year, including since

the more expanded conflict began, and has just released a new documentary on the popular front YouTube called Ukraine's Anti-Fascist Football Hooligans Fighting the Russian Invasion. Jake, how you doing? Hello, mate. Thanks for having me back. Thanks for being on. Now, Jake, first off, I guess we can get into YouTube censorship stuff, but I want to chat about, like, how this story came about and when you kind of an ax to grind is that like, you know, Ukraine is all neo-Nazis and the government's all run by neo-Nazis. And the reality is that Ukraine

obviously has a substantial Nazi problem. And as with any country where you have a substantial Nazi problem and some degree of freedom in terms of, you know, your ability to organize for other political purposes, you also have a shitload of people who are anti-fascists and who have been fighting those fascists in the street, often with intense levels of violence. And this is a story about a group of those people who have now kind of retooled their organization and capacity towards fighting the Russian invasion. Yeah, man, exactly that. I mean, so what I wanted to do with Popular Front, you know, I've been reporting from Ukraine since 2016. I've been there more than 10 times on the ground in the Donbas like way before, you know, people were focused on the area again before the invasion. So I was very aware of Yeah, there is a significant fascist element to the militias out there.

But it's the same any country in Europe that would have a war would have the exact same thing. Trust me, if we had it in Britain, we would have a similar issue. You know, Eastern Europe, obviously,

it's a little bit more hardcore, but that's the way it is. That's Eastern Europe for you. And I will mention just at the top as well, I would argue that Russia has a much worse neo-Nazi problem.

They had more than 15 people were killed between 2014 and 2015 by an actual neo-nazi serial killer gang in moscow that filmed these attacks they have a massive neo-nazi party um you know they're exporting nazis all across europe and we know there are several um you know well-trained neo-nazi battalions fighting for the pro-russian so it's neither here nor there yes there's nazi problems in the region, but I didn't want to constantly be on this back foot of like, no, actually, yes, there's a Nazi problem,

but not this, not that. I was like, how can we do a documentary that's kind of a positive way to be like, well, instead of saying, no, not everyone is this, or having to film with a unit and then being like, actually, these guys are fascists. How can I show, you know, like, how can I show? The patches are uncomfortable.

Yeah, right? Like, uh- like oh a totem cough again like it was like how how can i kind of put a dock out there where it's like oh no actually like here's a different side to it and you know this group obviously as soon as the war started again ukraine is a country of 44 million people and it's a very diverse, a very smart, very open country in terms of people will tell you what they think and they will argue with you. And you won't be, you know, you can have like really serious discussions with people about politics there and not fall out, you know. So they're very, I think, like a very clever people, a really nice people. I love Ukraine, love Ukrainians. I think like a very clever people are really nice people. I love Ukraine, love Ukrainians. So so it's to me, it was I knew about the place like, yeah, of course, there's a massive anti-fascist element in Ukraine. OK, it's definitely smaller than the fascist element. But already since the war started with this eco platform, there's Harkiv Hardcore, there's the Resistance Committee, there's Hordeswoods Klan, there's Operation Solidarity, like there's a nesta magno um machine gun repair unit like

there's so many different anti-fascist left-wing elements to the to the conflict they just get a lot less attention because the fascists have got really good at uh propaganda over the years and and let's be honest a lot of the the fascist groups are fighting in the east and right now it's kind of combat yeah well it's all hands on deck right it's like everyone's like yeah okay we don't really care like we just want to not die which is understandable so my point is um i looked at this this group the resistance committee which is this kind of anti-authoritarian um you know coalition of various different units. They have Revdia under their wing, which is an anarchist group in Ukraine

that I made a documentary with a few years ago. So I was looking at maybe we'll do a doc on Revdia again now that they're fighting on the front. But then I see this other group with them, Hoods Hoods Clan. And it's like, what? Firstly, the name is kind of weird. Right, in the US,

that brings up some unpleasant connotations. In the US, yeah. I mean, in Europe, it didn't really click to me, but I get it. What does, like, hoods, hoods mean? So basically, when they would go and do, you know, when they would go and beat up fascists, they'd all be like, right, hoods up, hoods, hoods, hoods.

Oh, gotcha, because you're putting your hoodie up so you don't get, like, spotted on camera. Right, exactly. Hoods, hoods, hoods up. There's footage of them beating up nazis as well chanting they had a chant woods woods woods like you know to put the fucking fear into them like yeah it's dope as hell yeah yeah and then clan i mean the the ukrainian translation of clan it's with a k it's not about the kooks right you know it's just kind of anglicization can lead to some

unfortunate things right right i get it yeah but also you know they're smart guys and and at first i thought this wasn't true but then i spoke to them it was true they were kind of aware they're like yeah hhk hoods clan they're kind of trolling kkk like it's like a second meaning because in ukraine that you know they've got that culture they're very cheeky they think it's very funny to be like haha you know fuck you um so for them they were like yeah we're basically trolling the fascists like they hear hoods hoods clan and they're like oh surprise sorry we're anti-fascist you know what i mean right your head's broken so yeah it was kind of that vibe and you know they didn't really think about it and when i asked anton you know he's like the kind

of de facto leader he was like he told me this and then he was like i just kind of wanted to piss people off as well um and you you to remember these guys started over 10 years ago before you know politics was as online as it is um and they started off in the hardcore punk scene now you know i'm sure you know like you know hardcore punk especially in europe is like a very very exciting very fun very happy and like gnarly fucking scene so for them it was like yeah we're the hoods hoods clan like you know what i mean but right but unfortunately some people in america are like why are they called hoods hoods clan i don't believe that they're anti-fascist it's like mate there's over 70 videos of them beating up nazis successfully like it's a whole continent that doesn't have the same history as

the united states right you can't i mean yeah I mean, even if you said in England, like KKK, like now people would be like, who, oh yeah, like, yeah, I've heard of that. It's not like, we didn't have it here like that. Yeah, and it's one of those. So, I mean, one of the things that's interesting here and that you hit on in your documentary is like these folk, that these are not just like anti-authoritarian folks.

They're very much committed to anti-racism, which is, you know, a place like Ukraine where the history of there being, you know, folks who are not white is not quite as extensive as it is in a lot of places. It's really interesting to me to have people who are kind of organizing specifically for that purpose. And I think really cool.

Yeah, it is really cool. And for them, what I found. Yeah, it is really cool. And for them, what I found very fascinating is it's just natural. So, you know, I said, no, they're political ideologies. Some of them are like, well, some of us are anarchists. Some of us are kind of anti-fascist, but otherwise kind of apolitical. And, you know, it's very simple for them. It's like, why are you?

I asked them, well, how come you guys are anti-fascist and they're like well we just see life differently like you know it's like obviously like there was no big political theory it was just like no it's just basically they were like it's just wrong you know like fascism is just wrong and we're tough guys you know and we joined we were we wanted to be the ones that said no we're not the fascist we're the anti-fascist and luckily for them they had a really good friendship group and a very solid group who were all very good at combat sports. And like in the doc, you know, Anton says our enemies is almost every other Ukrainian football firm in the whole of the country. You will ask even their enemies. They will tell you like, yeah, unfortunately, those guys are tough. You know, they can fight, you know, they have to be.

So, yeah, exactly. They had to be. They were like we had to be tough you know they they can fight you know it would have to be so yeah exactly they had to be they were like we had to be you know so i mean i i do my research i found um a kind of a fascist football ultras forum in eastern europe that banned any mention of hoods hoods clan and it kind of boiled down to the fact they were just so embarrassed that so many of the fascist groups were getting beaten up like by by anti-fascist and often outnumbered you know it even got to a point where hoods hoods clan weren't allowed to they wouldn't even talk to them to do like arranged fights anymore in the field so instead of quitting hoods hoods clan said okay then when we see you we'll just beat you up in the subway we'll beat you up in the street like you know and a lot of people might say oh well this

is violence for me the football hooliganism side of it, I don't see an issue with it personally. I mean, they're not attacking anyone innocent. They're not attacking bystanders. It was all very contained. It was all very, you know, that was their thing. You know, so that to me is whatever. And when you're talking about neo-Nazi groups

that were, I mean, in Ukraine, they've stabbed up the Roma community. They're destroying lgbt events and you know hudson's clan were just like no we're not about that we don't think you should do that and so they formed and for 10 years they were fighting um but now they have called a truce because they're like you know anton explains in the doc he says look there's a bigger problem now because ukraine is actually not a nazi junta as the kremlin says it's actually quite easy to kind of you know it's a very small subset in the in the relative size of the actual military

so you know it's actually for them they said well yeah it makes sense we put all our other political differences aside because this is way bigger you're talking about one of the most powerful militaries on earth invading our country and killing our people i mean we've seen the massacres in bucha in erpin um you know people killed civilians hands behind their back executed in the street um 30 of the people killed in bucha were children like you know this is just insane so for them they were like yeah we can we can call it truce you know we don't like them but right now we're not going to beat each other up on the front line um but i think it really kind of shows the testament of of how serious hoods clan are about the anti-fascism that even whilst in the truce most of them actually still joined the the

resistance committee the anti-authoritarian groups so they're not just directly next to fascist battalions but again you know a lot is changing out there in the front now i i yeah i don't know anton said to me he was like i'll be honest with you like we didn't put this in the dot he said i'll be honest i think after this war a lot of these far right guys might change their minds because now we see what totalitarianism brings death you know what i mean whether that whether i whether that's wishful thinking or not i'm not sure but you know what i'm saying because obviously like the i mean i i would obviously i would hope that that's that's what happens but i tend to doubt it but yeah the thing that scares me of course is there's just as at least as much a chance that

you know they get more powerful um which is again part of why it's important for folks like hoods hoods clan to be organizing and and getting weapons and being prepared because like yes that if that conflict comes after the war you know you don't want the fascist militias to be the best uh armed and most organized yeah and this is the issue you know but i think for them it's like okay we'll deal with that when it comes you know like i think they're very aware that this war is going nowhere you know and you know they say in our doc oh we just want to go and kill russian pigs i mean you know what they mean is i mean some people are like well that's really bad i was like mate you're talking about there

it's a war right they were they were guarding the areas where the massacres happened you know yeah hutsul's clan got shelled trying to get civilians out of borodanka when russians were shelling you're talking women and children yeah i'm surprised they said that mildly you know like yeah yeah like you know it's a war man it is what it is and also they're football hooligans they're wild people you know yeah it's it's um i mean that is kind of interesting though i i'm curious um do you have kind of a uh an assessment of of what kind of interesting, though. I'm curious, do you have kind of an assessment of what kind of numbers they're looking at? Like how many folks they've actually got in the field on a regular basis? to 30 of their guys in that group but then they also have other people um that join different units in the east so they were like already military so they didn't have to go you know form a militia they just joined the military so there's like quite a strong hudson's clan

um mortar group um and i know that so so one of the footage we included in our documentary where um a russian tank gets blown up like very close quarters he gets hit with a javelin, he's like 100 feet away. That was a Hudsuds clan attack. That was one of their guys doing it, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, so they're all over the place. Unfortunately, due to various bureaucracy within the territorial defence,

I do think that the resistance committee might have to split up to actually get to the front. You know what I mean? Like they're probably going to have to join other units because there's some issues that the, you know, i mean like they're they're probably gonna have to join other units because there's some issues that the you know various people they're just not sending them out there it's not because they're anti-fascist or anything it's nothing to do with that it's it's because you know it's corruption man there is there's some corruption

emerging some some commanders just want to sit sit around and not actually have to go to the front um whereas you know the fighters themselves are desperate because they're like you know our people are dying we want to avenge them and we want to stop it so you know right now hoods of planner essentially on their way they're doing a lot more training right now they've been given the go-ahead yeah they're going to the east um and as far as i know they're kind of on route obviously stopping off doing training i think they have an rp they're going to be an rpg unit so they'll be at very close quarters you know what i'm saying so yeah it's going to be gnarly for them welcome i'm danny thrill won't you join me at the fire and dare enter nocturnal tales from the shadows presented by iHeart and Sonora.

An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since

the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. These guys, as you stated,

all kind of started out as a friend group, right? Like they weren't, this isn't a political party. These aren't like, these guys didn't start as ideological comrades. They were like buddies who were into the same team and into the same kind of combat sports.

And now they're, you know, they're going to be, some of them are going to be dying in front of the others, which is like a difficulty, I think. I'm interested in kind of

how are they actually organizing sort of in the field? Is it just, as I've heard of, a number of like militia units kind of along the lines of the Ukrainian military? Or have they kind of adopted different organizational styles in their hoods, hoods units as befits sort of their unique kind of origins? Yeah, that's a good question.

Well, I mean, it's kind of tricky because essentially, I guess they formed, I guess they formed as a militia, you know, as soon as the war started, they got guns. But then, you know, Anton was like, we have everything from the anti-fascist networks, everything we need apart from the weapons. So they had to sign up as a part of the territorial defense to get weapons. So they're under the territorial defense as are, you know, a hundred other different people that did the same thing. So luckily for Tud's clan, I think because they're so close friends, I mean, you can, a hundred other different people that did the same thing. So luckily, Ft. Woods clan, I think because they're so close friends, I mean, you can see it in the doc, you know, I even the subtitle of our doc is like, you know, this is a film about friendship, violence and resistance, because that's essentially what it is, you know.

So they're very close friends. So commanders have recognized that, that, yeah, this is a group that is disciplined as well. A lot of them are straight edge, which is actually a discipline in in itself you know what i mean um so they're very well disciplined they're very good you know the training's very good they know what they're doing but they have like a commander that is from the territorial defense if you like it's not he's not hoods hoods clan he's they've been assigned a commander sort of thing um so they're being taught just the same kind of tactics as anybody else as they're an rpg unit i think you know there'll be a lot of close quarters stuff but

they're just doing a lot of um a lot of arms training there's you know constantine and the doc one of them he's like i just want to get better faster they're just they're very they're very focused on being like not an elite unit but they want to get it perfect they're not just like yeah let's go and kill. They're like, no, we have to be good. You know what I mean?

We have to go in there and have the same discipline and organization as we had in the streets when we were fighting. There was a reason that they were renowned as being a good street fight in football, looking firm, despite being completely outnumbered. It's because they had good discipline. They're tough.

They trained. And also because they're good friends, they will have each other's back. It's, it's not a hobby for them. It's a lifestyle, you know? Yeah.

It's just so much went into it. You know, hoods clan started off the back of anti-fascist punk, punk hardcore in Ukraine. And then that itself was a scene. And then the football, you're going to zoom. And then,

yeah. And now it's, it's crazy. Really. It's, it's honestly one of the most fascinating stories I've covered now. They're fucking frontline unit you know it's it's sad man i hope to god nothing happens to any of them probably the nicest guys i've filmed with you know um and yeah it's it's it's it's it's a good question man and it's very tricky to know how it's going to happen for them

once they're on the front i mean anton the main guy he has served before in in 2014 he joined a militia to fight in the donbass so they do have some experience you know and it does seem like um kind of their natural the skills that they've been developing because there's there's broadly speaking from my understanding kind of two main types of of combat going on in ukraine there's the the what you're seeing a lot in you know the the don boss which is this kind of like meat grinder like frontline shit and then there's sort of the seek and destroy kind of stuff where you've got people sort of hunting convoys and and doing ambushes and it does strike me like these guys talents would lend themselves more to the ambushes than i mean there's not

really any talent that helps you in the in the sitting in a trench meat grinder kind of shit. But obviously you don't have that choice when you're, when you're serving under, you know, the, the, a national military. Yeah.

Yeah. I think you're right. Like they would be much better placed as like, you know, I guess like a kind of shoot and scoot kind of unit. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

And I think they will be because, you know, they're trained with RPG. Some of their fighters already have javelins on the front and, and laws. So, yeah, I think that's where it will be. If they just put them in some kind of meat grinder position, which very much could happen, you know, I mean, it's bad for anybody. Let's be realistic. It's getting very bad in the Donbass right now. It's a nightmare yeah yeah yeah um i mean and that's one of the there's been posts and stuff from people talking about like um

you know the a lot of the fuck-ups that are happening because you know ukraine started this war with everyone being kind of uh overwhelmed by the competence of their military effort and now that things in in the donbass have turned into this kind of ugly slog, there's been some, you know, oh, the, you know, units getting hit by their own artillery fire, the kind of messy stuff that happens when you have a fight like this, right? Like it is unavoidable when you have like a situation like has developed in the Donbass, but that doesn't make it any less unpleasant to endure as an actual soldier. Like it's just, it's one of those,

I mean, there's only so much that like competence and training can do if you wind up getting squeezed into that kind of position. Yeah. And, and there's, this is why a lot, a lot of people are,

even Ukrainians actually had a conversation with a Ukrainian friend yesterday that was saying like, you know, the situation is so bad in the East. We really need to be honest about this because, you know, if people think it's going better than it is, OK, it's good for morale, but it's not good for the guys on the ground. They're not going to get what they need. And the reality is that it's getting really bad. And it's not anything to do with incompetence from the fighters. It's just the war the level is getting so hot and you know russia has learned from its mistakes unfortunately yeah from the

start where they completely fucked up but now you know things are getting a little bit hairy um ukrainians are doing like an incredible effort but again it's like yeah you're talking about decades and decades of of armor and you know um weapons that Russia has. And it's all very well US being like, oh, 20, 20% of their armor is blah, blah, I doubt it. You know, I very much doubt that it doesn't look like that, certainly from when people I'm talking to in the east, you know, so I think, again, when when, you know, Ukrainians are like, well, we do need more weapons. It's because they need more weapons you know what i mean they really do well this is like one of the this is uh one of the things that's that's difficult to i think get across to people um because there is such a you know

we are dealing with the legacy of decades of shipping weapons places um and not having that help the conflict in a lot of in a lot of ways um and decades of stories like you know all the weapons that got sent to the iraqi government and then wound up in isis's armory and shit um which creates kind of an easy narrative for folks who are like well you know you're just trying to prolong the conflict and making it worse by shipping and weapons but the reality is one side of this war has a substantial percentage of all of the artillery that exists on the planet um yeah and the other side does not yeah um and i do understand that argument though like i totally get it yeah it's it's i lived through the early 2000s as well i

understand it yeah it's like war isn't a template it's not like yeah does this happen there this will happen there or whatever and it's like you have to weigh it up no matter what bad is going to come from this do you want the bad to be okay there's a problem with arms in eastern ukraine which the eastern europe which there already is and it gets worse or do you want the the bad problem to be russia's taken over the whole country massacred everybody, and is undoubtedly going to try and move into other countries. It's like, do you want AIDS or do you want cancer? I don't know. You know what I mean? like Russia or any other state, you can easily gain access to,

you know, a pile of wealth, right? In the shape of a country, which isn't a positive. It's not like a good lesson for anyone to take out of this. But like if if Russia wins, that's the lesson, right? Yeah. Yeah, no, that's the reality.

Like it's all very nice having a 50 tweet Twitter thread about why this, that and a third should or shouldn't happen. But that's just completely removed from real life. I mean, real life is it's going to be very bad, very nasty, no matter what happens. And you just have to weigh it. Oh, I don't like NATO. Oh, I don't like this. Yeah, me neither. But I care about people that die for no reason.

You know, like I think that's the real issue. I think people need to stand with the people you know and if that means okay use the tools that you have okay like oh well i don't like nato well yeah but they're going to give them weapons do you think that ukrainians like having russian firearms probably not but they also don't give a shit because they shoot it's that simple you know Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America.

Modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. or wherever you get your podcast. Kind of coming back to the subject of your documentary,

if weapons are going to be going over there, and by God they are, I would hope that as many of them as possible are going into the hands of people like the Hoods Hoods clan, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean is that is a yeah a lot there's definitely this isn't from them telling me but it's just from research I've done there's definitely a discrepancy in terms of which groups get what weapons and it's not based on ideology but it's definitely based on some serious bureaucracy that needs to be sorted out you know I I have some Western volunteers that I know that are on the front right now.

And they're saying, like, for some reason, you know, one unit that is not an RPG unit, for example, will have more rockets than the RPG unit, you know, and it's like, what? And that's not because they've used them all. It's supply lines. Again, it's not even corruption often. It's just supply lines are wrecked or whatever, but it has to be addressed. It has to be looked at. I mean, I'm no tactician. I don't know anything about that side of things. I'm just basing it on what people are telling me because I like to talk to them and hear what's happening. Yeah. I think we should move into, when I pull up your documentary on YouTube, which is again for folks at home titled Ukraine's anti-fascist football

hooligans fighting the Russian invasion. The first thing that I see is this video may be inappropriate for some users. Right. Yeah. Fascists. Yeah. Well, and it's,

we've talked a lot on our various shows on this network about all of the fascist propaganda that you can find, not even find on YouTube that will be like spoon fed to you. If you wind up like watching a video game review or something. Oh yeah. Yeah. This is something that you've been dealing with on popular front. Somebody seems to have like an ax to grind with you guys.

I don't know. Maybe it's just the algorithm, but I'll be honest. I felt like it was just the algorithm until this recent one. So, so yeah, like you said, if people want to fight,

I mean, the doc's called Frontline Hooligan, but yeah, it's for SEO. Yeah, it's Ukraine's anti-fascist fight in Russian invasion. But yeah, the second it was uploaded, it got age restricted. Now, that to me is very odd. I don't get why there's no gore in it. Okay, yeah, there's violence, but there's a guideline where you can show violence

in if it's relative to reporting which obviously it is because it's an anti-fascist football looking firm fight in russia so of course we're going to show what that looks like but yeah there's there's no there's no gore um there's no there's there's just it's just lads hanging out talking about their lives now they've been tipped upside down and how they really dislike the far right now to give you an idea of how messed up this is um there's a real a real um parasite uh youtuber he's called danny mullen and he has a video on youtube where him and his his friend both of them scoundrels go to the the mexican border and the the whole video is trying to get with, quote, like hot Ukrainian refugees. Now, it's the most disgusting thing you've ever seen. They're preying on young girls. Some of them are very clearly underage. And that is monetized. That is monetized. And it is even

on the algorithm. I found it because I was watching Ukraine war stuff and it was put onto my recommended. Now now these are the biggest parasites you've ever seen in your life and they have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of subscribers and they're making money from content like that that is not age restricted there is no censorship thing there is no message saying this might be offensive but a documentary which is 100 journalistic covering anti-fascists fighting one of the worst invasions we've seen in Europe, is suddenly deemed inappropriate and is age-restricted on YouTube. Tell me what's going on there. That doesn't seem right to me. So basically, YouTube, by doing that, is saying

we're actually happy to make money off of people that exploit underage Ukrainian refugees, but we're not happy for people showing the world a different side to the war. That to me is madness. Like it doesn't make any sense to me, you know, and it's nothing but soft censorship. Some people are telling me it's not, it's not censorship. Of course it is censorship. This is the way the world works now. Yeah. Because I mean, a huge chunk of the success or the visibility of anything that you're putting on YouTube is whether or not the algorithm is going to like suggest it to people, even people who have watched your other, like not, not even talking about like suggesting it to somebody who's never heard of Popular Front, but like people who've watched multiple

things that you've done and are just on YouTube. The thing that would make sense is for when you put out a new thing, them to get like YouTube to be like, hey, we know you've watched this shit, check out this. But that's not going to happen for a lot of folks because of this kind of thing, which is, yeah, fucked up. Yeah, yeah, right? And it's like, it's not just me either. I mean, it's other people it's happening to as well. Of course, yeah.

And basically what it is is if we wanted to make the doc somehow be allowed to be monetized or not even monetized, I don't even want the monetization. The whole channel is demonetized. I just want it to not be age-restricted because that is an algorithm torpedo. And, you know, it's like I would have to recut demonetization the whole channel is demonetized i just want it to not be age restricted because that is an algorithm torpedo and you know it's like i would have to recut the whole documentary essentially censor myself my own journalism make it excuse me make make the integrity of the doc

weaker just to be able people to see it like this is war this is real life i just it's just really depressing you know and this is something i mean youtube twitter facebook have all been guilty of degrees of this but there's this of all of the things that don't that that are allowed to spread unchecked on those platforms they have this consistent maybe because it's it's easier to algorithmically go after but this this consistent pattern of going after war journalism um and like your know, what's happening to your documentary is a piece of this, but like the much scarier piece is a tremendous amount of documentation of war crimes in places like Syria have been deleted kind of automatically over the years,

which means that like, again, evidence of crimes against humanity has been lost forever because of these kind of like purges of war war content that um i don't think are actually protecting anybody from anything but are are in perhaps even making things worse yeah of course and it allows um look russian propaganda or whatever like people are going to seek that out and they're going to digest it whatever way they can so then surely you should say okay take the brakes off. Let's you know, if you care, which I mean, YouTube is a media platform. You would think that they would say, OK, well, this is kind of our duty to balance it out, to allow all the free information.

I'm not even saying, oh, yeah, throttle Russian propaganda. I think people have a choice to see whatever they want to see, even if it is completely ridiculous. people have a choice to see whatever they want to see, even if it is completely ridiculous. But the fact that they're censoring the stuff that you would think is okay to see, because for I know, you know, our content, you won't find a lie in that documentary, you know, we're very honest, very frank with the situation. We're not whitewashing fascism in Ukraine. And we're certainly not putting out Russian propaganda. We're just telling an interesting journalistic story. So you would think as a media platform, that would be like, yeah, right up their street. But it's not really a media platform. It's a money-making platform. And they just survive for adverts. Yep. And I think that is kind of where we're going to leave off for today. Do you have anything else you wanted to get into on your documentary, Jake?

unless you have do you have anything else you wanted to get into on your documentary jake no man i just i guess the last thing i would say is i want people to kind of know that there are many different um factions out there this isn't you know i saw someone comment being like oh you found the only fascist and anti-fascist in ukraine it's like no there's there's lich i've been documenting them there's thousands there's so many you know and not just like oh anti-fascist yeah we this is what we believe like people form in units there's a whole pipeline of um anti-authoritarian um activists there's loads and generally like ukrainians um are happy you know they'll take the help they can get it's not like ukrainians are like god damn those anti-fascists no they love them they love them the same way they love anybody that's defending the country you know it's just normal and i think people should really you know if they want to watch our

doc as well like if they can share it that would be great because it's just very it's a struggle to get people to watch it now because of because of it's been torpedoed on the algorithm so if they go to youtube.com slash popular front they'll find it's the first stop there but yeah if people can share it that'd be great all right well check it out check it out. Again, the title is Ukraine's Anti-Fascist Football Hooligans Fighting the Russian Invasion on the Popular Front YouTube channel. We're also going to have a link in the bio if you are someone who doesn't like to type things. Yeah. Thank you, Jake. All right, everybody. That's the episode. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media,

visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturno on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.