The Highwire with Del Bigtree - RUSSELL BRAND AND THE WAR ON FREE SPEECH

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

A global push to censor speech and open debate is on as the UK, Canadian, and American governments push forward with their plans to limit speech online. Fortunately, in the U.S. a judge has for now halted a major component of the censorship regime. Jefferey Jaxen reports.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

I want to just say right before I start this segment that some of the things we're covering may not be the most appropriate for kids. So if there's anybody watching, because we know a lot of parents use this show to homeschool their kids and teach them media literacy. So I just want to throw that out there. So it's essential to understand a larger picture surrounding these protective media narratives and official stories that we're getting. And a lot of people are really trying to find a way to keep up with this rapid news cycle we found ourselves in. And so it's essential for organizations and even people that can cut through all of this and just get to the facts and say them very simply. It's really important to do that. And this is something we do here on the show.

There's a lot of other people that do it. But one of the people that does it best is Russell Brand, comedian, actor. He also has his own show on Rumble. And here's an example of him doing just that with Bill Maher. All right. Out of respect for you in your show, I've bought some facts. Would you... If you'd like, they're actually...

You just get the f*** out of it. This is not the place. I put it in fact. We love facts. We love facts. I love facts. I wouldn't have mentioned it. I'm English and you know that politeness is our fundamental religion.

The pandemic created at least 40 new big farmer billionaires. Pharmaceutical corporations like Moderna and Pfizer made $1,000 of profit every second from the COVID-19 vaccine. More than two-thirds of Congress received campaign funding from pharmaceutical companies in the 2020 election. Pfizer Chairman Albert Baller told Time magazine in July 2020 that his company was developing a COVID vaccine for the good of humanity not for money and of course Pfizer made a hundred billion dollars in profit in 2022 and may I just mention finally and this is also a fact that you, the American public, funded the development of that,

the German public funded the bio-N tech vaccine when it came to the profits they took the profits when it came to the funding you paid for the funding all I'm querying is this is if you have an economic system in which pharmaceutical companies benefit hugely from medical emergencies, where a military industrial complex benefits from war, where energy companies benefit from energy crises, you are going to generate states of perpetual crisis, where the interests of ordinary people separate from the interests of the elite.

Absolutely so brilliant. It's been fun to watch him over the years as he's, you know, wax spiritual and then political, but his ability to have words flow through him is really something spectacular. Right. And so the, we've seen in the past that people have been focused on to push a greater kind of censorship narrative. We saw this with Alex Jones. He was pushed, he was pushed against, but with a Sandy Hook controversy to de-platform him on every platform. He's still not on Elon Musk's ex-platform. And so we're seeing something happening with Russell Brand now. This has been going on for several weeks. The news coverage all looks like this. Take a look. Russell Brand under fire after multiple women have accused him of sexual assault in a new documentary report. An explosive expose published by the Sunday Times detailed four women's accounts, sexual and emotional abuse by Russell.

He's also accused of grooming a 16-year-old girl who says she was taken from school to his home and a car paid for by the BBC. So these allegations come from a joint investigation by British news outlets, the Sunday time, the time. of London and Channel 4 dispatches. Brand was known for his wild behavior and promiscuity, at one point even describing himself as a narcissist and seeking treatment for sex and drug addictions. Mr. Brand posted a video denying any wrongdoing hours before claims of rape and sexual assault were published.

His suggestion is that this is all part of a grand conspiracy. But amidst this litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks are some very serious allegations that I absolutely, refute. Is there another agenda at play? Particularly when we've seen coordinated media attacks before like with Joe Rogan. I'm aware of news media making phone calls, sending letters to people I know for ages and ages. It's being clear to me, or at least it feels to me, like there's a serious and concerted agenda to control these kind of spaces and these kind of voices. And I mean my voice along with your voice. The consequences of the accusations are

are already apparent. Brand's book deal has been shelved, his tour has been postponed, his management team has dropped him. In the moment, he's been canceled, left, right and centered by everybody and everything. All right, Jeffrey, I want to say, you know, this is a topic that we've discussed, you know, how we're going to talk about it. First of all, I want to state for the high wire that we are making no claim that it's okay, whatever, you know, Russell Brand and, you know, what he did with other people. I think that all needs to be adjudicated I think the question we have is really is this sort of a, you know, the one reporter said a grand conspiracy. Is it a grand conspiracy?

One of the things that makes you ask that question is when you look at the newsstands in the UK, the day that this came out, and every single paper didn't matter which one are all in unison on a story, all together, every single level, everywhere you look. If that's the case, then who tipped it off? and why is this story so important to every magazine that it got the cover? Those are the types of things and more that I know you're about to share, but I want to say that we don't condone the activities of those that go out and maybe have inappropriate relationships. But that is for the courts, I believe, to decide what the question is,

is what is the validity of simply having news reports about something? Does the news carry weight? In the case of what Jeffrey Barkie just said, the fact that in a law it says, because news agencies have reported that trained doctors have spread misinformation. When did a reporter have more power or knowledge about medicine than a doctor? And when was that used as a reason to legislate something? I think this is really at the heart of the question we're about to ask here, Jeffrey.

Right. Serious accusations, not for us to judge, but we're looking at the things happening in parallel with these accusations surrounding this. So as it said in that news clip, this was an investigation, a joint investigation, led by the Times in the UK. And here's the headline when it first came out. It was in mid-September, Russell Brand, accused of rape, sexual assault, and abuse of four women. These were women that came forward in this investigation. At that time, there was no charges, just claims. Since then, the Metropolitan Police said they were investigating it. But during the time when it was just

claims, you had some really interesting points happening alongside of this. So let's start with Beverly Taylor. Beverly Taylor, for our audience, you may remember her in 2021. She was talking, She was questioning the efficacy of the COVID jabs on mainstream media in the UK. And she was banned from some of the stations for doing that, which we know now was a very valid question. In fact, it was the right question to ask. She went to use her personal Twitter account to put this out there for Russell Brand. She says, you are being attacked.

Establishment media don't know what to do with the fact that you have 6 million subscribers and generate autonomous knowing and original content. You are welcome on my G.B. News Show anytime. We are mainstream media, but we are not established. media there's a difference well to this beverly turner received a letter from a u.k government office this got office is titled the culture media and sports committee and this letter said among other things this it is concerning that beverly turner who described mr brand as a hero invited him to appear on her show subsequently fronted gb news coverage of the allegations regarding mr brand on the morning of

september 18th during the broadcast miss turner announced that if he'd offered to come on this morning we'd have we'd have them let's be honest goes on to say the letter the UK government says we remain concerned that having a presenter so clearly supporting an individual who is a subject of intense media coverage including speaking and seeking their appearance on the show undermines any perception of due impartiality in the broadcasting so UK government is reaching out to a news agency and saying basically your main one of your main anchors is asking for an interview for one of the most controversial news-grabbing

headline people in the world at that time. That's what news people are supposed to do. That's what journalists are supposed to do. They're supposed to get to the story. Yeah, I mean, being attacked by your government for allowing someone that is being accused of something that hasn't been proven in any court, would you like to come on my show and share your side of the story? And they're saying that that's incredible that you would give them that opportunity under the amount of accusations against them. I mean, folks, let's remember, at least in America, I'm pretty sure in the UK too, you're innocent until proven guilty to have a government agency reaching in and reprimanding a news agency for allowing a human being to defend themselves

in public discourse as every headline is making an accusation that they shouldn't be allowed a balance of like, here's my side of the story. It's really, really actually very disturbing. And now we get to the meat of this story. So you have this government now stepping out. It wasn't just G.B. News. It was the BBC. They received their own letter from the Culture, Media, and Sport Committee of the UK government. And in their letter, it said this. Instead of asking them not to report on him, they said, could you, please, could you also assure us that while respecting any potential police investigation, all information that can be disclosed publicly will be so. So they're saying, show us your sources. We need everything. Forget how you want to

present it. We just throw it all out there. So again, they're getting into the role of a journalist, but then it gets into social media. So this is where we interact personally with with these stories. Most people get their media and their news from social media. So that government committee reached out to TikTok, the European head of TikTok, and they started asking about Russell Brand's personal way he makes money. So they said this, quote, we are concerned that he, Russell Brand may be able to profit from his content on the platform. We would be grateful if you could confirm whether Mr. Brand is able to monetize his TikTok post. So now they're starting to seek, again, just an investigation by a media organization. And now the UK government's asking where this

guy gets his money from, rumble. Let's be clear. They are trying to stop his source of income. They're trying to block the flow of payment for the work that he does, which has nothing to do with these accusations. You've got accusations that have no basis in court, and now you have a government agency. And by the way, when you go back to that question, of a conspiracy, what the heck is a government jumping in here when every news agency covers it? And now all of a sudden the government's saying because those news agencies covered, this is real. And therefore, we must stop all payment to this man and stop his job and his career. That's crazy. And it sure smacks of a conspiracy. And we've seen this escalation

before with the truckers in Canada. We've seen this escalation with GoFundMe sites that people are trying to so this is not something new where government really steps in and tries to grab the the bankroll of people that they you know they may not appreciate what they say so the culture media and sport committee sent a letter to rumble now this is an american company a streaming platform that competes with youtube they ask rumble the same question that they ask ticot they said we would be grateful if you could confirm whether mr brand is able to monetize his content including his videos blah blah blah blah blah so they're asking him about monetization on rumble's site well thank you Thank God, Rumble CEO put out a response in part publicly and said this.

We regarded 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. We don't agree with the behavior of many Rumble creators, but we refuse to penalize them for actions that have nothing to do with our platform. Well, unfortunately, YouTube, first of all, I just want to have a little moment just to applaud Chris Pavlovsky for Rumble. It has been a great platform, one that has carried the high wire. We have. It's one of the places where we aren't

being censored. And we love that that is there. And so, again, he represents those people that are like, how are we going to move forward? What are we going to do? It's guys like Chris out there that say, hey, I see a business model here. How about a business where we don't censor voices and actually allow them to speak? So it's really beautiful in this moment that at least someone stood up with some integrity and recognizing the power of our First Amendment rights in the United States of America. Absolutely. And so that moves us to YouTube, Rumbles, I guess, competitor.

And this is a platform that kicked us off for rightly asking early in the pandemic about if the lab origins of this COVID virus. was something that even investigate. We just asked the question. We're gone. So YouTube just folded like a deck chair. YouTube suspends Russell Brand from advert income. So you have to assume they received the same letter and said, yeah, forget it.

We'll just cut it. We're done because we do this with everyone. Based on unfounded at the moment accusations. That's incredible. Right. And so on the bottom of each one of those letters from the UK government that Rumble received, that TikTok received is a woman's name. She signed it.

Her name, Caroline Dynage. Starting in 2020, she played a key role in the development of the UK's online safety bill. At the same time, Russell Brand is going through this in the media, this campaign against him, this investigation. This is the headline out of Reuters. UK's online safety bill finally passed by Parliament. So it's been approved by the House of Lords. It's clearing the way to become law. This law, we've been covering us on the show for several years as it's been going through the houses and going through drafts.

This is a very dangerous law for open debate and free speech on social media platforms. The law would mandate social media companies to use basically their algorithms in these systems to identify what they consider harmful content and try to prevent that. And if the companies don't do it to the liking of the government, then these companies could be, if they don't comply basically, they'll be fined up to 10% of their annual income. Think about that for a company like Meta or Twitter. X or Google YouTube, that's a lot of money. So the government now is full control over that with the purse hanging over the heads of these companies. Now let's hold that idea for a second

and bring in another character here. Mark Lancaster. Mark Lancaster was the deputy commander of the 77th Brigade from 2018 to 2020. If you don't remember what the 77th Brigade is, this is the British Army's unit. And in 2015, they were making headlines at look like this. British Army's new 77th brigade will wage online sciop war with terrorists. Well, that sounds, I guess, like a good idea. Maybe, you know, just try to fight the war online. But the problem is, just like with Department of Homeland Security, the terrorists out there soon became domestic terrorists and normal people inside the country. And when the 77th Brigade SIOP unit then started during the COVID response, waging war, that SIOP war, psychological operations,

that stands for against the UK's own citizens. The headlines now look like this. This is the Daily Mail. Army spied on lockdown critics, skeptics, including our own Peter Hitchens, long suspected they were under surveillance. Now we've obtained official records that proved they were right all along. And it goes into this article and it says military operatives in the UK's information warfare brigade were part of a sinister operation that targeted politicians and high-profile journalists

who raised doubts about the official pandemic response. They compiled dossiers on public figures such as ex-minister. David Davies who questioned the modeling behind alarming death toll predictions, as well as journalists such as Peter Hitchens and told the young. Their dissenting views were then reported back to number 10. So this is like a high-level government snitch culture, but it was directed by the army, the military in the UK. So where does this story intersect? It intersects right here from an early headline. Exclusive, Cameron QD. Caroline Dynage dumps husband to date, Tory MP, Mark Lancaster, who walked out on baby. Quality people here.

So we have 2020. Lancaster is waging SIEP war against the UK's own people. And his girlfriend, I guess, Caroline Dynage, is busy crafting the UK's online safety bill, which is now becoming law. So this couple is surveilling people. And now she's writing letters telling people to stop paying Russell Brand, block him, because there's accusations against him. She's going to try to use this new law and bill in the UK to show. shut down anybody that isn't spreading information that suits the government's own desires.

And now the Lancaster guy, I mean, literally, what you're talking about, like, judge, jury, and executioner in the same, you know, flat in England. Yeah, and coming out of the same bedroom, basically. But, you know, let's pull this view back a little bit because it goes beyond just two people using the government powers for this stuff. So in Canada, there's this movement that's happening in this past about a month. we're seeing similar things happening. And this is all around conversation online.

So here's the headline. Canadian government moves to regulate podcasts and streaming services. What they're talking about is the Canadian government, there's a bill advancing called the Online Streaming Act. This is going to increase the power of what the Canadian broadcasting, radio television and telecommunications commission, the CRTC. And it's going to regulate broadcasters and streaming services.

And this is their own press release from that organization. It says CRTC takes major step. forward to modernize Canada's broadcasting framework. It says first the CRTC is setting out which online streaming services need to provide information about their activities in Canada. Next, these conditions take effect today and require certain online streaming services to provide the CRTC with information related to their content and subscribership. So here the Canadian government, and this is just getting started there, is saying we want to know, even if it's private, we want to know how many people you reach. What's your subscribership? And how's your content this week?

What are you going to go and where are you going to put on the high wire this week? And so how many of you out there watching right now or in Canada? How many you out there watching are in the UK? Well, we know in Canada we've had viewers send us this from two weeks ago with our episode. They were on Facebook now called Meta and they tried to share our episode. And this is what they received from the government and from YouTube. So there's this trying to share. The post cannot be shared.

and why? This is in response to the Canadian government. I mean, how many thought we'd ever see this day? Wow. I mean, so for those of you, they're having some sort of interruption of the high wire in Canada or the UK, you know where this is coming from. I just want to take this opportunity in this moment to say, folks, this is hitting in so many different places. I know we're about to just talk about where we're at in America,

but right now, wherever you are in the world, this is why you should really sign up to our newsletter. Because no matter what happens, they cannot block us emailing you our show. And so whether you can watch it live or not, one of the things that we can definitely do if you're a part of our newsletter is we can make sure you're getting the information. And as we go more and more into these culture wars, when we go into all the insanity that's out there and the oppression, and the next time they try to lock us all down, we're really going to need to be able to communicate with

each other. And so if you really do value the information you got here on the high wire and you're being kept up to date on what's actually happening. Can you imagine if we suddenly disappeared for you, wherever you are in the world or even here in the United States of America? Let's try to make sure that we're in contact with each other because we guarantee we'll always be on the cutting edge of you knowing what's exactly happening, what laws are being passed, what laws are being fought,

what we're doing to try and stop it. So take this opportunity right now to just scroll down your screen. It's so easy. Just go down where it says Brave Bold News, subscribe, just type your email in right there. and then now you're on our list. Now not only will you always be given the episode, even if they try to block it from you,

you also get all of the evidence that we provide on our show, whether it's a peer-reviewed study or a video or a newspaper article, you get that in your inbox every Monday after a Thursday show so you can read the whole thing. We can look at the whole thing. You can ask yourself, did they somehow cherry-pick this?

Is there a different way to look at it? Yes, I want you being skeptical. I've said it. We're not here telling you what to think. We're trying to show you how to think, how to look at the information. And so we can only do that if you're using this tool. But this tool goes beyond just having evidence that we're providing in every show, the transparency and news that we're trying to lead all other news agencies to.

But we'd also love to be able to say to those news agencies, look how many people want this level of transparency. Look how many people that view our show also are signed up and want. We'll never show them your names, but we can give them numbers and say, every news agency should be doing this because the people want it. Why don't you show us that you wanted? If you are not on our newsletter right now, get on it so that you are all completely informed, not just partly informed about what we say here on the high wire. All right, let's get back to it. So Canada, there's going to be blocking the high wire. We're going to need other ways to get in there

as we've just discussed. Yeah, so we have Canada. We have the UK. But fortunately here in the U.S., we have the U.S. Constitution and the right to free speech, which fortunately a judge has so far upheld. What am I talking about? It's the Missouri v. Biden case. There's been a lot of talk on this. Attorneys General has brought a case forward against a lot of players, the White House, the FBI, even the Surgeon General. And so far, a judge has ruled that they can no longer have contact with social media companies, because these social media companies were using what they really called coerced censorship. So they were going into the back end, they were sending spreadsheets in cases of people to censor. And these social media companies would say, yes, I will censor those people.

And so currently the Biden White House, many members of the Biden White House, the FBI, Surgeon General, they have been forbidden from contacting social media companies. That's just been extended. So here's the recent headline. Federal appeals court expands limits on Biden administration and First Amendment case. What they expanded that to now is the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency. This is the CESA. This is the operational component of the Department of Homeland Security. Remember, the reason this is in here is we've had Department of Homeland Security that was created by the Patriot Act, and that was supposed to be for terrorists out there internationally.

And now look at this. Look how far we've come. We have a judge ruling that this agency within here, this digital agency, can't censor American speech because what happened during the pandemic response. But it depends on what kind of reporting you're listening to. Because if you're reading political talking about this actual court. case, they put it like this. Look at this headline. The anti-vaccine movement is on the rise. The White House is at a loss over what to do about it. The 2020 lawsuit led by Republican attorneys general that targeted the administration's work. They just call it work with social media companies dealt a major blow, quashing the prospect of a sustained effort to push back

on anti-vaccine campaigns or target influential figures responsible for spreading conspiracy theories. So there you go. I mean, there's so amazing, folks. Just take it just take it just take it. Let's look at it one more time and see what this means. First of all, congratulations to all of you for pushing back. This again, I think we've created a culture where in courtrooms, judges say this is insane. We also have the Constitution. But when did this become so partisan? When they even point out that, you know, Republican Attorney General's brought this,

did we all once agree with the First Amendment right to a free speech? Wasn't that like, did I'm pretty sure that all of our founding fathers believe that that was the dream for America? Now suddenly it's a bad thing that the world. that the work, the important work our government was doing to try and censor people has now been thwarted. I mean, it's a major blow. It's amazing. A major blow, thank God. But it just shows you how in a country like the United States of America, we are really dancing on a tie rope right now where major political organizations, you know, also promoting and using major news agencies for their propaganda, are trying to convince people that censorship is a good and important work.

It's like we're living in 1984 right now where, you know, who does what's political think is going to affect them? You don't think that, you know, squashing free speech ends up affecting your newspaper down the road. Where is your long-term vision when we now see reporters and media organizations calling for censorship? Boy, is that scary? Smacks to some other very scary times in the history of the world. And even if you look at, you don't have to read between the lines in that political quote. It says they're using the agencies using us to target influential figures. Now it says that spread conspiracy theories.

But as we know, we just went through a time when conspiracy theories became fact in about two weeks. So target influential figures, that's what they're using it to do. And so let's pull back here because I know some of the viewers may be young or people may have forgotten about this time. But remember when 9-11, the tragedies of 9-11, that was early 2000s, six weeks after that, there was an overnight revision to the nation's surveillance acts. And it basically gave government an open checkbook of surveillance. And it reduced the checks and balances like public accountability, judicial oversight. This was the Patriot Act. And 20 years later, this article is, this is what the, you can read about it now. And this is how it's framed. The Patriot Act has threatened freedom for 20 years. And even though it's old, it's still

being used. So remember during the pandemic, people were going, parents were going to school boards. protesting, trying to get kids back in school, trying to get masks off kids face. This is the headline that came out of their. School board group asked Biden to use the Patriot Act against parents over opposition to COVID measures. So just because it's in the past, this thing is continually being used on us, on people. Literally to treat parents that were doing things like reading these incredible books with sexually explicit books that were in their library, that for doing things like that, they should be considered terrorists based. on the Patriot Act. I mean, and it was. It's really scary. And it's why when we're in these

moments right now, very tumultuous time in America, in the world. And you reflect, I believe it was Ben Franklin that said, never, you know, attempt to garner a little bit of safety by removing a little bit of liberty. You'll have neither liberty nor safety or some version I know is sort of, you know, paraphrased that. But this idea that our fear during 9-11 made us cut back on our own rights as free citizens and then it backfires years later. Think, oh, what could possibly go wrong? Well, you could simply be a parent trying to get a school to stop sexualizing your children and find yourself labeled as a terrorist.

And it wasn't people, our representatives and government that stopped this. It was people like Edward Snowden, the former NSA intelligence agent that blew the whistle on this and was shocked when he saw the level of surveillance of innocent Americans, millions of people being surveilled by their government. government and he had to come forward he's now you know he's he's now an enemy of the state for the united states but you know back when it was signed most were on board because of the in the wake of these accidents in fact it was 357 to 66 nose 357 yes is 60s to knows and this was an overnight revision so overnight you have basically one day to read this 130-something pages uh there was only

a handful of people that opposed this one of them was this guy Congressman Kucinich, I believe you're the only person on this stage who had a chance to vote on the Patriot Act right after 9-11, who voted against it right away. That's because I read it. Still one of my favorite political lines in history. I've had the opportunity, of course, to meet Dennis Kucinich and spend some time with him. I always congratulate him on my favorite line in history. That's because I read it. My other favorite line in opposition to that, I think, was Nancy Pelosi when she said,

we have to pass the law to read what's in it. That was a fun one.