Graham Linehan faced a UK police warning after tweeting Stephanie Hayden’s pre-transition name, sparking debates on free speech vs. "dead naming" and proposed gender self-identification laws. A leaked Google doc reveals censorship driven by profit and bias, contradicting public neutrality claims—echoing Linehan’s warnings about tech complicity with authoritarianism. Meanwhile, a British soldier’s discharge for a casual Tommy Robinson photo highlights media overreach in labeling dissenters "far-right," while legal loopholes shield terrorists like ISIS supporters from consequences. The episode underscores how unchecked power—whether corporate or state—erodes public trust and free expression. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, a celebrity is visited by police for calling a transgender woman by his original male name.
It's October 11th and this is The Andrew LeVant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.
You come here once a year with a sign and you feel morally superior.
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
I am not actually obsessed by the United Kingdom.
I know sometimes it looks like it.
I love Canada.
I admire the United States.
I enjoy traveling to other countries too.
It's just that since I've been dragged into the UK's dysfunctional politics and media and judiciary through my involvement with Tommy Robinson, I've come to realize that they are about five years further down the path of political correctness as we are.
Five years further, five years worse, five years more politically correct, five years worse in terms of media bias, in terms of Islamification of the establishment, in terms of censorship.
Five years worse in terms of politicized policing and courts.
Five years further down the road of civilizational unraveling.
That's my view.
I think they're a cautionary tale, a canary in a coal mine for us here in Canada, the same way that Canada has served that role for the Americans.
Let me give you an example today.
You might not know the celebrity I mentioned.
Maybe he's not even really a celebrity, but I think maybe the analogy here in Canada would be someone like Rick Mercer, though Rick is much nicer than the British guy I'm going to talk about.
His name is Graham Linehan.
He's a creative type, co-writer, co-creator of a show called Father Ted.
I actually hadn't heard of it, but I watched a bit of it online.
It's a comedy.
Can I show you a two-minute clip?
I know it's a long time, but it's a funny little clip, just so you understand.
It's sort of funny and it's a tiny bit controversial, but not really.
I just want you to get a two-minute flavor of the show so you know who and what I'm talking about for the rest of this monologue.
Just watch this quick clip.
Dougal, look.
Chinese, if you'll flee, go, go, go.
Come on, Dougal, lighten up.
All right, yeah.
I mean, what is, I mean, that's the inn family.
They're living over there in that old Chinatown area.
Chinatown there.
There's a Chinatown on Crystal Island.
Dougal, I wouldn't have done a Chinaman impression if I'd known there was going to be a Chinaman there to see me doing a Chinaman impression.
Why not, Ted?
Because it's racist.
They'll think I'm a racist.
I'm going to have to catch up with them and explain I'm not a racist.
Hello there, father.
Hello, Colm.
Out and about.
Same as yourself.
Good, good.
I hear you're a racist now, Father.
What?
How did you get interested in that type of thing?
Said I'm a racist.
Everyone's saying it, Father.
Should we all be racist now?
What's the official line the church is taking up in?
Police Visits and Pre-Crime00:13:57
Oh, no.
Only if the farm takes up most of the day, and at night I just like a cup of tea, I might be able to devote myself full time to the old racism.
That's for you, Father!
What?
Oh, Mrs. Camery.
Good for you, father.
But someone other ghosts just stand up to the middle.
Coming over here, taking our jobs and our women.
I thought it was sort of funny.
I mean, a little bit.
It reminds me a little bit of that show, Curb Your Enthusiasm with Larry David, you know, the Seinfeld spin-off.
Larry David's always the guy saying the wrong things, and it just spirals.
It's pretty gentle.
It's still safe to make a joke.
about joking about Chinese people.
They'd never mock Muslims, of course.
I mean, in the UK, that gets you fired within seconds.
But still, it was a teeny bit edgy.
This is sort of edgy, probably edgier than the boring anti-Trump pablum served up every week on Saturday Night Live out of New York.
Anyway, I say again, the co-creator of this show is named Graham Linehan.
Linehan, I don't know how to pronounce it.
And as with so many dramatic types, he gets into fights on Twitter.
He's a leftist, of course.
A social justice warrior, of course.
And Twitter can be dangerous for guys like that since it's so instant, even quicker than an email, and unlike an email, the whole world sees it, not just the person you're emailing to.
So Graham Linehan started getting into a quarrel with a transgender activist.
Someone who was born a man but now says they're a woman.
He goes by the name Stephanie Hayden now, which is a girl's name, of course.
So they're both leftists, but one's transgender, and they're fighting on Twitter, which isn't really fighting, it's words.
And Linehan calls the activist by the name he was given by his parents, a male name.
I'm not going to get into their quarrel too deeply, and I don't even think I'm going to take sides between them because my point today isn't a gossipy quarrel between two minor celebrities in a faraway place.
It's about the police reaction.
So I'll skip over the details and I'll get to the end of the story.
So Linehan tweeted, my run-in with Stephanie Hayden made the Times.
Favorite bit is where Stephanie, Tony Stephen, explains how it's perfectly legal and normal to have multiple identities, but if you don't call him the female one, you're doing a hate crime.
All right, I find that sympathetic.
Here's how Hayden responded.
What Graham Lineham did was to republish photographs of people associated with me, details of my former male identity, and then continue to defame, dead name, and misgender me.
Transphobia, transgender harassment.
Now, dead name, in case you're wondering, is a new and wonderful phrase that means calling a transgender activist by the name that they used to have but have now renounced.
It would be like calling Muhammad Ali Cassius Clay.
I don't know, or calling the singer Bono by the name Paul Hewson.
But apparently it's a grave insult.
A dead name.
Don't you dead name me?
Even though it's the legal name carried by that person for decades, the name lovingly chosen for them as a baby by their loving parents.
Dead name.
Don't you dead name me.
Okay, but still, so what, right?
As with so many online quarrels, the real loser is anyone who wastes their time on it.
So why am I wasting your time on it?
Well, Hayden complained that Linehan was doxing people.
That is revealing private information about them.
But he denies it, saying, oh, one thing on this, Tony Stephen Stephanie is claiming I doxed him.
And of course, I did no such thing.
Everything I retweeted was already available online.
Tony Stephen Stephanie retaliated by going after my wife.
So I know you're thinking, why are you boring us with this celebrity quarrel about celebrities who aren't even celebrated over here?
We've never heard of them.
It's a country far away.
Who cares?
Well, if that were it, that would be it.
I mean, we have quarrels like that in Canada, right?
Remember, it was when Professor Jordan Peterson first refused to call someone G or J That caused the big fuss when transgender activists tried to get him fired from U of T about it.
I don't think I had heard the word dead name back then, but that's sort of what this was about.
And Jordan Peterson was worried about federal legislation exposing him to prosecution for refusing to call someone by a made-up word g and g instead of their dead names, he and her.
So we have that same issue here in Canada, but here's what's new or different.
In the UK, the police got involved.
Real, actual gun-toning police.
Well, scratch that.
The police in the UK still are disarmed, so they're not gun-toning, are they?
But they have badges and cars, Priuses, usually.
But still, Father Ted writer Graham Lineham was given a harassment warning by police.
This is a story in the BBC, the state broadcaster.
And look how deadpan they are here.
The co-creator of Father Ted has been given a verbal warning by police for alleged harassment following a row, row, on Twitter with a transgender woman.
Graham Linehan, I don't know if it's Linehan or Lenahan, and frankly, I'm glad if I'm getting it wrong.
I don't care enough to get it right.
Graham Linehan was told by West Yorkshire Police not to contact Stephanie Hayden.
She reported him for referring to her as a he.
Let me just read that one more time in case you didn't hear it.
She reported him for referring to her as a he.
Just stop right there.
911, fire, ambulance, or crime.
Who should we dispatch, ma'am?
Someone called me a he instead of a her.
Fire department, ambulance, or police, ma'am.
Which one?
This is 911, ma'am.
All right, put the quote back up.
Sorry for the tangent.
She reported him for referring to her as a he and for tweeting the names she used before transitioning.
Miss Hayden, 45, is now suing the writer.
Mr. Linehan, 50, told the BBC he is also considering taking action against her.
So the lawyers are at least doing well here.
Okay, again, I don't really care about people filing lawsuits against each other.
They're really just PR stunts.
But the police.
He called me a he instead of her, officer.
Let me read some more.
The row comes amid a continuing debate about gender recognition in the UK.
Currently, if someone wishes to have their gender identity legally recognized, they have to apply for a gender recognition certificate.
Oi, bruv, where's your gender recognition license, eh?
Which requires a medical diagnosis.
Some argue the medical element should be removed and say there should be a system of gender recognition based on self-identification.
But not all agree, with some gender-critical people believing the system could be abused by predatory men.
Huh, so you're gender critical, eh?
You're one of them, eh?
You bigot, you gender-critical bigot.
I got my license here.
That's the UK people.
You see how weird it is?
It ain't the land of Thatcher or Churchill or Shakespeare or the Queen anymore.
So that last point there about being gender critical, that's actually a real issue.
I mean, we've seen cases of sexual predators, males, simply declaring themselves to be women and then being put into women's prison and obviously continuing to commit sexual assaults in there against the women prisoners.
It's crazy.
That's come to Canada too, by the way.
We've shown you this before.
Remember this story earlier this year?
It's from the Globe and Mail.
The federal prison system is changing the way it treats transgender inmates who will now be placed in a men's or women's facility based on how they self-identify.
That's the Canadian Global Mail I just quoted from there.
So self-identify means just saying so.
No surgery, no hormones, no makeup or wigs.
Don't even have to shave.
You've got a big bushy beard, no problem.
Just say you're a gal.
Poof, I'm a woman.
Is that any crazier or less crazier than this?
And poof, I'm the king of Spain today.
Call me your highness.
Poof, I'm a robot.
Because I self-identify as one, but one of those three things actually gets you transferred from a male prison, which is not a very nice place, to a female prison, which is a lot nicer.
Plus, you're surrounded by girls.
So there is a debate there, even for the gender critical, that's for sure.
But again, that's not what we are talking about here today.
We are talking about the police.
Back to the BBC story.
Not about free speech.
Ms. Hayden, who is pursuing civil proceedings accusing him of harassment, defamation, and misuse of private information, told the BBC, I spoke to the police for 45 minutes about how I wanted to go forward.
I didn't think he was a physical threat, but thought if the police spoke to him and advised him with a warning, he would possibly realize the hurt he had caused.
The point I want to get across is this isn't about free speech.
This is about harassment.
Is that how it works?
You're an exquisitely left-wing activist.
So you can get the police to give you attention for a Twitter spat.
Attention that they wouldn't give to, say, a stabbing victim or an acid attack victim can get.
And they'll sit there and listen to you, blah, blah, blah, for 45 minutes.
Because you're famous, sort of.
So the police come and they listen to you.
And instead of saying, there, there now, it's okay now, they actually go to your Twitter sparring partner and tell him to shut up to warn him.
And all you have to say is, this isn't about free speech.
And then poof, it's not about free speech, just like you're the king of Spain.
Here's some more from the Daily Mirror that also covered it.
Here's some new facts.
He has been handed a verbal harassment warning, reports ITV.
Mr. Linehan50 said on Saturday, the police asked me to stop contacting someone I had no intention of contacting.
It was a bit like asking me to never contact Charlie Sheen.
And this little detail, she said, I don't take kindly to a public figure tweeting about me referring to me as a man and putting my legal name in quotation marks to suggest it's not valid.
The police warning issued to Mr. Linehan is not a conviction or caution, but a warning used to deter individuals from further behavior.
Oh, so that's how it works.
So Linehanna hasn't done anything wrong.
Nothing to be charged with, let alone convicted.
Hasn't done anything wrong other than to call him a him instead of call him a her.
You'll note the Mirror and the BBC are not foolish enough to commit that gender critical thought crime.
They both absolutely uniformly call her a her.
But the police are happy to go warn him.
He hasn't done anything.
He says he won't do anything other than maybe say some mean things.
But the cops are going to send him a message, rattle his cage a bit.
Oh, and it does go on his police file.
I didn't mention that part.
They do, however, appear on enhanced criminal record checks.
Oh, so that really is a form of a criminal record.
It's a record and it's on there.
Not as a crime committed, but as a pre-crime.
Then maybe you're thinking of doing something, man.
Where's your license to be gender critical, mate?
Bruv, where's your license?
That's the UK in 2018.
Makes sense, though, because look at what the UK was like in 2017.
Look at this tweet from the Metropolitan Police.
We have 900 plus specialist officers across London dedicated to investigating all hate crime.
That's London's police.
900 plus police.
Just on the hate crimes beat.
900.
That's bigger than some countries' armies, I think.
900 police officers.
And who knows how many support stopped?
There must be thousands.
Not to attack the crime wave of knife stabbings or acid attacks.
That's a thing in London.
People drive around on mopeds and hurl acid in people's faces.
That's a thing in London.
But you got 900 officers going after hurt feelings.
Here's a picture of women in London wearing a niqab standing behind a cop trying to hurt her feelings.
I bet those niqabbed women have strong views on transgenderism too.
Just a hunch I have.
But police don't have time to look into that.
But they spent time with Linehan, Linehan.
They have to keep busy, these hate officers.
They can't spend all day in front of a computer screen creeping through other people's Facebook photos looking for bad jokes.
Got to get out and stretch your legs.
Police visiting you to tell you not to be mean on Twitter and mean as calling a transgender man to woman a man.
And that goes on your record forever, warning you not to say things that hurt feelings.
Why Companies Slide Into Censorship00:15:02
And the national media, I've read to you from the mirror and the BBC, it's the same with all the papers.
They're just fine with this.
They're just reporting it straight face.
It's no big deal to them.
Totally fine.
That's the UK in 2018.
I said Canada's five years behind the UK.
That implies we'll be that bad in the year 2023.
I think we're more probably going to be like that in six months.
What do you think?
Stay with us for more.
Welcome back.
Well, there have been incredible internal documents in recent months leaked from the Silicon Valley Titans.
For example, that Google staff meeting right after the 2016 presidential election, where it was basically a group therapy session, different executives practically crying about the results of Donald Trump's win and swearing to use all their power to stop him.
Well, now comes another leak, a huge scoop delivered to the leading media outlet that is concerned about the political bias and censorship of Silicon Valley.
I'm talking about our friend Alan Bokari at Breitbart.com and he has received a massive internal memo about what Google calls good censorship.
Here's the cover story for Breitbart, the good censor.
Google admits concerns about political neutrality are now mainstreaming.
Joining us now via Skype from Washington, D.C. is Alan Bokari.
Alan, first of all, congratulations.
you keep on breaking these huge stories.
I think it's because you're really the journalist who most consistently reports on bias and censorship in Silicon Valley.
So congratulations to you.
Thank you, Ezra.
Yeah, we've been covering this topic for like over a year now, and the news stories just keep on coming.
I mean, it's clear that Silicon Valley as a whole has just completely abandoned their early commitment to free speech.
And that's actually something that they admit quite clearly in this new document that was leaked to us.
They say that initially these companies promised free speech to their users and then they gradually shifted towards censorship.
That's the first time we've seen them admitting it.
It's obviously something they've never admitted publicly, but they do admit it privately.
Yeah, I think they're self-aware, Alam.
They're aware that they're no longer what they once were.
I mean, I remember when Google was new, they had this trite motto, don't be evil, which people would say, well, of course, don't be evil.
But here we are in 2018, and this same Google is saying it will not work with the U.S. Pentagon for ethical reasons, but it is deeply working with China on this kind of social censorship where your internet account is tied to your phone, is tied to your personal info.
And it's not just deep censorship.
It's really real-time tracking of every single human in China.
So that's cool by Google.
Working for the Pentagon is not.
And I think some of these Chinese tactics that they're learning are being imported to America and around the world.
What do you make of that?
Well, one of the striking parts of the document was where they talk about the censorship requests they receive from foreign governments.
And they show a massive, massive, according to their own internal research, they show a massive spike after 2016.
So certainly there's a lot more pressure on these tech companies now from state governments to censor their platforms.
But Google doesn't say it's a bad thing.
In fact, later on in the document, they say that if Google wants, Google and other tech companies, if they want to expand globally, continue global expansion, they do have to shift towards censorship.
And, you know, Google told us in their, when we asked WeChat for comment, they told us that this document doesn't reflect company policy.
It's just research.
But in the case of China, they're developing this new censored search engine, dragonfly, they call it, that's going to have blacklisted search terms that the Chinese communists don't like.
It's going to tie users to their users' search to their phone numbers.
So clearly, they are following the recommendations of this briefing in that particular instance.
It's incredibly tempting for Google, for Facebook, for Twitter to comply with the Chinese government because it's not just getting in to the world's most populous market.
It's getting in ahead of or instead of your competitors.
I mean, Google and Facebook are doing enormously well in Europe, in America, around the world.
But it's not just about getting into China.
It's about getting into China and keeping out your rivals.
So it's almost a race to see who will be the most submissive.
And if you, you know, if the Chinese Communist Party comes with 20 demands and Facebook will meet 10 of them, but you'll meet 15, well, it's not just that you're both getting in.
You'll be the only one in that green field.
It'll be like a gold rush, and you'll be the first to be able to stake it out.
I think that's what the motivation is here.
It's money and power.
And anyone who thinks that these tech billionaires aren't motivated by those, I think, is deluded.
What do you think?
I agree.
And you've certainly got their incentives down there.
But it's quite terrifying to imagine the merging of state power with the power of these tech companies.
These companies know everything about you, everything you search for, everything you email, they monitor your emails even.
They have unprecedented control over the information we see.
And for them to work with authoritarian regimes like this should be very, very concerning to everyone.
Because this is a power that authoritarian regimes of the past, like the Soviet Union, couldn't even have imagined.
So it would be an entirely new kind of all-seeing, all-knowing totalitarianism if Google were to give in to too many requests by a government like China's.
You know, for the Chinese government itself to try to spy on all of its one point, whatever, three billion people would require an enormous technological and resource effort that's probably outside their power.
And I mean, they would certainly try, but to have full real-time surveillance of every single Chinese person, knowing everything they say, everything they look at, everywhere they go.
I mean, the GPS in a phone, for example.
The locations, on your own cell phone, there's something called system services or location services that tracks where you go.
And there's a useful benefit to that.
It can tell you the traffic on your way to work or the closest gas station or whatever.
But for the communists of China to try and plant that on you would be impossible.
But if they can just get Google, Facebook, Apple, whatever, to agree to let them have access to the GPS on your phone, to let them have access to what you write on Gmail, China itself doesn't have to be the highest tech company in the world because it just gets Sergey Brin or Mark Zuckerberg to do that for them.
So it's, what was it?
Was it Solzhenitsyn who said that the capitalists would sell the Soviet Union the rope by which they would be hung?
I mean, is that, I'm trying to grok this.
I'm trying to grasp this.
I think it's Facebook and Google saying, yeah, we will be your secret police for you, and you don't even have to pay for it.
Yeah, I'm not sure.
I think Facebook is still banned from China.
I'll have to check that.
But certainly Google is playing ball.
And, you know, it's not just China, it's also Europe.
Europe, you know, they've had these hate speeches and Canada, actually.
Europe and Canada have had these hate speech laws on the books for decades now.
And they're totally ridiculous.
And we've seen people arrested for doing journalism in the case of Tommy Robinson.
We've seen people arrested for jokes in the case of the YouTube account Dankula.
And at least in the past, these governments wouldn't be able to see everything you say.
But as we move into the digital era, that is exactly what they can do.
And for companies like Facebook and Google to be working with them is very troubling to me.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, remember that IBM did computer work for the Nazis, of course.
And there's no shortage of companies willing to do business in the theocracy called Saudi Arabia or who want to get back into Iran or happy to sell things to Venezuela.
So there's never been a shortage of people willing to deal with dictatorships.
I want to go into this Google document.
We've been talking around it, and thank you for letting me bounce some of my own thinking off you.
But I'd like to focus on three pages.
It's a 41-page document, isn't it?
Do I have any?
Pardon me?
85, in fact.
85.
I'm sorry.
I did look through the whole thing on your website, and I found it was very interesting.
I recommend everyone go to brightdartmart.com and look through the primary document itself.
But there were three slides that I thought were interesting from this internal Google document.
And maybe I can ask you to expand on them.
The first one is about a section of a U.S. law called Section 230.
I'm going to read a little bit of this slide, and then Alam, can you explain to our viewers what it means?
This slide from this internal Google document says, an important U.S. federal statute from 1996 supports this position of neutrality.
Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, tech firms have legal immunity from the majority of the content posted on their platforms, unlike traditional media publication.
This protection has empowered YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit to create spaces for free speech without the fear of legal action or its financial consequences.
And then they quote a journalist saying, it's hard to say what the global internet would look like if Section 30 had never, 230 had never become the law of the land.
Would YouTube have even been possible?
Can you speak to the importance about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and how these companies might be violating it by becoming censors?
So Section 230 is, as the briefing admits, totally critical to the business model of Google and Facebook and basically every social media platform.
Because it says that these platforms can't be held legally responsible for content posted by their users.
Because if they were held legally responsible, then they'd be liable, they'd be facing lawsuits for every piece of defamation posted on Twitter, you know, millions and millions of posts every single day.
That would be impossible to deal with.
You know, every time Google put a search result at the top of its search results that accuses you or me of peddling hate speech, they'd be liable for that comment.
They'd have to defend it in court.
So if these tech companies were ever to lose the protection of that law, they'd be in a lot of trouble.
Their business model would be in serious jeopardy.
And it's contingent on them behaving as platforms rather than publishers.
Because publishers, as we know, they are liable for defamation.
They are liable for libel.
So as these companies move towards becoming censors, making editorial decisions about what should go up in their algorithm, what should go down, editorial decisions about who should be allowed on, who should not be allowed on, who gets priority, then they become more like publishers.
And actually later on in the document, they admit that, that their new role as censors risks categorizing them as publishers, which legally is a huge problem for them.
Yeah, I mean, an analogy, I mean, I've used the analogy before of someone who just owns a stage and allows any actor to come and say anything on the stage without discrimination.
That's a platform.
A publisher would be the director of the play who chooses what's said.
Or think about it another way, a bulletin board on the sidewalk of a street that anyone can pin a poster or a note to.
You're not going to sue the actual bulletin board itself for what something is tacked to it unless they start saying, well, we will now decide what is or isn't on.
And that changes it.
Pardon me?
Because then they become responsible if the bulletin board owner starts saying, I can make making decisions about what goes on here and what doesn't go on here, then suddenly he's responsible.
He's taking an active role in it.
It's my view that social media companies are breaking that rule.
Let's move on.
There's another graphic I want to show you, which is perhaps the most terrifying.
It's called Why the Shift Towards Censorship.
And again, I encourage everyone to go to the actual Breitbart.com website to see this 80-plus page slide deck from Google.
They acknowledge that the internet used to be freer, but the shift towards censorship.
And you can see on the right, they call it to create well-ordered spaces for safety and civility.
Well, that don't sound like the internet I'm familiar with and love.
And here's some of the four values they talk about or the demands.
Appease users, maintain platform loyalty, respond to regulatory demands, maintain global expansion, monetize content through its organization, increase revenues, protect advertisers from controversial content, increase revenue.
So you can see it's about money and global expansion.
This is their own document.
This is why they're shifting towards censorship.
Let me just read a few from the left.
Governments were unhappy to cede power to corporations.
It's impossible to neutrally promote content and info.
Those were some of the old ideas.
The new ideas are censor.
That's the way the arrows are pointing, aren't they, Alam?
Yeah, and it's very cynical and hard-headed how they describe it.
This is all about getting access to new markets.
It's all about increasing revenues by satisfying advertisers who are eager to avoid controversy.
So there's no clear principle behind this.
You know, don't be evil has gone out the window.
Clearly, it's all about the dollar and maximizing profits and getting access to those new markets.
That doesn't mean that political bias isn't involved in this document as well.
You can see it elsewhere.
But this lays out why they're doing it, really.
Giant I Told You So00:03:29
Yeah.
There's one more slide, and I think it's quite a compliment to you personally, which I thought was interesting.
And I'm sure you had a quiet glow of pride.
I referred to the slide about where free speech is now championed.
And let me just read this slide.
It says, being critical of big tech censorship powers was once a niche stance coming mostly from those on the right, but now concern about big tech's abandonment of neutrality has gone mainstream.
And this and on another slide, they show that the number one critic and journalist looking at the censorship issues is Breitbart.com.
And you, of course, are their senior technology correspondent who's been on this file.
In fact, on this page, you can see they have one of your headlines, Google doubles down on purging conservative speech.
They also refer to the Wall Street Journal and the Spectator and frontpage.com.
But they have another chart on the next page, actually, that shows that Breitbart by far is the champion here.
I think you, and I've said this before, that you're the leading journalist in the world that I know of on the beat of Silicon Valley's bias and censorship.
We've shown some of the most worrisome things here.
I have to be candid and say there was some self-awareness in this document that they're not the do-no-evil boy scout of the past.
There were some comments in this document that show there was a little flicker of self-awareness and concern.
But I don't think that's the direction of this whole thing, where it's going, is it?
No, and certainly not.
I do believe that whoever wrote it is being exceptionally honest in this document.
He wants to feel for the author.
That's one of the reasons why I didn't include his name in it.
But this is a document that's intended to be read by Google internally, possibly by Google executives.
So it's not going to pull any punches or beat around the bush.
It's going to be very direct and forward about what's happening.
So yeah, there's no spin in this document.
It just lays out the facts of where things are headed.
And it shows really that there's a massive gap now between what Google says publicly and what they admit privately.
This document wasn't meant to go public.
It did.
And it shows us what the company is thinking internally.
And it's not good for consumers.
Yeah.
Well, it's very concerning.
And I say now that I'm older, much older than you, Alam.
I'm probably double your age.
When you get to be my age, Alam, you will learn that the phrase, I told you so.
When you're young, you love saying, I told you so, because it proves you were right.
When you're my age, Alam, you hate saying, I told you so, because it means you failed in your warning.
You're a Cassandra from mythology.
You are shouting a warning, and no one listened, and your pessimistic predictions came true.
That's what I told you so means when you're my age, Alam.
And I see this document as a giant, I told you so.
I mean, we've been railing on about internet censorship for about two years here.
You've been on the beat dominantly.
And it is not fun to say we were right.
The censors are coming.
But I think it is incontrovertible that every foul prediction that we've made has unfortunately come true.
Would you agree with that?
Or is there any reason for optimism?
Soldier Selfie Controversy00:05:54
I would agree that.
I guess the optimistic thing about this document is that they do acknowledge that they at least have to value free speech a little bit, even if they're moving away from it.
But any Democrats say social media censorship is a conspiracy theory.
They can't say that anymore.
It's out in the open now.
You've got Silicon Valley itself admitting to it.
So it can't be denied any longer.
The question is what's going to happen and who's going to stand up for consumers here?
The ordinary users whose trust has been abused.
Yeah.
Well, very interesting.
And I thank you so much for the time you spent with us today.
And over the years, frankly, you have been my personal Sherpa, my guide as we get to know these issues.
And I hope we continue to stay in touch as this story evolves.
Alam, thanks so much for your time.
Thanks, Ezra.
All right, there you have it.
Alan Bokari, the senior tech writer at Breitbart.com, who is not mentioned by name in the document, but his work is certainly cited.
So that in itself is hopeful, isn't it?
That Alam, he's not just writing, not just shouting into the wind, as sometimes we feel like we are, but inside Google, they are aware of his criticisms.
And hopefully, hopefully, it will make a difference on the inside.
Stay with us.
or head-on away.
Hey, welcome back.
On my monologue yesterday about a British soldier being discharged from the British Army for taking a picture with Tommy Robinson.
Tammy writes, this is definitely an example of the military submitting to Islamists.
Submission is demanded by Islam.
England should stand up to this nonsense.
I was watching one of Tommy's videos.
He said, is there a list of people you can't take a photo with?
I mean, maybe we should circulate the list.
Listen, I understand you don't want people in uniform to be partisan.
I think that's a good rule.
You don't want people to say, oh, that's a liberal police officer or that's a conservative police officer.
Police officer has to be uniform.
That's what the word uniform means, right?
It's one form.
It's not a liberal cop and a Tory cop.
You're just cops.
Same thing with the military.
I agree with that.
You shouldn't be door knocking for a candidate in your kit.
But I'm sorry, you're at a roadside truck stop and you see an internet celebrity, which is what these, the kid who's being discharged, he's 17.
He's 17.
He's not a deeply scholarly, historical, political guy.
He just, Tommy Robinson, that's a pro-military guy, is on YouTube.
Everyone's excited, I'll take a selfie with him.
That's it.
He's a 17-year-old kid.
His career is being destroyed.
He's being drummed out of the army because he took a selfie with Tommy.
I'm sorry, taking a selfie at a truck stop and posting it on your private Facebook page is not corrupting the nonpartisanship of the British Army.
I'm sorry, it's not.
Linda from Britain writes, every mainstream media describes Tommy Robinson as being far right and holding extremist views.
However, they can point to no actual evidence to back these claims up.
He holds the same views as millions of people around the world, and we are sick of being called these idiotic names by race-baiters simply because we have common sense.
Well, that's the thing.
And I mean, he is critical of the religious and political doctrine called Islam.
I don't think that makes him far-right.
In fact, I told you I've been to the UK too many times, mainly in relation to taunting.
And I've been to a lot of labor towns, northern towns, spent a lot of time in a smallish city called Sunderland, which is near Newcastle-on-Tyne.
I never in my life thought I'd be going to these places, by the way.
The one thing they have in common, Manchester, London, Luton, the one thing they have in common, they're run by labor politicians.
Sunderland is completely labor.
So how is it that thousands of people in Sunderland, labor down the line, are supporting Tommy Robinson?
Are they far-right Jeremy Corbyn voters?
No, I don't think you can get away with just saying far-right.
These are people worried about their lives.
The 1,400 girls who were systematically raped in Rotherham, hard left-wing city.
It's not a right-wing thing to be upset that your daughter, your sister, was raped.
That's not right-wing.
That's not far-right.
In fact, most of the victims are working class.
I think you would traditionally call them labor.
It's just a name.
The problem with throwing that word around is that when you actually want to label someone far right, far-right, the word will be meaningless.
It's like a sharp knife dulled by profane use.
And when you need it to be sharp, it ain't sharp anymore.
And that's why we try to keep certain words the opposite of profane.
We don't want to dull them with overuse.
To call someone a Nazi who is not a Nazi takes away the special meaning of that word.
I don't call people communists a lot.
Do you notice that?
I don't say he's a commie, she's a commi-kong, because to me, communism has a special meaning.
It's a deep sort of evil.
And I don't say it unless someone self-identifies or they truly are communists, because I don't want to profane the meaning of that term by overuse.
The promiscuity with which the left calls people far-right and racist is taking away the meaning of those words.
And I think that's a shame because we actually do need to call out true racists.
And if you're calling Tommy Robinson, whose best friends are black and Sikh, you're calling him racist, you're really destroying the meaning of the word.
Geneva Conventions Controversy00:05:26
Another letter, Steve writes, I wonder when a Muslim will be stationed in Westminster to keep an eye on Queen Elizabeth.
Well, I was at the Sun News Network and I interviewed Andream Chowdhury, who's now in prison for supporting ISIS.
And he wants the Queen to wear a hijab.
He wants her to submit and he wants, of course, Westminster Palace to be turned into a mosque.
Keith writes, caution, Ezra, that petition could get you barred from the UK.
They barred Kurt Wilders and Robert Spencer for less.
You're talking about the petition in support of these British soldiers.
Yeah, you know, it could be.
Every time I go over to the UK, I cringe for a moment.
I have what's called a registered traveler or trusted traveler status.
You know, in Canada, it's called Nexus.
You get fingerprinted in Canada.
In the UK, it's a similar status.
So they whisked me through pretty quickly.
It's amazing.
But every time I sort of tense up, I think, oh, is this the time they're going to say, oh, mate, where's your gender critical license?
Mate, where's your license to, oh, you like Tommy Robinson?
Where's your license, mate?
On my interview with Lee Humphrey on the ISIS terrorist, who really wants to return to Canada because he's tired.
Lance writes, I've been saying for years these guys should simply be held prisoner.
There is a command structure, they carry their weapons openly, and they have a uniform, a beard, close enough.
No, I think you might have misunderstood my point about the Geneva Conventions.
And let me take a minute on this.
Geneva Conventions was a great civilizational step forward.
In the past, cruel and barbaric armies, when they captured soldiers in war, would just kill them.
Just kill them all.
Other armies, through pragmatic reasons as much as moral reasons, sold, had a ransom.
If you came and paid gold or whatever wealth, you could redeem your captive soldiers.
So there was actually an economic incentive not to be barbaric.
You could sell the prisoners free to the other side.
So the Geneva Conventions was a great moral step forward in the laws of war.
And you might say, well, laws of war don't mean anything.
War is the absence of law, isn't it?
It's the replacement of law by brute force, the failure of law.
There's truth to that.
But civilized countries can make war in a lawful way.
And the Geneva Conventions were an attempt to do that.
Now, of course, in the Second World War, I mean, Japan was barbaric in its treatment of captured soldiers, including British soldiers in Hong Kong and Burma and places like that.
But not us.
I mean, in Canada, even where I come from, Alberta, there were thousands of Wehrmacht soldiers sent by ship from Europe to Canada to, I'm not going to say they were nice, but they were not penitentiaries.
They were not punishments.
They were just held.
These thousands of German soldiers, conscripts, they were not put on trial for the crime of being a soldier because it's not a crime to be a foreign soldier.
That's not a crime.
We just kept them off the battlefield till the Nazis surrendered.
And then they were let free.
And I think I might have told you the story one day about one young Hitler-Jugend who was pressed into service, I think he was 16.
In the final moments of the war, they were just literally sending kids into battle.
He told me he surrendered the first moment he had contact with the Allies.
They shipped him to Alberta, and he liked it so much he stayed.
I won't tell you his name, but he tells me the story.
He told me the story about his denazification exam.
They gave these people exams before they were allowed to stay in Canada.
Isn't that interesting?
It's a tangent.
I don't think that terrorists deserve the treatment of the Geneva Convention.
And I know in law that they don't.
They don't meet the three tests, bear their weapons openly, be part of a chain of command, wear a uniform, and generally follow the laws and customs of war that I just described, that the West follows, but barbaric cultures don't.
So terrorists are a species in law, hostus humane, going from memory.
They're hostile to all humanity.
And you can actually kill them on site with a drumhead trial.
They're called outlaws.
You can treat them like pirates.
That is their status in law.
They don't have the benefit of the Geneva Convention like my old buddy from the Wehrmacht had, because they're not civilized themselves.
They're barbaric enemies of all mankind.
So in law, you can have a drumhead trial and execute these people.
But we're too gentle, aren't we?
We're too liberal, aren't we?
And Trudeau not only doesn't prosecute, let alone execute, he gives them 10.5 million bucks each.
I'm sorry I'm going on too long about this, but I want to let you know that these terrorists do not have the rights that our courts ascribe to them.
For centuries, the law allows drumhead trials, as in quick, summary trials for terrorists, for pirates, for spies in war.
They do not legally have the rights historically in the West to the Geneva Conventions that we give them.
Maybe I'll do a show on that another day.
Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel Headquarters, you at home.