Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - Sargon Discusses Tommy Robinson's Ban on LBC

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Feb. 27, 2019 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

10:23

Sargon Discusses Tommy Robinson's Ban on LBC

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	Nick Curry at breakfast on LBC.
	With Zero, turn VAT time into me time with Zero Accounting Software.
	Back to our Brexit conversation in a moment.
	It's 8.35 and to other matters.
	And as I mentioned just before the news, the far-right founder of the English Defence League, Tommy Robinson, has been permanently banned from Facebook and Instagram for repeatedly breaking policies on hate speech, so Facebook has reported.
	They say that Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, broke rules that ban public calls for violence against people based on protected characteristic, rules that ban supporting or appearing with organized hate groups, and policies that prevent people from using the site to bully others.
	The decision to ban Robinson from the social media sites could threaten his ability to reach large audiences.
	He's already banned from Twitter, and the decision to cut him off from Instagram and Facebook will even reliant on YouTube as the only major online platform to provide him with presence.
	But is this a form of censorship?
	Let's discuss this.
	Firstly, with Mohammed Shafiq, who's chief executive of the Ramadan Foundation, who recently held meetings with Facebook representatives in London to discuss concerns of the British music and community over Mr. Robinson's presence.
	What was it, Mohammed Shafiq, that worried you about this particular individual?
	Good morning.
	Particular individual.
	Good morning.
	Well, the first thing to say, Nick, is when you join social media companies' networks, you agree to their terms and conditions.
	And if you persistently break those terms and conditions by advocating violence towards Muslims, you tarnish a whole community based on the actions of a small minority, and you consistently peddle fake news, which damages community relations and makes the life of cohesive societies more difficult, then don't be surprised when that social media network take action against you and bans you.
	But who decides, who is the censor here?
	Well, I mean, you know, Nick, I didn't realize I had so much power.
	All I did was have several meetings with social media companies to raise our concerns.
	It's their decision.
	They have their policies and procedures which they follow through, and I'm really glad that they are becoming more assertive.
	Because if you remember, four or five years ago, I did an interview with you about the content of ISIS-inspired propaganda that was still available on Twitter and Facebook.
	And we did a campaign then to get that off as well.
	So it's trying to be consistent against hate speech from wherever it may come.
	I've got to put this to you.
	Is there in any way, and I'm sure you have a coaching argument that there is not, but is there in any way you accidentally add to this person's notoriety if he's denied access to these platforms?
	There is a sense that, ah, well, they, the state, don't allow him to tell us the truth.
	I put a lot of that in quotes, Mr. Shafiq.
	Yeah, I appreciate that, Nick.
	Well, I mean, that is something that, you know, will be something that we're going to have to look at as we move forward.
	But, you know, he's already hugely powerful and influential in society.
	He's been able to peddle.
	Yeah, but that's as a result of this, isn't it?
	I mean, his followers aren't going to just go away.
	Won't he gain more notoriety now?
	Well, he's already got notoriety.
	Yeah, but more so, he's saying the things that this here is a point.
	Let me export, Mr. Shafiq.
	I will come back to you.
	I want to bring into the conversation Carl Benjamin, who's a YouTuber and political commentator, better known by the online name of Sargon Avakad, with nearly one million YouTube subscribers.
	Is this censorship in your book, Mr. Benjamin?
	Good morning.
	Good morning.
	I think there's no question of it, really.
	There's simply no question of the fact that social media now is the way that we conduct public dialogue.
	And, I mean, I have some, well, yeah, the vast majority of people, and there's no denying the influence of social media.
	I'll give you there's no denying, but I don't know about the vast majority of people, but certainly its importance is enormous.
	I certainly agree with you there.
	Well, okay, yeah.
	But I mean, The trend is towards more people using it and not less people using it.
	But why would a company allow someone to have posts that break standards such as dehumanizing language and call for violence against people because of their faith?
	I'm very skeptical too about this because I've yet to see any evidence that he was.
	One of the claims was that he'd said to people that they should behead the followers of the Quran.
	And I've not, I mean, I followed Tommy on these platforms and I never saw anything like that.
	So I'd like to see the proof that this was the case.
	Because honestly, this feels like, well, honestly, an activist hit job by putting pressure on these social media platforms and using the sort of media influence that they have to drum at bad people from these platforms and put pressure on them.
	Let's see if Mr. Shafiq, Mr. Shafiq, can you actually provide any hardened concrete evidence?
	Well, I mean, all the evidence is there for people to.
	Well, Nick, Ferrari, you need to do your researchers onto it.
	You send your researchers on.
	Respectfully, sir, you sat down with me.
	I mean, I know you've got a habit of, you know, trying to cover this up, but the reality is...
	Why would I be trying to cover it up?
	Mr. Shafiq.
	Well, it's your dismissive.
	Mr. Shafiq, why would I be trying some of this?
	This is about thinking about hateful speech wherever it comes from.
	That's what these social media companies are doing.
	And the name is Mohammed.
	All right.
	Mr. Shabik, could you provide some examples?
	Well, for example, there is clearly there was a statement that he made about where he got a video together walking through Muslim areas and he called every single Muslim are enemy combatant who wants to cause ill and harm and kill other human beings in this country.
	Ah, well, Mr. Benjamin, you can't possibly defend something such as that.
	Well, I'm sorry, I know the clip that he's talking about.
	This was from a rebel media video, and this was about 16 seconds of footage that was clipped out to express the money.
	It doesn't matter if it's 16 or 6.
	You can't have that sort of material.
	I wouldn't be able to put that in the newspaper and put it on LBC.
	Well, the thing is, you've mischaracterized what he said.
	He wasn't talking about Muslims.
	He was talking about jihadis.
	Right.
	How did he know that?
	Right.
	How did he know they were jihadis?
	Well, he was specifically talking about...
	Hang on, if he's walking through East London, how does he know that that Muslim is a jihadi?
	He doesn't know, does he?
	He wasn't making blanket statements about Muslims.
	Well, he wasn't.
	Mr. Shafiq apparently wasn't making blanket statements.
	How do you respond to that?
	Well, Nick, I asked people to watch the video.
	He walks down a street where there were many Muslims living.
	He points at the houses and says that these are enemy combatants living in these houses.
	Now, Mr. Benjamin, these people are damned in his view simply because of their faith or the colour of their skin, aren't they?
	No, no, no.
	This is the problem with taking, no, this is the problem with taking these clips out of context.
	If he spends a minute or two explaining that this is a notorious jihadi hotspot and there are jihadis in these houses that have been, I don't know, operating in whatever way they operate.
	Also, he can tell that every so so why doesn't I mean so every doctor who practices in the same area as Harold Shipman is a mass murderer, are they?
	What a clumsy clumsy narrative.
	I don't think he was condemning Muslims in general.
	Mr. Shabi, do you think he was?
	Nick, you asked some very difficult questions over the years and absolutely always up for that.
	I'm always up for my faith being challenged and questioned and criticized.
	And I'm always up for people to question and challenge me as a Muslim.
	What I'm not happy to accept, and members of the Jewish community, the Christian community, and people of the Northwest would agree with me, is hate speech that targets a Pacific community.
	When you travel around the country and you go and have rallies and protests against Pakistani grooming gangs, but yet when sexual abuse is being carried out by white men, you can't seem to be making any protest.
	There is a campaign going on, and I'm really glad that social media companies are waking up to that reality.
	Let me bring Mr. Benjamin back in.
	What does someone such as Tommy Robinson bring to social media?
	Well, I mean, that's an amazingly good question.
	But at the end of the day, why is Tommy Robinson being persecuted if he doesn't bring something?
	Well, I think Mr. Shafiq provided an example.
	Well, I think it's important to remember that Tommy Robinson has been warning about these problems for years, long before anyone in the establishment even wanted to just deign to entertain the idea that there might be some kind of problem that was being covered up.
	But there was a problem that was being covered up, including the rape of thousands of British and Sikh girls, and now it's public knowledge.
	That would be the cover-up that led to the Times newspaper becoming newspaper of the year when it broke it on when it's mainstream media, would it?
	Right.
	So the cover-up wasn't that great then if the Times were able to break it, was it?
	Well, the Times broke it years after it had been going on.
	Yes, I mean, this has been given.
	It had been covered up by the authorities, by the councils, and it was also a massive social stigma to talk about.
	But do you know?
	You might remember the young, I suppose it probably was EDL, where the young and very, not very bright man who youngs, that viral clip that went around?
	Well, it was widely mocked by the sort of middle-class intelligentsia.
	And in retrospect, that clip has aged very badly because what he was trying to say is Islamic rape gangs.
	Right, right, right.
	But he is, lastly, it is always a blanket, isn't it?
	That they're all Muslim rape gangs, that they are all jihadists.
	It is too clumsy.
	It wouldn't be permitted on the radio, on television, or in the newspapers.
	Why should it be permitted on social media?
	I don't agree that that's how he was characterizing it.
	I think that you guys are fundamentally mischaracterizing what he's trying to say.
	Lastly, last quickly, if you would, Mr. Shaikh, are we mischaracterizing what he's trying to say, in your view?
	Absolutely not.
	And the idea that Tommy Robinson started off the campaign against grooming gangs, actually, it was myself in 2007 who started a campaign to expose Pakistani grooming gangs.
	So I think everything you've said today is absolutely quite correct, and people can see the videos for themselves and make their own mind on it.
	All right, I'm grateful to both of you.
	You heard from Mohammed Shafiq, who you heard from Mohammad Shafiq, who's chief executive of the Ramadan Foundation.
	They were involved in some conversations with social media companies and Carl Benjamin, who is a YouTube and political commentator.
	But he has the online alias Sargon of Akkad with some 1 million YouTube subscribers.

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