Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - Speaking Back to the Media
Aired: 2017-02-24
Duration: 03:52


=== Twitter Ban Reversal (03:52) ===

[00:00:00]  So I've been unbanned from Twitter and the person who faked the screenshots against me has been banned himself.
[00:00:08]  This is how things are supposed to work.
[00:00:10]  And I find it very interesting that this happened honestly within about an hour of those videos going live.
[00:00:16]  So it's not like the 12-hour ban or anything like that expired.
[00:00:20]  This seems to have been a direct consequence of me messaging Jack through my videos, who I tagged in the title of the video, who I've untagged now since the problem's been solved, because he doesn't need to keep getting notifications about this.
[00:00:33]  But I think it's very interesting that speaking back to them en masse works, and I really think that that's the case.
[00:00:39]  So I think we should speak back to the media in general.
[00:00:42]  People like the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, any regressive outlet you can think of, anyone who was desperately up in arms about, say, oh, I don't know, PewDiePie's jokes.
[00:00:53]  Those sorts of people need to be put on notice that we're paying attention and we are much more numerous than them.
[00:01:01]  So I've created a Thunderclap campaign that I would like people to sign up to so we can get a hashtag trending.
[00:01:08]  Now, I'd appreciate it if you didn't spread this on Twitter before the Thunderclap goes live, because I think it will have a lot more impact that way.
[00:01:16]  Basically what this is, is the app Thunderclap asks you for permission to access your Twitter account for one day and one tweet only.
[00:01:23]  And this is the tweet.
[00:01:24]  Dear mainstream media, jokes are not evidence of bigotry, you morons.
[00:01:28]  We will not let you hashtag gas the jokes.
[00:01:30]  And that links directly to a 12,000 strong petition to get PewDiePie reinstated with his sponsorships at both Disney and YouTube Red.
[00:01:39]  I'm sure it'll fall on deaf ears, but it's important to let them know that look, we have the power to influence the people, just like they do.
[00:01:48]  And I think we do.
[00:01:49]  I really think we actually have that now.
[00:01:51]  And so I think it's worth us pushing forward.
[00:01:54]  Now, you can say I've already got 74 people, which is just people in my friend's circle who I'd message and say, hey, would you like to support this?
[00:02:00]  And we already have a social reach of over 800,000 people.
[00:02:04]  And I would really like it if, I mean, obviously we need 500 for this to work, but I would really like something like 5 or 10,000 for this to really give the impression that there are a lot of people who want them to start listening.
[00:02:17]  Because they get all of this done by simply ignoring us and pretending we don't exist.
[00:02:22]  And we can change that if we force their hand and make them talk to us.
[00:02:27]  This is the accompanying text on the Thunderclap.
[00:02:29]  The mainstream media is unfairly maligning Felix Schelberg as an anti-Semite, decrying a handful of jokes that he has made in his videos over the last six months.
[00:02:37]  There's been a campaign of character assassination that has cost him a sponsorship deal with Disney and YouTube Red.
[00:02:42]  Felix Schellberg runs the largest YouTube channel in history called PewDiePie, and the loss of these sponsorships has cost him millions of dollars.
[00:02:48]  This is a completely unfair attack on Schellberg.
[00:02:51]  He is a comedian, and his jokes are not an indication of bigotry.
[00:02:55]  They are only meant to make you laugh.
[00:02:56]  This is not an isolated occurrence.
[00:02:58]  There are dozens of articles in existence attacking alternative media personalities.
[00:03:03]  More importantly, we cannot let the media wage war on comedy and go unchallenged.
[00:03:08]  Satire is an important tool at our disposal for political discourse, and we should not let them take it away from us.
[00:03:14]  If a comedian wants to make off-colour jokes, they should be free to do so knowing that it is only a joke.
[00:03:21]  Nothing is off-limits for comedy.
[00:03:23]  And then I'm linking to two lists of articles written specifically on PewDiePie and then others written on other famous YouTubers.
[00:03:30]  And I think that this is definitely worth the time.
[00:03:33]  And I would love to see their reaction to us getting an offensive hashtag trending.
[00:03:38]  If you'd like to promote this campaign yourself and make a video about it, please feel free to, or you can mirror this one, I really don't mind.
[00:03:44]  And the Thunderclap goes live tomorrow at 3pm Eastern.
[00:03:48]  So you haven't got too long, so please do sign up to it as soon as possible.