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Sept. 21, 2023 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

01:32:07

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #746

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	Music Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eater's episode 746.
	I'm your host Harry, joined today by Peter McElvenna.
	I pronounced that right?
	You did, spot on.
	Thank you.
	Excellent.
	Brilliant.
	We're doing well.
	Off to a good start.
	And eventually, one Mr. Leocurse, who is currently stuck in traffic or on train somewhere.
	There's been unexpected delays that mean he can't be here right now, but he will appear At some point.
	He's here in spirit.
	He is here in spirit.
	He's always with us.
	He's looking over my shoulder right now.
	And we're going to be talking about the online safety bill passing, sadly, the hidden blasphemy laws of Britain, and the complete erasure of Russell Brand.
	And just to remind everybody that we've got our wonderful new series, Lads Hour.
	It's a little bit more relaxed, laid back.
	We get to chat about Really any old rubbish that comes to our mind.
	And speaking of any old rubbish, today's subject after this will start at three o'clock in the afternoon.
	So just half an hour after the end of this podcast will be, which animal could you beat in a fight?
	And that's going to be me, Josh, Rory, Leo, and Peter talking about that.
	Do you want to give us a quick hint?
	I've been up all night.
	I've been having nightmares about this.
	Which animal would I beat?
	You're not supposed to be worried about the ones you can't beat.
	Which ones can you beat?
	I'll keep that to later as a surprise.
	So that'll be fun and Josh has especially gone on a whiskey run for it.
	Yes.
	There might be some good fun with that.
	So make sure to tune in on that.
	And with that, let's just get straight into it.
	So the online safety bill passed and it might not be good for us.
	It might not do anything.
	It might be really bad.
	It might be completely neutral.
	Because if I'm completely honest about this, Peter, I've no idea how they're going to administer or regulate this whole thing because if it's going to be putting under social media companies, under these new remits, most of it is for things that they already are supposed to do if they even want to be able to be sold on the Apple and Android app stores in the first place.
	And everything else that they do is either Completely impossible to administer for them.
	All require very highly regulated AIs to be able to do it.
	And I know that they're starting to incorporate a lot of AI into regulation of content that you find online recently.
	Well, the police are just going to be turned into an online police force because they're already busy and already seen tweets.
	I know!
	Yeah, that's what they already are, aren't they?
	Yeah, and I'll get into more of the details as we go along, but just to remind everybody that we've currently got a promo code going for 50% off of any membership on the website.
	So that's bronze, silver, and gold tier.
	That is Sargon.
	Real photo.
	Because Carl is gone!
	And while he's away, we've discounted the price for you.
	So we just want you to know, the only thing keeping these prices up so high is Carl being an absolute stingy man.
	So while he's gone, we've decided, hey, let's call all the people who want to subscribe some slack.
	Now to clear up, Some confusion that has been laid by Dan over the past few days.
	The promo code will not be active for the next three months.
	It'll be active for the next few weeks.
	I don't know if we've got a definitive end date for it yet.
	What will happen though is if you use this promo code, the price of your subscription will be half price for the next three months.
	So if you subscribe now, then this one will be half price, next month half price, month after half price, and then back to normal pricing.
	So if you get Gold tier membership, be £15 now, £15 then, £15 again, and then £30 on the fourth month of your membership.
	So just want to be extra clear with that.
	Because, you know, we're a slick operation that we run here.
	I'm just hoping that you can have one of those hats in your shop.
	I wish.
	I wish.
	I was in Spain recently and I should have come back with something like this.
	You know that in Spain they've got all of these bottles of whiskey and other forms of alcohol and rum that you can get that are in the shape of matadors and Spanish guitars and each one of them has a tiny little matador hat.
	On the bottle cap.
	I should have got one of those.
	Yep.
	I really should have got one of those.
	And also, one last thing is that, as always, we have lots and lots of exciting content on the website.
	There's videos and written articles and all sorts that we've got on there.
	Excuse me.
	Including this recent one from Rory talking about the preeminent standard.
	Now, Rory is a gentle soul at heart.
	He may look like some kind of terrifying rugby beast, but Deep down, he's a very romantic man, and this is him lamenting Swindon, and in particular, the Swindon Works, that being the old railway station, the old industrial centre of Swindon, which is now currently a designer outlet stall filled with fast food restaurants, and specifically talking about the area that was where they were manufacturing most of the railway carts, I think, and which is now host to a KFC.
	That's always a nice moment in modernity, isn't it?
	When you walk up and go, wow, this building's magnificent.
	Isn't it all wonderful?
	There's so much history there.
	I'll have a bargain bucket, please.
	No, there's a contradiction there that really affects romantic souls like Rory.
	And it's very, very worth reading because I don't know.
	It's important to consider these things and consider our recent past and what it's been turned into.
	And Rory's always got an excellent analytic eye for such a thing.
	Anyway, so we've covered the online safety bill a lot over the past few years because it's been something that has been concerning us and lots of other people over the past few years, specifically regarding the ways that the government was going to use it and probably will use it because there was one particular bit in the legislation That really concerned people.
	I think this was also featured in the White Paper, which I'll refer to a bit later on in this, which is that there was a provision in it to silence legal but harmful speech that was conducted online.
	Now what this would mean, as they pointed out a number of times, was if it was legal to say something in person, like if I turned to Peter and said something horrible about his mother or something else that is very sacred to him, You know, that's legal for me to say in person, but if I were to send him a tweet saying that same thing, then all of a sudden there's a grey area, which means that it might get taken down, and I don't know what could happen if it wasn't taken down.
	Perhaps I could get into some form of legal trouble for it, even though it's legal, but harmful.
	There was lots of grey area here that mainly just made it clear that this was going to be another violation on free speech, another violation creating new hate speech laws and creating new avenues through which the government can intrude on your ability to express yourself online, which, given the amount of communication that goes online right now, just inhibits your ability to communicate with other people at all.
	Wasn't looking good.
	How much have you looked into it in the past?
	A lot, and working in Parliament for 10, 11 years, kind of followed it closely.
	And as often, the government brings in a bill that they say it's just for one thing, and they use it for something completely different.
	But this is quite blatant, because the whole issue of protecting children online, that could have been quite a small, narrow bill.
	And yet it's 500 pages.
	It's huge.
	It's ridiculous.
	And there's no way that anyone can understand it, except if you have lawyers going in.
	And this is just going to be a boon to the legal system.
	That's always the thing that happens with these bills that you go in and you'll have the lawyers and the NGO policy wonks are the ones who write all this up and draft it and they will give a general overview to the MPs and say this is going to help you to tackle child safety online and the MP goes well that sounds really nice let's do that then and it'll be packaged with a load of other things that the MPs may or may not know about because the fact MPs are
	Often, this isn't going to apply to every single one of them, but often, quite stupid.
	If you've ever looked at British politics, they're kind of idiots, and I don't think anybody watching this is going to disagree with me there.
	And once again, it's been going through the slate for, I think it was originally come up with back in 2019, the white paper was 2020, there's been revisions and drafts of it done since then, the legal but harmful provision has been taken out of it since then, but as we'll find Some of the reporting on it, like by Sky News, is still talking about it as if the provision is still in there.
	And I can guarantee, whether or not the provision is explicitly in there, it will be administered as though it's still there.
	No matter what.
	Because harm is such a nebulous concept.
	Harm is the most airy-fairy concept you could ever list.
	Ever.
	And people will interpret it whatever way is most politically convenient for them.
	And, as I said, it's passed.
	There you go.
	Disclosed TV said on Tuesday, just in, UK's online safety bill for a safer internet has passed its final parliamentary debate and will become law soon.
	More social media platforms that do not comply with the new rules could face fines of up to 10% of their global annual revenue.
	Now that's a lot.
	I mean, it changes the whole game for social media companies in this debate, whether they're publishers or just themselves or just hosting a platform.
	So, yeah, and 10 percent off the globe.
	But I was blown away by how few MPs actually opposed this and how events happened to move this bill forward.
	Like when David Ames was stabbed and killed, then the call was, well, we need the online safety bill to stop this.
	No, he was stabbed because someone walked in and stabbed him.
	Yeah, that's the funny thing, the way they manipulate it, because I'm pretty certain, wasn't the guy who stabbed David Amos already being observed by Prevent?
	Yep, he was.
	As they always are.
	And Prevent, as a body, was started to tackle Islamic terrorism in the UK, and like you say when they switch things around, I believe now primarily focuses its threats on domestic terrorism by white supremacists and other such things, the same way as the FBI is weaponized against its own domestic citizens in the US.
	Always terrible how these things happen.
	And once again though, I don't know how they're going to implement all of this without using the AIs, which they probably will try and do, but if they make it too difficult for businesses to operate in the UK, These businesses might just pull out.
	So what Facebook have written to say this has to change, obviously owning WhatsApp, Signal have written, I know Wikipedia have said they just cannot operate in the UK if this happens because the argument for the companies is the government asked for a backdoor.
	So our loving government, our Prime Minister who loves us all and cares for us.
	Yeah, he has such a care for the British people.
	Lies awake at night.
	He doesn't want to open the borders to let Streams of Indians into the country.
	Nope.
	It is us.
	And if the government are given a backdoor access into the system, then that is available for anyone.
	You cannot just allow the government access that, but all the bad people can't.
	It's there.
	It's open.
	And like Signal and WhatsApp have both said, they have the encryption and it is a clue system.
	They just cannot give the keys to the government.
	It's impossible.
	Yeah, and that's the practical difficulties with all of this, because it's Ofcom that's going to be regulating a lot of this as it goes through.
	And I forget this specific example, but I know in the past, our government has tried to do these kinds of really heavy-handed regulations on companies like Apple and the way that they implement their regulation of terms of service and safe content that's available online.
	And Apple just turned around and said, well, we can't do this, we won't do it.
	And I think the BBC, not the BBC, although they are basically the same as the government, The government just had to back down from it.
	Because the government can only do so much.
	Once again, when we talk about the UK government in the big shadowy evil terms, I do agree that I think they've got malicious intent for the natives of the British Isles.
	And I do think that a lot of what they do is on purpose.
	But we've got malicious intent mixed with confounding stupidity and incompetence.
	By a lot of them at the same time.
	So it's very difficult for me to square the circle of how this is going to work in practice, even with Ofcom.
	Because if Ofcom ends up coming in and trying to regulate social media companies, we don't know if that's going to include platforms like us.
	How they're going to do that, if they're going to stick to the same rules and guidelines that apply to an organization like GB News, this is all still to be seen as far as I can tell.
	All I know is that for organizations like us, They won't be very nice to us in the same way that they probably would be to organisations that tow the party lines.
	100% and the last thing you want is Ofcom to have more control.
	The last thing you want is more government regulation.
	That's where all speaking against the problem we have is too much.
	Government regulation and intrusion in control, if the government step back.
	But again, this is under a conservative government.
	This is under, supposedly, a government that traditionally wanted smaller government restrictions, personal responsibility, getting out of your life, and yet this has been pushed by them.
	So all of this happened 13 years of the wonderful years that we've had under a Tory government.
	The most radically left-wing government that England has ever had and that includes Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's New Labour because they took the ball and they ran with it.
	They ran further than anybody could have ever expected them to in the past 13 years.
	And let's take a look at some of the details.
	So they passed it, the online safety bill has passed its last parliamentary hurdle in the House of Lords.
	Thank you very much, House of Lords.
	You're always such a safeguard against government tyranny, just like you were intended to be, meaning you'll be fine.
	It's so nice that, was it Tony Blair who changed it so it wasn't hereditary peers anymore?
	You could be nominated as a peer, so that's really worked out well for government tyrants, hasn't it?
	Flagship piece of legislation will force social media firms to remove illegal content and protect users, especially children, from material which is legal but harmful.
	Once again, they've used the legal but harmful term in there, so I don't know if Sky News know that it's been taken out, but if they do, then they know implicitly that it's going to be regulated like that anyway.
	Also, a lot of this illegal content we already have laws against.
	We have things like the Communications Act, Which means that, and even if you go on the Apple and Android store and you have an app that you want to sell through there, they will have all of these same terms and conditions.
	Like you say, it's just to be able to facilitate the government having the backdoor into all of these and to have an even greater hand in regulating them, if they actually can.
	And the 500 pages, it means that you'll have test cases.
	Those test cases will go to our liberal judges who will then rule.
	Actually, this is what was meant.
	It is the courts that decide what is actually meant because it's not written in language to be understandable by anyone.
	So the judges will rule.
	Actually, they did mean something that's harmful.
	They did mean something that's hateful.
	They did mean something that you didn't like and offended you.
	And then And even then, when the government gets involved in these things and they say, we're doing this to protect children, let's not forget that when Elon Musk bought Twitter, it was revealed that the FBI, what everybody knew already, that the FBI had had a massive hand in organizing political activity on Twitter, regulating it, censoring particular political activists.
	And at the same time, we're well aware of all of the child sexual exploitation material that had been on the platform and done basically nothing about it and sat by while somebody who was a very suspect character, what was his name?
	Something Roth, I think his name was.
	was the digital content supervisor for the stuff that was allowed on Twitter in charge of making sure that material wasn't on there.
	And he just did nothing about it, realistically.
	It was Elon who came in and has tried as best as he can to remove most of that material.
	So even when you're trying to protect kids with the help of the government, the government don't care.
	The government don't care about your kids.
	We know this for all of the things they allow to happen to people.
	I mean, we just covered earlier on today, and you'll see it will come out on the weekend, all of this nonsensical, all brilliant black British history, which is being funded by the government to brainwash your children.
	It's a children's book.
	The government don't care about your history, they don't care about your well-being, they don't care about your safety.
	They care about their bottom line and maximizing an incredible mass immigration policy.
	That's all they care about at the end of the day, and controlling you if you disagree with that.
	They say, perhaps most controversially, one of the proposals would force platforms like WhatsApp and Signal to undermine messaging encryption so private chats can be checked for criminal content, which might just make them go, OK, we're just not going to operate here then.
	Wasn't Apple that objected to... No, Apple was going to scan every message to look for child abuse pictures, and then they pulled back because, again, it's a balance between protection and privacy.
	This Put a cart and horse through that and it's just full control and privacy goes out the window because supposed protection.
	Yeah, that's the thing.
	They'll dress it up in the nice sounding thing.
	Well, we want to prevent child exploitation.
	I'm like, so do I. But governments have shown time and time again that they don't actually care about it as much as they say they do.
	And they can't really do much about it.
	Grooming gangs, one, but anyway.
	The bill requires social media companies to remove illegal content quickly or prevent it from appearing in the first place, including content promoting self-harm.
	Once again, they already do this.
	Other illegal content it wants to crack down on includes selling drugs and weapons, inciting or planning terrorism, sexual exploitation, hate speech.
	All of these things we already have laws against.
	All of these things we already have laws against.
	So why this specific bill to make it even safer online?
	Communications regulator Ofcom will largely be responsible for enforcing the bill and I think this is primarily the thing that they want to get through, greater Ofcom regulation in all of this.
	With social media bosses facing fines of billions of pounds or even jail if they fail to comply, the bill has created new criminal offences including cyber flashing and the sharing of deepfake pornography.
	No more unsolicited dpics, which, you know, I think that's a pretty horrible thing to do in the first place.
	It's pretty gross to send pictures like that to somebody who hasn't asked for them, but you don't need these 500 pages of legislation and anything.
	You could probably just take a bill like the Communications Act, which I'm not a big fan of in the first place because of Section 127, but you could probably just amend a bit of that.
	to make this a crime if it wasn't already there's probably already somewhere in a bill that nobody's ever heard of yeah provision making that criminal it's true the issue is they bring massive pieces of legislation in the the devil is in the detail and they could bring much smaller you could have a 30 page bill that actually covered specific areas and then it'll be understandable but instead it's all lumped together and no one really knows what it's for that's the issue you could
	Have small bills, 30 page bills on all these things individually or amend previous bills.
	You don't need a new one.
	Yeah.
	And we talk about them sneaking provisions in here.
	There's this one, which is really sinister and really insidious.
	If you ask me on this BBC article, they talk about some of the things.
	So platforms will show they have to, they're committed to removing illegal content, including there's all these nice things that you don't want on the internet that I completely agree with.
	You don't want child sexual abuse, controlling or coercive behavior.
	Although even that.
	is really nebulously worded so that can be like you say interpreted by any judge to mean anything extreme sexual violence that's great illegal immigration and people smuggling just pop there in the middle so what does that mean well in all likelihood that means that if Ofcom does regulate this the way it says on paper if you are say an independent journalist and you want to go to the channel
	uh the coastline next to the channel where a lot of these migrants will come over and drop themselves off often escorted by our royal navy uh of course and you film it and want to put it on twitter and expose that hey this is what's happening at the coastline that might be illegal under this So they're just going to create a monopoly where only the mainstream sources are able to report on such things.
	And you have to ask, will they choose to report on such things?
	Because everybody knows that it's independent journalists really are the only ones who really like to make a big stink about this.
	Very interesting.
	And like you said, Wikipedia have said they just can't really do this.
	This is back from April.
	They've said, Rebecca McKinnon of the Wikimedia Foundation, which supports the website, says it would violate our commitment to collect minimal data about readers and contributors.
	A senior figure in Wikimedia UK fears the site could be blocked as a result, but the government says only services posing the highest risk to children will need age verification, which means we will pick and choose.
	What could go wrong?
	You've always got to try and pick through the legalese that they say it in and the incredibly neutral politics speech, but that really is what it just means.
	We'll pick and choose who it applies to.
	Don't worry Wikipedia, we know you're basically run by communists and therefore you're exactly what we, the Conservative government of the UK, want children to have access to.
	But say you're a platform like maybe even Lotus Eaters, Who turns around and says, Wikipedia is a communist platform and all of this stuff that you're being told in your school that has been given to your children is a complete lie.
	Okay, well, that's pretty harmful to children if you ask me.
	That's how I worry that it's going to be applied going into the future.
	Ofcom themselves put out an update a few months ago about how we're preparing to regulate online safety.
	This was a few months ago, so they just knew.
	They just knew that it was going to pass already.
	Phase one, illegal harms duties.
	Our previous commitment was to publish our first draft code of practice within 100 days of our powers commencing.
	We've had more time to prepare these and now publish blah blah blah.
	We will also publish a register of risks related to illegal content, risk profiles of service characteristics, draft guidance to services on how to conduct their own risk assessments And on how services can identify illegal content, draft guidance on record keeping and Ofcom's draft enforcement guidelines.
	And then they've got phase three, where they're going to be saying there's a transparency, user empowerment and other duties characterized platforms.
	Small proportion of regulated services will be designated these different ones.
	Duties include produce transparency reports, provide user empowerment tools, operate in line with terms of service, protect certain types of journalistic content and prevent Fraudulent advertising.
	So what this suggests to me is just going to create another labyrinth of regulatory compliance departments that these social media companies are going to have to use.
	And as we know, the HR department, if you're watching this at work right now, I'm sure is your favorite department to have to deal with.
	HR departments and compliance departments are just basically there to be infiltrated by leftist activists and haranguing henpecking women who hate your guts because you want to be able to have a laugh and a joke at work.
	It's like a prevent program for online conversations.
	Individuals can be designated as different risks and then action must be taken against those individuals and then Harry will have to go to re-education camp somewhere and learn all the good things.
	I know all of the good things.
	I just want to make this a very clear statement for the government watching this right now.
	Ofcom, I've worked at local radio stations before.
	I know the kind of red tape that you have to wade through, so I just want you to know, I like the good things.
	And I fundamentally disagree with, on the most basic terms, all of the bad things.
	And I just want you to know that.
	Debra, if you're watching this right now.
	HR Debra, I'm sure you are, with Ofcom.
	And Carl has also pointed out, if you look through the original white paper, some of the wording, and it is a little bit worrying and somewhat suspect where he says, for anyone wondering, there's a lot of pernicious stuff in the online safety bill and some good, but the part that really stands out for me is the government's intent to police truth and falsity, calling it a threat to their way of life.
	Because of course, part of it is all about the stopping the spread and flow of misinformation.
	Including inaccurate anti-vaccination messaging online which poses a threat to public health and this is a threat to our way of life.
	Now, perhaps this has always been propaganda of one form or another, but the propaganda that I was taught as a young man was that the British government and the British way of life was somewhat more, I don't want to say liberal because I don't want to gag, but somewhat more free and somewhat more intent on preserving the liberties of the individuals who live and work within England and Britain.
	Uh, than this.
	So this just seems to be our way of life.
	I'm sure is being used in the same way that elites and politicians use our democracy more as a way of denoting the specific behaviors of the elite classes.
	Uh, not our way of life as the aggregate British people, because their intent on destroying that.
	We've known that for a long time.
	I would love to see the legal definition for disinformation.
	I don't know if that exists yet in law.
	Ofcom are so intent on going against disinformation and yet at the same time horrible histories can say that Septimius Severus was a proud black man.
	Yeah.
	I don't think the historical record entirely agrees with you there.
	Some would say that it's maliciously spread false information, disinformation you could say.
	But Ofcom don't seem to agree.
	You can read more about it on the online harms white paper.
	It's in here that they specify that they're going to be talking about the development of AI systems, saying that AI techniques can be used to target and manipulate individual voters with highly sophisticated micro-targeting based on individual psychology.
	I think here what they're talking about is the ability of malicious actors, the Russian state, for Putin to be able to manipulate you, the blue-collar free thinker out there, But they say that also AI can be beneficial in the automatic detection of content or automatically fact-checking articles.
	And I'm so, so eager, so eager for the Ofcom, government, BBC, Mariana Spring AI fact-checker.
	to go through because that is going to be absolutely fantastic.
	And then you've just got random organizations, I'm sure some of you out there are familiar with Full Fact, completely reputable and trustworthy source if ever I've seen one, who are always there to let you know that yes, the government is telling you the exact truth, nothing but the truth.
	Um saying that the online safety bill and misinformation what you need to know they're saying the full fact has long campaigned for online regulation that tackles misinformation and protects freedom of expression online and it's organizations like this that support the government agree with the government that have a decent media reach that the government will use to refer to if they say well what i'm saying is true what you're saying is false they're going to be the ones with insider access saying that well this needs to go further this needs to go further Will the government disagree?
	Will they say, no, we've intruded enough into the lives of our citizens.
	We care about the liberties of the British people.
	No.
	No, and this is a new Ofcom, a level we'd never seen before.
	It's been limited to press, TV, newspapers, but now actually the government are going to police the whole internet.
	I don't think they have any idea what they've claimed they're going to do.
	That's my question, that's why at the beginning of this I said I don't know if they can, unless they do are able to develop Very accurate and far-reaching AI systems, which I don't know, perhaps they can.
	But unless they're able to do that, there's no way they're going to be able to regulate the vast breadth of content that is available online.
	Because, as you say, the NGOs and lawyers might know how to word all of this, but are the MPs and all of the bureaucrats involved, the absolute idiots who occupy the halls of Whitehall and Parliament, Do they know what they're in for?
	Do they know what they have to do here?
	I guess we'll find out, won't we?
	We will find out.
	This dark world we enter.
	Yes.
	So on to something different.
	Britain's hidden blasphemy laws.
	And just for you watching on YouTube right now, before we go into that, I just want to remind everyone again, Sargon, our promo code available on the platform, on the website right now.
	If you want 50% off, For the next three months of your subscription, use the code SARGON when buying a new subscription to the website, bronze, silver or gold tier, and that will be still in effect that particular code for the next few weeks, I believe.
	Onto Britain's Hidden Blasphemy Laws, or Less Hidden.
	This is a spiked online piece, a publication I actually really enjoyed, a little bit less so because of their stance on Covid, but this was written by Hardeep Singh.
	Now, Hardeep Singh is a great guy, I know him well.
	And he is a freelance journalist, deputy director for the Network of Sikh Organizations, an assistant editor of the Sikh Messenger, co-authored Radicalization, Islamophobia and Mistaken Identity, the Sikh Experience.
	He co-authored Civitas Report, We Need to Check Your Thinking, How Identity Politics is Warping Police Priorities from Within, written for the Telegraph, Spectator, Spy, Quillette, Critic, along with many others.
	And he is a very learned individual, has often looked at the historical clashes that there have been between Islam and Sikhs.
	A lot of work in that.
	This says, of course, we thought we had got rid of our blasphemy laws, but no.
	So what exactly is Islamophobia?
	I'll touch on that and then we'll come back to this report, which pulls a lot of things from this great Civitas report, one of the very good think tanks, a few good think tanks actually in Westminster.
	Islamophobia.
	So the House of Commons, they actually put together a 23-page research briefing titled Definition of Islamophobia.
	I don't know why you need 23 pages, but anyway, 23 pages to define... Shouldn't it just be like a single page?
	A single sentence, in fact, that just says, don't like him.
	Simple as.
	23.
	I don't know any other word that needs 23 pages to define it, but... People get paid to write this.
	Oh yeah.
	Some useless bureaucratic assistant somewhere got paid to write up 23 pages of this utter bilge.
	Yep, yep.
	It's, it is.
	It's as good a grift as you can get.
	It is, it is.
	And they write, they write good articles on different pieces of legislation.
	And I know from, from the Lord Pearson, working with him.
	And it is helpful.
	You can actually ask the library to write a piece on a bill going through or something to help you understand it.
	And then you have to trust the government to have told you exactly what is happening and haven't left anything out, which would never happen, of course.
	But this goes, this definition, this was written September 2021, 20 years after 9-11.
	And It goes through a couple of definitions.
	The Runnymede was the first one that used a definition for this.
	In 1997, the race equality think tank, the Runnymede Trust, published the report Islamophobia, a challenge for us all, which is credited with introducing the term Islamophobia to public policy discourse in the UK.
	Oh, so they define it as Islamophobia refers to unfounded hostility towards Islam.
	I think you can have founded hostility towards any ideology, but it's only unfounded, not founded, obviously.
	It refers also to the practical consequences of such hostility in unfair discrimination against Muslim individuals and communities and to the exclusion of Muslims from mainstream political and social affairs.
	I mean, living in London, coming from Northern Ireland, which is a monoculture, coming to a mixed culture in London, everyone has the same opportunities in London.
	I always find that mixed culture, multi-culture, doesn't actually, because you get, with mixed especially, you get the idea that you're going to get all of these different cultures.
	No, especially when you import people at the numbers that we have, you get segregated cultures violently grinding up against each other at the edges where they do connect with one another.
	And that's where you end up with a lot of the problems that England and Britain has faced over the past few years.
	This might be a controversial take.
	I always think that it's pretty fair if I decide I want to choose who I get to live near.
	Oh yeah.
	I would prefer to live near people who share my values and share my patterns of behavior.
	And hello Leo!
	He's finally here!
	It's alright, it's alright.
	Yeah, no, trains are an absolute nightmare.
	Connor had trouble this morning as well, so absolutely no problem there.
	Everything alright?
	Everything set up?
	We can cut this out of the YouTube video.
	And then all of a sudden, a wild Leo appears!
	We'll have a Pokemon card come up!
	So we're just talking about Islamophobia in the Runnymede Trusts, right?
	An example of what that means at the moment.
	which is from this Civitaph report on blasphemy laws.
	So they changed the definition of Islamophobia, so now pretty much anything you say is Islamophobia.
	Well, they've adopted it.
	So we've had one-seventh of British consuls have adopted it after it was thrown out because it was impossible and restricted on free speech, and no one knew which definition they would use.
	So the APPG on Islamic affairs, their definition, which was rejected, has now been adopted by council after council across the UK.
	And what could go wrong?
	Yeah, what could go wrong?
	Let's find out!
	But on this, so this definition just lets you know where it's come from and then give you some examples.
	The Runnymede Trust says this term is not admittedly ideal.
	Really?
	Critics of it consider that its use panders to what they call political correctness, that it stifles legitimate criticism of Islam and that it demonizes and stigmatizes anyone who wishes to engage in such criticism.
	I think that might have been the purpose but anyway to restrict all that and then the Running Me Trust in 2017 to mark the 20th anniversary of the report brought out another one imaginatively titled Islamophobia still a challenge to us all.
	It's been almost 20 years and we've still not done anything about it.
	Can you believe it?
	But I don't think these organizations want to... A, it's not a problem, but they don't want the issue to go away because they exist on the issues they create.
	That's the problem.
	Never trust anyone whose paycheck relies on there being a problem to solve that problem.
	No, 100%.
	Ibram X. Kendi still hasn't solved racism in America.
	Who would have believed that?
	20 years and your report will come out still with this.
	But entering this report offered three explanations for the increase in anti-Muslim prejudice.
	Again, it's very anti-Muslim and Islamophobia, they're used interchangeably, which are quite different ideas.
	But anyway, one is the ideology, one is the individual following the ideology, and individuals who follow an ideology are not all the same, they're individuals.
	But the three reasons why it gave us why anti-Muslim prejudice has increased, which I don't think it has, was an increase in terrorist incidents since 2001.
	Then compared to 20 years ago, British Muslims are a larger, better organized and more settled community.
	That sounds threatening.
	Honestly, they're better organised.
	Oh God, what does that mean?
	No, but the third one is there is now more data about British Muslims.
	There's more data, so what?
	People are better organised, integrated, so what?
	So I don't get and why on earth would a terrorist issue, why would that link to the Islamic community unless there maybe was some link behind the scenes?
	But anyway, we'll move on.
	Just don't look into rates of intermarriage between first cousins and birth defects as a result or anything.
	Oh yes.
	Don't look into that.
	So you've got these definitions which have appeared, then you've got the APPG on, was it Islamic Affairs or Muslim?
	So scroll down on the APPG.
	And there...
	Yep, up, up, up.
	So there you go.
	There we are.
	In December 2018, the government was asked a written parliamentary question in the House of Lords about the definition which had come out from the APPG.
	And they were asked whether it considered Islamophobia to be a form of racism against...
	Again, this strange mix of religious belief and racism.
	And if so, whether they will adopt the definition of Islamophobia comparable to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of anti-Semitism.
	Why are all of these unelected bodies having so much influence in our country?
	I swear.
	So much power.
	And in reply, Lord Byrne of Aberystwyth.
	We obviously as an expert on this, stress the government took Islamophobia very seriously and it was committed to tackling all hate.
	So there you go.
	They've taken it very seriously.
	Thankfully, they still have not used that definition.
	One other definition that's used in Europe, and we spoke about the online city building, that's also happening in Europe.
	So whatever happens in the UK, the EU happily accept those restrictions.
	That's a good idea.
	At the same time as the online safety bill, I forget the name of it, but I know that there is a bill going through the EU Parliament at the moment that's giving similarly heavy handed restrictions and regulations to governments over there.
	Which was introduced within weeks of the British one.
	It's as if they were talking behind the scenes.
	I could never believe such a thing.
	So in 2005 the Council of Europe, just to bring the EU in, said Islamophobia was the fear of prejudiced viewpoints towards Islam.
	Muslims and matters pertaining to them taking the shape of daily forms of racism, discrimination or more violent forms, Islamophobia is a violation of human rights.
	Again this... Human right to not have people, what, like look at you and think your characteristics might tell me something about your behavior?
	What kind of human right is it?
	Who It's the human right for you not to be criticized or to face a different opinion.
	I love how malleable human rights are.
	Wait.
	I mean, I hate, I hate how malleable human rights are, for God's sake.
	Whatever.
	I mean, I've, I've looked into it recently and bloody, uh, what was it?
	And Bukele in El Salvador, who locked up all of the gang members who had tattoos painted on their face that said, I'm a violent murder of rapist gang member, has been threatened by the US government and Biden saying you're violating people's human rights.
	So you might want to let them out if you don't want us to embargo you and destroy your economy.
	Human rights are just, they don't care about the human right of you being able to live peacefully.
	They just care about the human rights of violent nutters who want to hurt you.
	That's always what ends up happening.
	But on this, by the government putting this together, this is the information that then all MPs or peers can read to understand legislation or debate happening.
	So Islamophobia and the law, they said there is no specific law prohibiting Islamophobia.
	Why are you having all this conversation?
	There's nothing in the law.
	This is again hateful, harmful, if you disagree, perception.
	So there's no specific law prohibiting Islamophobia.
	However, anti-Islam activity might be covered by more general legislation.
	And then it touches on some of the online, some of the bills that are there to stop Islamophobia, obviously Christian phobia doesn't exist.
	But the bills and there are the Malicious Communications Act 1988.
	There's a Communications Act 2003.
	There's Protection from Harassment Act 1997.
	So there are a lot of bills in place that can be used, which I guess refers a little bit back to the previous conversation.
	There's legislation there.
	Why bring in new legislation?
	There's reams and reams and reams, hundreds of thousands of pages of legislation of UK law that it would take somebody an entire lifetime to even get through a fraction of all of it, but basically everything that you can even think of is probably illegal if you go into the fine details of it.
	It feels like we're legislating and the government's legislating for the sort of reaction to some of the negative aspects of Islam.
	So, you know, terrorism, obviously, then, you know, there's there's grooming gangs.
	It's unfair to say, you know, to a certain extent, to say it's unfair to say Islam because it's certain.
	Sex, certain creeds of Islam that are over-represented in some of these.
	But I mean, it's still there.
	But instead of dealing with the actual issue, the government deals with the reaction to the issue.
	Which seems arse-about-it.
	One other issue that this paper brought in is the issue on reporting, which is hugely.
	I always grew up that if something bad happens, you call the police.
	The police were who you trusted.
	They come along and make it worse.
	I'll ignore you.
	But that was the traditional thing.
	Now, our government have handed responsibility over to all these other organisations.
	They get funded by the government anyway.
	So, Telemama is one of them, where they actually have their own reporting system.
	So actually, you don't have to go to the police, you can go to someone else.
	Why would you go to someone else?
	Why would you not just go to the police?
	And that passing on of responsibility is a curious move away from what we've traditionally had.
	The police, they don't take any personal responsibility in any way, but to pass it over to another organisation that no one actually knows much about.
	Yeah, exactly.
	The police are, you know, under the government's sort of freedom of information, they try and make data as available and they've got people overseeing them and making sure that they're not doing anything wrong, whereas something like Telemama, they don't have anywhere near that level of oversight.
	And in fact, in the aftermath of Boris Johnson's column where he wrote and he compared Muslim women to letterboxes, I mean, it was a cheap gag, but there was no hateful intent.
	In fact, the content of the article, the gist of the article, was trying to increase tolerance and saying, hey, these women should be allowed to wear burqas and stuff.
	So it was a pro-Muslim column.
	but tell mama said that there was this surge in uh in hate crime against muslims in the phone but if you looked at it it was just phone calls to them and there's no oversight there's no and it's very small numbers wasn't it about 30 people phoned into them and started whining about it and started weeping over the phone i can't believe he wrote this yeah boris johnson one of the wettest men in the uk said something slightly mean about me maybe and we don't know if it's uh because you know amazon reviews
	people can you know organize organize their mates to leave nice reviews We don't know if it's the same guy putting on 34 voices.
	Yeah!
	But that gives a background.
	I'll touch on the story that I think explains the chaos and confusion and the mess that this definition of Islamophobia has produced.
	And of course, the hate crime legislation and all the industry that's basically built up around that.
	But also in the Telegraph, they had this again, one in seven councils adopts Islamophobia definition, rejected.
	There you go, one of seven concerts and this, it was in the Telegraph, it was Spiked, it was a couple of other places.
	I bet one of them was Birmingham.
	Well it could, yes, could be.
	Although they're going out of business at the moment.
	The mosque fits in well in the tower blocks there.
	So some of the points they brought out were one in seven councils adopt the APPG Islamophobia definition from 2019, which is Islamophobia as a type of racism that targeted expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.
	If I was a Muslim, I'd be quite angry that I was just stuck together with everyone else who called themselves a Muslim.
	I mean, as a Christian, I meet other Christians so different.
	Different beliefs, different understandings, look different.
	But here, Muslims are all the same.
	But, if you were a Muslim and understood that whether or not you're getting lumped in with a lot of people you necessarily don't identify with, but the broader definition means that, as a rule, you will be getting benefits and preferential treatment from the people who are administering your local geographic area, it probably would take away some of the sting.
	No, I agree.
	I agree.
	My mate's brother was in prison for cocaine.
	So, like, you know, he's trying to get a better time in prison.
	Scotland knows prison inmates.
	His mate said, well, he's from London, but his mate said, say you're Muslim, so then you get better food.
	You get, instead of just getting like a horrible, nasty, dried up bit of bacon, you get the lamb curries and all that sort of stuff.
	So he's like, yeah, I'm a Muslim.
	So, you know, They give him the curries and stuff.
	Then he goes down for lunch one day and he's like, yeah bro, what's for lunch?
	And they're like, it's Ramadan.
	And he's like, what's Ramadan?
	Is that a type of curry?
	He didn't know.
	Oh dear.
	Mission failed boys.
	Better luck next time.
	But yeah, onto this less comical side.
	So the 1 in 7 adopted it.
	The government, again the government initially had rejected this.
	So the Civitas found out there were 52 local authorities in England have passed a motion to adopt the definition, even though it's been rejected by the government, 1 in 7.
	And then in the foreword to the Civitas Report, Charles Moore says, Freedom of religion is rightly defended, but so must freedom of speech be.
	Freedom of speech is bound to involve the criticism of religion in general, and sometimes of particular religions.
	All religions make certain truth claims.
	In a free society, people must be free to challenge these claims.
	To argue the criticism of Muslim ideas as a form of racism is in most cases a profound mistake.
	Only the God would listen to some sensible person like Charles Moore, but no, they don't.
	And a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain have, of course, accusive attached report of willfully misrepresenting the APPG on British Muslims definition of Islamophobia.
	The definition is widespread support, maybe amongst APPG people or maybe amongst the Muslim Council of Britain.
	And has been adopted by most national political parties outside the Conservative Party, which is once again marred in accusations of institutional Islamophobia.
	Apart from the part where they import all of the Muslims into the country.
	Oh yeah.
	We're just going to ignore that part because Suella Braverman occasionally makes noises like she wants to deport a few of the illegal ones.
	So there are just two or three little stories we will refer to.
	This is the report, Islamophobia, and it is a great read.
	Hardeep, a great journalist, has done a fantastic job in highlighting councils adopting things that actually many of the government don't think are beneficial.
	How has Islamophobia been used?
	So this led me down another rabbit hole of looking around the scene just in the last few weeks.
	So this is, I still get confused when I see X. Twitter should answer to Queensland authorities over Islamophobic tweets by an American, sorry, by an American tribunal hears.
	This is intriguing because Queensland's so It says that Queensland authorities should be able to hold Twitter responsible for the Islamic tweets of an American white supremacist, of course threw that in, because they were downloaded in the state and accused harm, caused harm to local Muslims, a tribunal has heard.
	Not sure necessarily why.
	Is this the same way that building a bridge over your river harms the local aboriginals?
	In Australia.
	It probably is, isn't it?
	It's the same fake game.
	At a hearing before the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, QCAT, on Tuesday, lawyers for both sides argued whether Queensland authorities had legal jurisdiction to rule on this matter.
	Merkel, which is the people bringing it, argued the tweets were downloaded in Queensland and had caused harm to local Muslims.
	It says Twitter or X Corp is a true foreign corporation with no presence in Australia.
	If they are successful, this was from Twitter's lawyers, that would give Queensland the widest jurisdiction of any entity in Australia and possibly the world.
	It's not enough to say there is an effect in Queensland.
	It's clear that Twitter is not a person in Queensland under the legislation.
	And then it goes, so I just need to read this.
	So the lawyers, Aman, the lawyers who brought this, they originally demanded an apology from Twitter for the dehumanising content, which included a reply that the Qur'an should be referred to as the terrorist handbook.
	So we've just been banned in Queensland.
	Thank you very much.
	I hope we don't have many followers in Queensland.
	That's messed that up.
	But people should be allowed to critique and mock and ridicule a religion, a book.
	Christianity is open to ridicule.
	It has been forever.
	That's one of the things that was most effective in Um, in, in like you say, ridiculing Christianity and reducing belief in it is if you get the permission to ridicule something, that's one of the most effective ways of delegitimizing it.
	And so if you're trying to protect something, one of the best ways you can do it is to just stop people being able to joke about it in the first place.
	Cause there's, there's very few ways of being able to respond properly to someone just mocking you, especially if they're dedicated to not responding seriously.
	Not completely.
	So this is the UN General Assembly has has just been on, and this is the headline.
	Xenophobia, Islamophobia have reached intolerable levels, Erdogan tells UN.
	It's wonderful that Turkey are now advising us on human rights and what is good and not.
	But he said populist politicians in many countries continue to play with fire by encouraging these dangerous trends, warns Turkey's leader.
	This is just a dangerous move from Often Islamic countries where there is a different understanding of freedom and rights, telling the West that have absolute rights, how we should and should not be doing things.
	There are two different ideas of how you run a country, of how people work together.
	They're entitled to their viewpoint.
	But again, it's these trigger words that are used.
	Also, if you look at Islamic countries, they tend not to be oases of tolerance and happiness and well-functioning economies.
	They tend to be like Iran.
	I mean, Turkey's probably the best example of an Islamic country, but I guess it's a secular country.
	Yeah, if you look across the Middle East and countries that are going more Islamified in Southeast Asia, it's not a panacea.
	I've got a really great idea, guys.
	And this is advice to anybody in Iran or Turkey or in Erdogan, if you're watching this.
	Or Queensland.
	If these countries are just far too dangerous, clearly there's so much hate bubbling just beneath the surface of England and the West.
	So dangerous for these people to come over here because they're just going to be assaulted in the street by people's nasty words and verbiage.
	They just don't have to come here.
	If you're so scared, just look, okay.
	Don't come here.
	If I'm walking over to the dog pound and all the dogs are barking at the door, waiting for me to come through so they can tear me apart, I look at that and go, nah, I won't go in there.
	I'll avoid that, actually.
	So this is just a suggestion.
	But then on the other hand, the only thing that's going to stop your kids being transitioned is more Muslims coming over and joining school boards.
	That's the only thing that's going to stop it.
	The only thing that's going to stop you being forced to dance naked in roller skates at a pride parade is the Islamification of Britain.
	But does that not happen in Muslim countries?
	Have you been watching Andrew Tait recently?
	Why, what's Andrew Tait been saying?
	That exact same thing.
	Right, along with a few others really.
	Same with Tristan Tate, they're both saying that the only thing that's going to save the West is Islam.
	Nah, we can save it without that cheers.
	Erdogan's criticism of the West is working.
	Denmark outlawed Koran burning, whereas Sweden is still allowing it.
	But once you outlaw it, where does that stop?
	I could say this bit of paper that I've written stuff on, well that's holy, that's my religion.
	And then all of a sudden you're not allowed to criticise that.
	The Australian Aboriginal situation then?
	No.
	Where over there they can just say that something is holy and you're not allowed to touch it.
	Right, yeah.
	That one didn't pass through, or at least it got repealed within about a month of it coming in, but their initial plan was, well, we say it's holy so you can't do anything.
	But what's the difference between that and, you know, how do you distinguish what a valid religion is?
	The Church of Leoism is, in my view, just as valid as, you know, Mormonism, Islamism.
	Well, how politically expedient is it for the government to support you?
	No, I don't think the government does want to support me.
	There you go!
	There it is!
	Unless it's with JobSeeker's Allowance.
	It's true, then what children's fairytale books are given protection because one person's religion is another person's nonsense.
	So, yeah, I guess any fairytale book could be classed as a belief or religious belief and then gets protected.
	And if you burn any of those fairytale books, then you could be in prison for doing that.
	There are just two.
	This was, again, looking at that UN General Assembly, and there were a number of other great leaders who spoke, Turkey, Iran, Qatar.
	And it's interesting, this story they said, which is this confusion I think the left have in putting these different sources of rights together, competing rights.
	Their line was, an Iraqi refugee, Salwan Momika, triggered international outrage by burning and trampling on the Qur'an in front of Stockholm's largest mosque on Eid al-Adha, a significant Muslim holiday.
	I don't know whether the issue is whether he was an Iraqi or a refugee, or he did it on a holiday, or what it was, but all those things mix in.
	You've then got the Iranian president, Bashar al-Assad, Held up a Qur'an at the UN podium and emphasized that disrespect towards the Holy Book would not diminish its divine truth.
	Well, he can believe something that's true, but people should be able to critique and mock it.
	And then the Prince of Qatar emphasized the sanctity of the Qur'an, which, of course, is completely free to if that's what he believes.
	And the final thing, bringing it back here, To the mayoral elections in London.
	Tory mayoral candidate like Enoch Powell-Poost.
	Now this brings in Islamophobia and I was curious to see what exactly was in this because it must be something awful that she had said.
	And not really.
	It linked stuff that she had said about Enoch Powell to Islamophobia.
	So the concerns they have are one message, and this is dangerous stuff, so anyone watching who's a bit squeamish, one message had a picture of Enoch Powell read, it's never too late to get London back.
	True.
	Is that hurtful or offensive?
	I don't think it is true.
	I think it is.
	I think it is too late.
	I was speaking to Josh about this and there are peaceful ways that don't require fiery rhetoric and other things to make it so that populations who have recently emigrated to the UK will leave the country of their own terms.
	I don't think people need to leave the country.
	I think it's a cultural thing.
	Like, we see so many people that have come to the UK, or their ancestors came to the UK.
	Like Rishi Sunak, for example, who's now a classic Englishman.
	You know what I mean?
	He's got the same values, and I don't know, for me, I guess everybody's different, but for me it's like... Rishi Sunak, who was planning on moving to the US right before he became Prime Minister.
	Again, a very British thing to do.
	It's very British to want a better life for yourself and live in a better place.
	So I can totally understand, is it very British to want to import millions of Indians into the country?
	Well it has been for the last like 50 years.
	But yeah, I think cultural, like, once people are here, if they absorb and exude British values, I'm pretty much cool with that.
	It's when people come and form ghettos and we have, you know, under Blair's policy of multiculturalism with faith schools and everybody, you know, siloed in their own communities and there's no challenging allowed of, you know, like the ideologies you're talking about.
	Then, you know, those differences fester.
	And in fact, people, you know, cling to those ideas harder than they would if they'd stayed in, you know, Pakistan or wherever.
	Let me just say that she gave other tweets, and this is this is hard stuff to take.
	So again, I hope everyone's right.
	Listen to this.
	She suggested that Enoch Powell should have been prime minister and asked for him to be added to a pack of cards featuring pictures of former prime ministers.
	It's quite quaint really, isn't it?
	This is what Hope Not Here to find.
	This is what they have found.
	Enoch Powell literally was the most popular politician of his time who was only prevented from running because his own party kicked him out and persecuted him for saying things that turned out to be absolutely accurate.
	In fact, he was underestimating the numbers that would end up happening 50 years down the line.
	He was too optimistic Yeah, if a politician had come out in the, you know, 50s, 60s or 70s and, you know, said, yeah, by, you know, whatever time, you know, what the white British population is going to be the minority in London, people would have been, people would have said, you're the most ridiculous, racist, alarmist person in the world.
	Yeah, actually, here we are.
	The last one she gave, which I think is the most shocking of it all, she thanked Kitty Hopkins for a post in which Hopkins had referred to Sadiq Khan as the nipple-height mayor of Londonistan.
	I thought that was the best.
	But for anyone, don't worry, coming up is, if you missed it this year and weren't able to celebrate, 15th of March 2024, International Day to Combat Islamophobia, a UN day.
	So I just leave that little bit of hope that people can look forward to in six months.
	I was worried.
	I was worried I wouldn't be able to celebrate it next year, but thank you.
	That's OK.
	Alright, I think it's time to talk about Russell Brand.
	That's right, yeah, I'm just gonna boot up my laptop.
	So yeah, Russell Brand, basically!
	Let's John get the things up on the screen and while you're booting that up, I'll remind everybody of the amazing discount that we've got going at the moment.
	which is the SARGON promo code available for new subscribers to the website right now for the next few weeks.
	If you use this promo code when you sign up to the website, you will get 50% off your first three months of subscription.
	And that applies to bronze, silver, and gold tier members.
	So if you bronze, that's £2.50.
	Silver, at half price of however much silver costs...
	You give the T's and C's at the beginning, it's fine.
	And for gold tier it'll be £15 for the first three months and on your fourth month it'll resume being normal price from there.
	So yes, check out Sargon.
	S-A-R-G-O-N-E because he's gone right now and that's why we're allowed to discount the price because otherwise he would have told us off.
	He wouldn't have, actually.
	I don't want to sound like I'm besmirching Carl Sagan.
	So yeah, Russell Brand.
	I mean, everybody will be aware of the Channel 4 documentary, the Times article.
	I didn't believe it.
	A lot of people came out and said, oh, he's been shut down because of his opinions, because he criticised Covid and all this sort of stuff.
	He's become this anti-establishment figure.
	I just thought, man, that's silly.
	I mean, I'd heard as a comedian on the circuit, I'd heard rumours about Russell Brand and everybody kind of knew this was coming at some point.
	Obviously, just to clarify, we're not part of the circuits that you are.
	We've not heard these rumours.
	That's something that you've heard personally.
	Yeah, because I'm a comedian.
	So, you know, comedians talk.
	There's loads of rumours.
	I don't want to give any spoilers as to who's been taken down next.
	They're in the pipeline!
	So quite often when journalists are fishing around for stories, comedians will just use them as an excuse to get a free dinner.
	So Darius got taken out for lunch by the Sunday Times journalist.
	But yeah, you know, then the documentary came out and I was, I was surprised.
	I thought there was going to be more to it.
	There's a, you know, there's a few serious allegations.
	There's a bunch of sort of bad behavior, which you just expect from any sort of promiscuous rock star type character like, like Russell Brand was.
	As far as I'm aware, I've not read too much into the allegations themselves, but he in the past has been very open with how promiscuous it was back in the mid-2000s going to the early 2010s.
	Yeah, and you had, you know, even in the article there's women saying, I turned up at his hotel room and he flashed his penis at me, in a work capacity.
	And then I started a relationship with him and blah blah blah.
	Yeah that was one of the ones that I saw.
	Were there some warning signs?
	You can't like start a relationship with someone and then be like oh yeah and at the start he flashed his penis at me it's like... Well obviously it worked then didn't it?
	Yeah totally I don't know I just feel like you know on some of the criticism it's like oh you asked me for a blowjob you asked me for oral sex it's like how do you think we get oral sex?
	Like We can't just not... You've got to be proactive about it.
	I think some of the criticism of Russell Brand, there's a lot of jealous men out there who weren't getting any Poom Poom and saw Russell Brand getting loads and, you know, like the classic socialists that they are, they believe that Poom Poom should be distributed equally amongst the population.
	I just think it's evil.
	But the documentary... Distribute means of reproduction.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And also the documentary had some silly stuff in it.
	They really padded it out.
	They had the mood music, they had clips of Russell Brand doing stand-up where he's talking about sex and stuff.
	It's like stand-up is a stage performance.
	You might as well show a clip of Brad Pitt wearing a Nazi officer's uniform in Glorious Bastards and say, oh look, he is literally in the Nazi party in 1942.
	It's absolute nonsense.
	And also the claims that Russell Brand had demonized I mean... Demon?
	Do we really have to think at this point that he's possibly... This is something else I saw, wasn't it?
	He had pure black eyes like a demon.
	Yeah.
	I mean his eyes were dilated like he was high on drugs.
	Like a doll's eyes.
	Like he probably was high on drugs.
	Yeah.
	And he's a demon.
	And like amping up to the level where we might have to call an exorcist because he's possessed.
	I don't know.
	Let's just keep things within the realms of the physical world.
	But yeah, so there was some serious allegations in the documentary as well.
	And there's that text message.
	And obviously all this stuff needs to be tested in court.
	Like, you know, I think, I mean, my wife said it could, you know, because she's prosecuted such cases.
	She says, you know, it could be picked apart, could be shown to have different meaning and stuff.
	But, you know, I thought...
	This is just a trial by media, but maybe it'll progress to, maybe more people will come forward and it'll progress to court or whatever.
	How many people were originally making the allegations?
	Because surely the four, right?
	Four, yeah.
	So surely that would be enough for some kind of class action against him to take it to criminal charges?
	Because that was the main thing that made me suspicious in the first place, is that there wasn't an arrest or any criminal charges brought forth as far as I'm aware.
	It was mainly just, here's the allegations, condemn him.
	But then we've seen in other cases like Harvey Weinstein, so people made the allegations, then other people feel emboldened to come forward and tell their story, and then finally it gets to the point of them getting dragged off to jail.
	I was surprised there were only four.
	Yeah, and you'd think, man, like they were building that case for years and digging for years and contacting comedians and stuff and, you know, taking Darius out for dinner.
	And I'd have thought, like, you know, how many times did he go for dinner?
	I thought they'd have more.
	Oh, he was making up some great stuff to, you know, feeding them.
	He was feeding them and they were feeding him.
	But yeah, YouTube demonetized Russell Brand, and then I thought, you know, well that's unfair, but it's YouTube being risk-averse.
	You know, he hasn't been charged with anything, much less found guilty, so it seems, you know, unfair.
	Does that mean anybody who's been accused of anything can no longer have a YouTube account?
	It just, I don't know, didn't seem, but I thought, it's just YouTube being risk-averse.
	But then there's a letter sent to Rumble, this letter here that's on the screen from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee.
	It's a letter from Carolyn Dainage, is it pronounced?
	Dainage?
	I don't know how to pronounce her name.
	Her dad was Fred Dainage.
	I think it's pronounced Dainage, do you know?
	I don't know, I was looking at it and I couldn't work out who she was even.
	Dinninage or Dineage.
	She's an MP and she's the Minister of State for Digital and Culture and she's the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee.
	And as I understand they have some sort of oversight role but they don't really have any powers.
	But they write a lot of letters So she wrote to Rumble and TikTok asking Brand to be demonetized on them.
	And Rumble, of course, is the last refuge for people.
	If you're demonetized from YouTube, you can still go to Rumble and have an audience.
	Rumble and Gino did a whole piece to say, look, this is nonsense.
	We believe in different ideals than YouTube.
	And if we want someone, we'll have them on.
	Yeah, so he believes in freedom of speech, and I'm sure there's people who have been convicted who still have YouTube accounts.
	It's nonsense.
	So it started to...
	My brain was just like, "ping!
	What on earth is going on here?
	Why is the government getting involved in this to such a level and bring such leverage?" It wasn't just a letter to Rumble either.
	It was also a letter by the same woman, Dame Caroline What's-Her-Face, sent to TikTok to make sure that they weren't giving him money as well.
	So they were just trying...
	The government, apparently, according to the...
	The government is actively going out of its way to interfere in a process that hasn't gone to court, hasn't had any criminal charges, is primarily allegations to try and make sure that they can cut off whatever funds Russell Brand is getting from any of the platforms.
	They completely destroy him and erase him from all, you know, so he can't broadcast.
	He used to be broadcasting on mainstream media, on Channel 4 and everything, and obviously when Channel 4 were making lots of money from him, they had no interest in doing any documentaries about what he was doing.
	In fact, Channel 4 were sending the cars to enable his crimes.
	Now they're suddenly... Man, in that documentary it was crazy to see, you know, the Channel 4 executive being like, oh, somebody should have stopped him.
	It's like, you!
	You should have stopped him!
	That's the funny thing, isn't it?
	If it does eventually go to court, and this is all just hypothetical, and if it does turn out that all of it's true, even though I would still be suspicious of any trial that goes on now just because of how politicised it has become, but if it all came out that irrefutably true, all of it, this is just another case of Channel 4 and the BBC harbouring a sex pest.
	And creating a culture where that's if it's true.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And it's, you know, their culture is on trial as much as anything else.
	So it's crazy for Channel 4 to now be taking this moral high ground.
	I'm interested because to me that's just harassment by the government of an individual, by someone's ability to make money.
	The government are trying to get someone sacked.
	and stop them being able, what right have the government got to do that to someone who is not charged?
	The government have been, over the past few years, since 2015, when the 77th Brigade was set up, they have been harassing UK citizens to censor them and silence them.
	And so the 77th Brigade was set up to basically, it's the sort of psychological warfare arm of the armed forces.
	And Dame Caroline Dynage, who sent this letter, or Dynage, whatever you want to say, let's just call it Dame Caroline, her husband is Baron Mark Lancaster, who was the Deputy Commander of Secret Intelligence Service, the 77th Brigade, So he was the deputy head.
	Yeah, here it is.
	Yeah, here it is.
	He was the deputy head.
	And... - I think if we go...
	Yeah, here it is.
	- Yeah, here it is.
	So, and it's listed there, the fact that they're husband and wife.
	So it just, it seems a bit fishy The 77th Brigade during the pandemic spied on social media posts critical of Covid vaccines.
	The tweets were reported and censored.
	And the then head of editorial for Twitter was Gordon Macmillan.
	And like Tobias Elwood, they're both members of the 77th Brigade.
	That's from, that's David Atherton digging for that.
	Who funnily enough, I bumped into in Sainsbury's.
	But yeah, so thanks for doing the digging on that, David.
	But yeah, so the 77th Brigade.
	I'd never heard of this before now!
	Like, it sounded like, it sounds like some sort of, you know, far-right conspiracy.
	But then like, you know, quite a lot of conspiracies.
	I mean, the far right is like, oh wait, this isn't a conspiracy, this is just blatantly happening right in front of us.
	They always turn out to be right though, don't they, recently?
	So, the 77th Brigade is part of the Armed Forces.
	It's a unit which tackles misinformation and disinformation online by bad foreign actors.
	Or tackles legitimate criticism of the British government by British citizens online, which is what it's been doing.
	So the mission creep seems to have, you know, in just a few short years, has drifted from attacking, you know, perhaps what Russian bot farms, troll farms, have been up to to sway elections in the UK, to instead looking at what UK citizens are doing and saying around, you know, COVID vaccines.
	Or whatever.
	It must be so annoying, you join the military, you join the army to go around the world to fight for British interests, to do heroic stuff and you're stuck looking at Facebook all day.
	Yeah, and not even Facebook of like overseas, it's not like Wagner's Facebook.
	It's Bob up the road!
	I seem to remember last year Karl and I covered something from the BBC where they were doing an article talking about the sorts of people, because it's not just members of the military they get to use it, they also get like freelance busybodies.
	Freelance curtain switchers who are, you know, boomers whose children have moved out, they don't see their grandchildren anymore because the parents have probably been like, you don't want to see them.
	Either that or like some boomer grandparents I've heard of, they just don't want anything to do with the grandkids because it's like, I'm retired, I don't have any responsibilities.
	And they just sit around all day going on Facebook and trying to just mass reporting people.
	Like the Stasi.
	Letting the government know.
	We've recently recreated the Stasi in the UK.
	Yes, it's ridiculous.
	So the 77th Brigade is responsible for non-lethal warfare.
	This is when it was set up, this is how it was reported in the Guardian.
	And against a background of 24-hour news, smartphones and social media such as Facebook and Twitter, the force will attempt to control the narrative.
	So that was when it was set up.
	Already when it's set up it sounds pretty dodgy.
	Wire then described the Brigade as a psychological operations unit responsible for non-lethal warfare that reportedly uses social media to control the narrative, as well as disseminating UK government-friendly podcasts and videos.
	But they've been working against their own people as well.
	The Telegraph reported, this was in June of this year, A secretive government unit worked with social media companies in an attempt to curtail discussion of controversial lockdown policies during the pandemic.
	The Counter Disinformation Unit, CDU, was set up by ministers to tackle supposed domestic threats and was used to target those critical of lockdown and questioning the mass vaccination of children.
	MPs and Freedom of Speech campaigners condemned the disclosures as truly chilling and a tool for censoring British citizens akin to those of the Chinese Communist Party.
	Much of the government's wider work on disinformation is shrouded in secrecy for national security reasons, so large parts of official documents are still redacted.
	Now we had more specific examples of this as well, so Tom Roussell, who came in for an interview last week and will have a video out with us I think tomorrow, posted on Twitter saying that after he saw these letters that had been released regarding Rumble, that the UK government and these services in particular had been bothering him, the sort of videos that he puts out.
	Now he's just a historian.
	He likes to talk about British history.
	He goes into the genetic history, going all the way back to Western hunter gatherers and such.
	He puts out pretty useful but harmless material They were harassing him about this.
	And we have more examples of where the UK government had been directly funding YouTubers, specifically a trans YouTuber called Philosophy Tube, who has an enormous channel that gets millions of views on every video, specifically to try and get them to promote pro-vaccination messaging and try and get more young people to sign up for vaccination.
	Honestly, if the government's watching this, I will do all that for less money on that trans one.
	I will undercut them by £20.
	I'll get vaccinated for the first time ever live on air!
	I'll get 13 boosters at once!
	I'll get vaccinated for the first time ever live on air.
	I'll get 13 boosters at once.
	I'll do it.
	We're getting directly into the eyeballs.
	Yeah, give me that taxpayer money.
	I want it.
	So yeah, and the same thing's happened in the US.
	So Elon Musk has scrapped Twitter's COVID-19 misinformation policy as he vows to make the site a free speech champion.
	And you know, during COVID and also things like the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, Twitter worked with arms of the government, the CIA, with the Democrats.
	The FBI specifically.
	The FBI and with the Democratic Party to silence any mention of Hunter Biden's laptop and get it dismissed as misinformation.
	Even though it's completely true and a totally valid story, it's just very harmful to Joe Biden's electoral chances.
	And Ben Wallace, who was the Defence Minister at the time, announced a probe into claims by a 77th Brigade whistleblower that the military unit had covertly spied on Brits posting about Covid on social media.
	So the whistleblower, who spoke exclusively to civil liberties group Big Brother Watch and the Mail on Sunday, claimed that Brits were routinely monitored and flagged by the 77th Brigade as there were no safeguards in place to stop millions of our social media posts being scanned during their low-skilled disinformation searches.
	I've seen us disappear without a trace, that probe.
	Yeah, on the whistleblower.
	Yeah, he committed suicide by shooting himself three times in the head.
	But yeah, I mean, it just seems there's, this is starting, like previously, I didn't think that Russell Brand was being targeted for the things that he's put out on YouTube, Twitter, Rumble, and the huge online following.
	He's built up questioning the narrative.
	But maybe the government's just using this as a convenient excuse to bring him down.
	I'm not saying, you know, I'm not in any way suggesting that it exonerates them or that the charges are concocted at all.
	I think the two things can be true at the same time.
	I think he could be a terrible person who deserves to be investigated and I think the government could be using this as an excuse to silence him because, you know, this isn't about, the government isn't like pushing for conviction.
	The government is pushing to completely erase him from the internet and destroy his livelihood.
	And there's no precedent for this.
	Cliff Richard was accused of all kinds of things.
	He didn't have his social media presence erased after his allegations, which was just as well because they turned out to be totally bogus.
	Kevin Spacey wasn't... I mean, some films and companies and stuff erased him from their productions, but he was later exonerated in court, as far as I understand it, when Elton John gave evidence.
	And you can still watch Harvey Weinstein films.
	This is unprecedented.
	They're trying to erase Russell Brand's online presence.
	And why are they doing it?
	It doesn't seem to have anything to do with his activities 20 years ago.
	It seems to be because of the content he puts out now.
	And the allegations, we don't know because they haven't been tested in court.
	And due process is very important.
	The judiciary is very important.
	I don't feel comfortable condemning someone when, you know, they haven't they haven't had a chance to clear their name.
	Obviously, it's the court of public opinion.
	I was when I walked in to get a paper on Sunday and actually every single paper had Russell Brand on the front.
	Yeah.
	And the last time that happened was during COVID with vaccine ads.
	So I you kind of worry whenever the media are all saying the same thing.
	What's something wrong here?
	What's behind us?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	All right, and with that, let's go into some of the comments.
	But first, Joao, I just want to promote all of your socials that we've got up here, just so everybody can know where they can find you both.
	So Hearts of Oak, we are every Monday, Thursday and Saturday, 8pm UK, 3pm Eastern, 12pm Pacific.
	And we had Joao on a Monday talking about AI, just published a book with War Room.
	And on tonight we have Colonel Alan West talking about an overview of what's happening in the States regarding a year of the Republicans being in charge of the House of Representatives.
	So at Hearts of Oak UK on Twitter or at Hearts of Oak everywhere else.
	That's true to social, getter, you've got a rumble channel.
	Dab, rumble, broadbeam, website, website, hearts of oak.org, and then 4slash livestream if you want to get the videos.
	Nice.
	Leo?
	Cool, so I've got Twitter, so there's me on Twitter, and I also have a YouTube channel, look at that, 68.4k subscribers, so let's get that to, I want to get that to 1 billion.
	We can get that to 1 billion, so India, if you're watching.
	Yeah, hit that subscribe button.
	And yeah, mostly I just do YouTube and also, you know, I do GB News.
	I do Headliners, which is a... You were on last night.
	Yeah, I was on last night from 11pm.
	So I'm doing that tomorrow night.
	But yeah, on my YouTube channel, I do some clips of stand-up, but I also do... That needs to be updated because April 26th was a long time ago.
	But on my YouTube channel I put up clips of me doing stand-up but I also do videos about like once or twice a week where I dissect an issue and the next one that's going up soon is about the ADL so that's that's gonna go up to that's gonna go up to my Patreon first I've got a Patreon so I put you know some content especially you know like like you guys do some content goes specially just for Patreon and it all generally goes up in Patreon early.
	Oh it tells you how much money I'm making!
	I didn't know that was public.
	Oh dear.
	That's alright.
	So yeah, I even made, somebody pays £100 a month.
	So a great guy.
	I'm not going to name him because he doesn't, you know, he's got to be quiet because he doesn't want to destroy his life.
	But yeah, you can basically give me money and I love money.
	And if the government is listening, I'm serious about that vaccine thing.
	I will, whatever AstroTurf, I'll totally, I'll sell these guys down the river.
	Whatever you want me to do, I will turn.
	You want him to trans himself and wear a skirt on stream while he's getting vaxxed?
	I'm a woman!
	There you go!
	I'm a woman right now!
	Oh my goodness.
	Make sure to respect him.
	Alright, now we've gone through the shilling, let's go through some of the comments.
	So, top one said, from Derek Power, now back to our regularly scheduled blackpilling.
	Yeah, there's a lot of what we do here, but I think we've brought an energetic feeling, vibe to it today.
	Omar Awad on the online safety bill says the only thing the government considers harm to children is whatever prevents them from becoming compliant.
	New to drones, this bill will protect monopolies from any other regulation or law that they write for their biggest lobbyist groups.
	Sounds pretty accurate to me, to be perfectly honest.
	The French Pun Gun sounds like a reference to a particular gun that you've liked to bring up in the past.
	The Pun Gun.
	Yes.
	We will pick and choose who the bill applies to, also known as Equality and Rights, question mark.
	Yeah.
	Baron Ron Warhawk.
	They care so much about the safety of children online, but they care so little about the hundred of young girls being groomed by men they let into the country.
	It's a madhouse, a madhouse.
	Sadly, that's very true, quite depressing.
	Robert Longshore said, Leo is very quiet in this segment.
	That's pretty unusual.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Almost like he wasn't here or something.
	Quiet as a ghost.
	Yeah.
	Arizona Desert Rat says, legal but harmful sounds like a much more nebulous term than hate speech.
	And how do they plan on tracking and enforcing this new policy?
	That's a question politicians need to ask before they pass new laws.
	They don't care.
	Politicians don't know what's in half of the laws that they pass anyway.
	Like I said, it's lawyers and NGOs are the ones that write up all the laws, and they sell it on the most basic terms to the politicians, and the politicians, generally speaking, have maybe Let's be generous, double-digit IQs.
	And so they just go, oh, that sounds really nice.
	Just imagine, if you will for me, the entire front line of the government, all of the MPs, being variations of nice but dim from Harry Enfield and chums.
	That's how I like to envision it, because that's what it really is.
	Eric Nickerson says, legal but harmful.
	Okay, we'll start by defining harmful.
	Harmful to whom?
	Type of harm?
	How much harm?
	What's the burden of proof of the harm?
	Implicitly harmful speech is already illegal, such as liable, tender, threats, etc.
	as those are objectively definable.
	You've, in that one comment, gone into far deeper thought than anybody sponsoring the bill did.
	Henry Ashman, so remind me how Ofcom regulations of online media will prevent religious extremists from murdering MPs again?
	That's a good question.
	Moving on, JC.
	A traditionally small government party will inevitably move towards big government.
	Well, it seems to in the case of our Conservatives.
	Michael Maygoise says, you Brits can go back to using messenger pigeons if you have to.
	Can't monitor and intercept every flying bird.
	This is true.
	Rory in the office is actually somewhat excited for the online safety bill because he thinks it might lead to us having to go back to messenger pigeons and he can't wait to train his.
	Do you want to read some from your comments?
	So Britain's blasphemy laws.
	Thomas Howell.
	There's no way to rule innocent men.
	The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
	Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.
	One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
	And that's Dr. Floyd Ferris Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
	That's a pretty good quote, actually.
	Very good.
	Good quote, and so true.
	Nicholas Valentine, gotta love the podcast, has issues with connectivity the same day they talk about the holidays.
	Oh no!
	Coincidence?
	It's the 77th Brigade, down for you!
	Sophie Liv, not only did we make it legal to burn the crown, the law says the destruction of any object that is considered holy, which is just stupidly vague and ripe for abuse, which is why it's done.
	I mean, anything can be declared a holy object, and when pressed on it, our idiot minister said a crucifix is holy, but not a cross.
	Wait, um, okay, alright.
	Once again, variations of nice but dim, that's all they are, these people are stupid.
	If only the government had read these before they put the bill in power.
	Colin P. You can convert to Islam without being born into it.
	So Islamophobia is a form of racism.
	Does that mean you can change your race?
	Shut it down.
	Shut it down.
	Don't ask questions.
	You're really confusing the government.
	Kevin Fox, I can't understand why these government and NGO bodies don't realize that banning Islamophobia is not the solution.
	A much more effective solution would be to sit the Islamic leaders down and tell them to get a grip of their people, stop them grooming, raping, blowing up marketplaces, demanding the rest of the world kowtow to their demands.
	If Islam was driving the 21st century, leave its 13th century laws behind.
	No one would need to be Islamophobic.
	Very, very interesting quote there.
	Sophia Liv, Sai Islamis.
	They don't like us.
	We know they don't like us because they said so openly for decades.
	Centuries, actually.
	Yes.
	I can't even really blame them for hating us.
	We did bomb their countries and stuff.
	Why wouldn't they want revenge against the Western world?
	Derek Power, the only protected religion is the post-religion religion.
	So much so that it's the de facto government or religion.
	Shall we go on to some of the Russell Brand comments?
	So the French pun gun says Rumble's response is curious because when France did the same, the IP blocked France as a response.
	But they're not doing that to the UK.
	I guess they have a large enough UK market that they can't just ignore the country and have to respond this time.
	I didn't know they'd blocked France.
	He's a desert rat.
	Apparently some tech companies.
	I heard that Telegram is leaving the UK market.
	Well once again with the online safety bills, the whole point of some stuff like Telegram and WhatsApp is that you're supposed to have a level of encryption that means that it's private to the best degree that you can have online.
	The online safety bill just says no you can't have that.
	to be able to look into all these messages.
	So if these companies legally can't operate with their IP, with their selling point, well, they're just going to pull out.
	And that includes, like we covered places like Wikipedia as well and other companies and big social media companies.
	So the UK might just be destroying the internet over here.
	And I'm not entirely decided on if that's a good or a bad thing.
	Just for a week.
	Give everyone a break.
	There you go.
	I think the stuff that's going to be left is going to be the worst bits of the internet.
	So AZ Desert Rat says, so the UK kangaroo court and social media has already decided that Russell Brand is guilty.
	I don't know if Brand has ever assaulted anyone, but it's ridiculous that it has already been decided.
	And yeah, I mean, that's true.
	I think due process is so important in cases like this.
	Sophie Liv says, let's not forget the first one to jump up and down removing Brand from everyone due to his disgusting behavior was Channel 4.
	The same Channel 4 that hosts Naked Time, a show where they put naked adults on stage in front of children, expressly to destigmatize strange and weird bodies.
	These people are full of so much C.A.R.P.
	You can say crap on here, that's fine.
	They're full of so much crap.
	But yeah, that's interesting.
	I wonder what people are going to be, in 20 years time, what are the people going to be crying on documentaries about?
	Look at all the sterilising, maiming children in the name of gender ideology.
	Channel 4 brought me out onto a TV show so they could show me disgusting, fat, naked people.
	That would traumatise me.
	There's a show Married at First Sight where the bride or whatever was revealed to be transgender and you know that's obviously, I mean I reckon it's all staged, but that's obviously dodgy.
	George Happ says it's hard to feel bad for Russell Brand being hit with Me Too false allegations since he is a male feminist.
	That's a whole programme.
	But that letter from the government to Rumble is chilling.
	I think this push for censorship means they're preparing for the next COVID and it's set to vaccines.
	Yeah, it could be.
	I guess we'll see.
	And with that, that's all the time that we've got.
	Although remember, if you subscribe to the website, which you can if you're not already by using the Sargon with an E at the end code for half price, we will be back in about half an hour for Lads Hour number three, where we determine what animals that we can fight.
	Let's, let's, let's!
	Yeah, and which one would probably eat us and kill us or wreck us.
	Yeah.
	I'm going to have to ask you if a capybara, if you'd take a capybara in a fight or if you'd even want to, but stay tuned for that.
	We'll be back in about half an hour.
	If you can't tune in for that, we'll be back tomorrow at one o'clock as always.
	Thank you very much for watching.
	Take care.

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