Here’s the News: Are Senators’ Concerns for Children’s Online Safety Really Just a Ploy for Government Control?
As Senators interrogate CEOs of social media platforms over children's online safety – after years of colluding with these very same platforms – as more laws are put into place to control speech online, is this really about child safety or government control over social media?--💙Support this channel directly here: https://bit.ly/RussellBrand-SupportWATCH me LIVE weekdays on Rumble: https://bit.ly/russellbrand-rumbleVisit the new merch store: https://bit.ly/Stay-Free-StoreFollow on social media:X: @rustyrocketsINSTAGRAM: @russellbrandFACEBOOK: @russellbrand
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We're posing an important question now.
These ongoing inquiries into online safety, of course, are about an important subject.
No one would question the integrity of the notion that children should be protected from online bullying, from pornography, from potential forms of exploitation, from being able to access information on how you might harm yourself in a variety of ways, even with the most ultimate and irreversible of acts.
Now, speaking as someone who is as an adolescent, Experience?
Well, yes, I'm bullying, but also I had a lot of mental health issues and addiction issues and I did engage in self-harm.
I recognize that these are important issues and yet more significantly, of course, I'm a parent right now.
I have three children whose safety is obviously the most important thing in my life.
So no one's questioning the importance of child safety.
What we're questioning is what these hearings are really about.
Because the very same social media companies that are now being harangued and barracked by senators, and it's extraordinary to watch because it's so theatrical, you can tell it's propaganda even as you're watching it.
There are literally staged moments that couldn't have happened without pre-discussion and without conversation and organisation.
It's brilliant.
You're really going to enjoy this.
What we're actually questioning is what are these hearings really about?
It's a bit like the pandemic.
We all agree that human life is sacred, that we should all protect one another, love one another, that we're all invested in one another and your safety and my safety and our collective safety are important and when we forget that we go crazy.
That's something we need to be reminded of.
Like the pandemic period was exploited to introduce measures that were potentially advantageous either in terms of profit or the ability to regulate and legislate, perhaps This conversation around child safety is similarly open to exploitation in so much as it would grant governments the ability to censor and regulate social media companies that would inevitably go beyond getting rid of things that might be harmful for children.
Let's have a look.
For a start, there's this tweet by Glenn Greenwald.
Tom Cotton, one of the senators conducting the inquiry, is a complete imbecile.
As this clip vividly demonstrates, and both parties' fearmongering over TikTok is grounded in dumb innuendo, there's far more evidence they're censoring for the US government than China.
This is all about more government control over social media.
Now, Glenn Greenwald is obviously An expert in this subject has worked long, hard and successfully on the degree to which governments control, censor, surveil their populations, working in ingenious ways to ensure that nothing we ever say cannot be tracked if necessary.
So let's have a look at this inquiry and note how the CEO of TikTok is vilified and barracked by this extraordinary senator and think about how theatrically And note how language that's literally redolent of McCarthyism is used.
Are you a member of the Communist Party?
Are you a member of the Communist Party?
How do I know Singapore's even a real place?
If he openly declares himself to be a communist, we take his word for it.
I think they then had a lawsuit and it was overturned.
I can't remember the details.
It's another company.
It was the Biden administration that reversed those sanctions, just like, by the way, they reversed the terrorist designation on the Houthis in Yemen.
How's that working out for them?
I think the man that sits behind Mr. Cotton is Tom Cotton's inner life.
Like that's actually what happens in Tom Cotton's mind to some sort of guy.
Just sort of staring.
His expression doesn't change during this entire inquiry.
He's either bored by it or understands it on a level so deep that it doesn't register.
But it was sanctioned as a Chinese communist military company.
He's got a bit of a nerve saying that because social media companies in the United States have explicit ties to both the military and have often engaged with deep state organizations like the CIA and FBI.
We know that because of the Twitter files.
And it's pretty clear that ultimately what the government want is control over social media sites.
To sort of claim that there's a connection between the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese military and TikTok when TikTok is a company founded in China is actually superfluous.
Of course there is.
It's from China.
It's very difficult to create a company in America that's both successful and doesn't have ties to the state.
And what we're watching now is the dramatisation of the government looking to get control over social media companies that have become You said today, as you often say, that you live in Singapore.
be beneficial to ordinary people, sometimes that might be deleterious to ordinary people,
what the government want is to be able to use that power for their own ends.
What would make people join them in that crusade? Well if it was, I don't know,
threatening to my children, we'll use that then.
You said today, as you often say, that you live in Singapore.
Of what nation are you a citizen? Singapore.
You keep saying Singapore.
Now, why do you love it so much?
Do you want to marry it?
Are you a citizen of any other nation?
No, Senator.
Have you ever applied for Chinese citizenship?
You can see that Xu Chu is considerably more intelligent than Mr. Khan.
They're sort of talking to him how you might talk to somebody on the other side of a bus window bound for a lunatic asylum.
Okay.
Okay.
If you truly believe that you're Napoleon, I'm sure you are.
Senator, I served my nation in Singapore.
No, I did not.
Do you have a Singaporean passport?
Yes, and I served my military for two and a half years.
Yes, that's what we do in Singapore.
Uh-huh.
I don't suppose you go to sleep in a Singaporean house at night, do you?
You goddamn commie!
Do you have any other passports from any other nation?
No, Senator.
Your wife is an American citizen, your children are American citizens.
That's correct.
Have you ever applied for American citizenship?
No, not yet.
Okay.
Okay, this isn't going how I planned it.
Now, time to bring out the big guns.
Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party?
That's a really weird thing to say, isn't it?
If a person supports organisations labelled communist by the Department of Justice, she may be a communist.
Also, would the Chinese Communist Party even let you in if you were from Singapore?
They'd probably be quite restrictive of that.
Senator, I'm Singaporean.
No.
Have you ever been associated or affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party?
No, Senator.
Again, I'm Singaporean.
You sometimes dress up like you are, remember?
Like Justin Trudeau, how he pretends to be from another country sometimes, dressing himself up.
You love communists, don't you?
Let me ask you some hopefully simple questions.
You said earlier In response to your question that what happened at Tiananmen Square in June of 1989 was a massive protest.
Anything else happen in Tiananmen Square?
This is a weird bit because like all of us know about Tiananmen Square, the fellow with the carrier bags, the tank, all of that.
He seems to be trying to blame old Shu Chu for Tiananmen Square.
He's already said he's from Singapore.
Probably weren't even born when that happened.
Look how young he is.
It's kind of weird, and as Glenn Greenwald said in his tweet, full of innuendo.
We all know that that was a terrible massacre.
I don't think anyone's saying, do you know who I like?
China.
And in particular, I like their massacres.
I'm not suggesting that TikTok don't surveil, don't spy, isn't a manipulative space.
I'm sure it's all of those things.
What I'm saying is this inquiry is not about that.
It's certainly not about protecting your children.
They don't care about protecting your children.
They still haven't done a proper inquiry into what the hell went on on Epstein Island.
If you care about children, let's look into that.
Let's look at children's health.
Let's look at diets and pharmaceutical measures that were taken in the last few years that may or may not have been beneficial to children.
If children's safety is the issue, don't just focus on an aspect of children's safety that can be utilised to advance a particular agenda.
It should be, we care about children's safety in all areas of life.
That's why Kraft Foods and McDonald's Yes, I think it's well documented.
There was a massacre.
shutting that shit, they're not going to do that, are they?
Why? Because it's profitable and it can't be utilized in order to advance a censorship and surveillance agenda.
Yes, I think it's well documented. There was a massacre.
There was an indiscriminate slaughter of hundreds or thousands of Chinese citizens.
No, it was more than a massacre.
Don't just say it was a massacre.
You enjoyed it.
Were you there that day?
Were you either him or the guy in the tank?
Even more likely.
Please don't think he understands what Singapore is, what China is, what history is.
He's so confused.
I actually think the bald geezer at the back is controlling him.
I can't become a senator, not with this crazy face, but this pretty boy, you can do it, Cotton!
Do you agree with the Trump administration and the Biden administration that the Chinese government is committing genocide against the Uyghur people?
And also this bit, like, he's pretending to care about the Uyghur people.
Like, you can tell that geezer's like, what's happening to the Uyghur people?
Can we do something about the Uyghurs?
I think it's outrageous that they can't practice their religious beliefs in China.
Let's do something about the Uyghurs.
Now, what's happening to the Uyghur people in China is outrageous.
It's disgusting.
It might even be a genocide.
But what it isn't is of any concern to Mr. Cotton.
And he don't care about it in the context of this inquiry.
He's just pulling out all of the bad things that have ever happened.
Have you seen the movie Ass Age?
That squirrel?
He had months to live before he froze to death.
Goddamn dinosaurs, they all dropped dead because of asteroids.
I'm from Singapore, mate.
I don't know anything about this.
Senator, I've said this before.
I think it's really important that anyone who cares about this topic or any topic can freely express themselves on TikTok.
Key point there.
Anyone who cares about these topics can freely express themselves on TikTok.
Now, he's taking us to the heart of the matter, because what this inquiry is about is we should be able to censor the information that's on TikTok.
He's saying, get on TikTok and talk about Uyghurs and sort that out.
Now, in China, I imagine that information information is heavily censored because for the internal
politics of China that's an important subject over here you know the Uyghurs people aren't doing
a great deal about it are they let's face it but what they I believe want to control I believe
what this congressional or senate inquiry is interested in establishing is the ability to censor
information that could cause disobedience uprising counter disinformation organization lack of trust
in political institutions lack of trust in the media the breakdown of the pandemic narrative this
is what we're witnessing now along with the ubiquitous now censorship laws they've been
passed in Canada UK EU US people have realized the powerful have realized oh no this online
technology means that people can instantaneously communicate news organizations can
formulate around counter narratives communities can organize around different ideas we have to shut that
down Of course misinformation's a thing, but I'll tell you what is actual definite real-time misinformation, is Tom Cotton pretending to care about Uyghurs and Tiananmen Square when actually
All any of them care about is control of new media spaces.
I know that because I've seen how the government in my country give money to organisations like Logically AI and a bunch of other organisations to censor stories.
Well, let me tell you what the topics are.
Pandemic and Big Pharma.
Moderna have been involved in that.
War and the origins of the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
True information gets censored around that.
January 6th, an uprising, an insurrection.
Truckers movement.
Oh, it's interesting.
They're all counter-narratives where there's definitely been an attempt to control information and prevent true but unhelpful information getting out.
And that's what this inquiry is about.
It's a very simple question that unites both parties in our country and governments around the world.
Is the Chinese government committing genocide against the Uyghur people?
I may have a lot of beefs with Joe Biden and Donald Trump, but when the three of us get together and the subjects of the Uyghur people comes up, as it inevitably does because we all care so much about the Uyghur people, that's why you'll never find exploitative practices within companies like Apple, or Facebook, or Meta, or any of our energy companies, or Halliburton, or any of those guys.
Because if it could happen to a Uyghur, it could happen to any of us!
Oh God, I promised myself I wouldn't cry.
They're not all united.
That's not what brings people together like a can of Coca-Cola.
Uyghurs.
Is it?
You never hear Uyghurs talked about.
Except in that brief moment where mentioning a Uyghur would legitimise censorship.
Could we say anything?
I don't know, Uyghurs?
What are Uyghurs again?
Just some Muslim people in China that have been put in concentration camps.
Oh, how's that relevant to me?
You could say you cared about them in order to censor TikTok.
I do care about Uyghurs!
He's going to regret pretending to care about them Uyghurs because I think the Uyghurs actually have been employed almost at near slave labour levels to do work for Apple.
And indeed, Apple have enormous contracts in China and the American government have to have a good relationship with Apple.
And when bloody the leader of China comes to America, Tim Cook, he's right in there from Apple.
He's right over the meat in them.
So if you actually cared about the Uyghurs, you wouldn't just be bothering this poor geezer from Singapore.
He's the CEO of TikTok.
He's not nobody.
But what I'm saying is, is Tom Cotton and all of this entire inquiry, if what they really cared about was Uyghurs, they've got a real direct route to the Chinese president, the head of Apple.
They've got so many ways of doing it.
It's not like this bloke's got his pent-up rage about Uyghurs.
He's never had a chance to mention it ever before up till now.
Finally, you're from China.
No, I've told you Singapore.
Do something about those goddamn Uyghurs.
I thought we were here to talk about TikTok censorship.
I'll get to that when we're finished talking about those Uyghurs.
Senator, anyone, including, you know, you can come to TikTok and talk about this topic or any topic that matters to you.
You are a worldly, cosmopolitan, well-educated man.
What's that supposed to mean?
Look at you.
Are you gay?
I've told you I've got a wife and children.
And anyway, what's that got to do?
I say, are you gay?
Express many opinions on many topics.
Is the Chinese government committing genocide against the Uyghur people?
Actually, Senator, I talk amazingly about my company.
I'm sort of quite busy at TikTok.
I mean, I think so.
I'm not sure.
It's complicated.
You've put me in a corner.
But actually, if you really care about the Uyghurs, do something about the Uyghurs with the president of China and the president of Apple.
And I'm here to talk about what TikTok does.
Yes or no.
You're here to give testimony that's truthful and honest and complete.
It's theatre, isn't it?
It's like Tom Cotton has seen other inquiries, and he's doing an impersonation of what he's seen at other inquiries, significantly, the McCarthy trials, where he's saying things like, are you a member of the Communist Party, was one of the repeated refrains.
And McCarthyism is something you should be aware of, because McCarthyism was using the threat of Communism to impose control over the entertainment industry, which I understand exists to this day, to generate a great fear so that people won't speak up and generate
solidarity with one another, to look for ways to persecute and crush dissent, to generate control when there was a
perceived external threat. The threat now is a domestic threat. We all know that. The threat now is you can't keep
a population under the level of control you once could by saying, "China are a terrifying
Russia are terrifying!
You can't do that anymore.
People now have the ability to get a different type of perspective on reality by using different news sources, aggregating them.
We all live in a different world now and that world is hard to control.
And what's being created now is the mechanic to control it.
Let me ask you this.
Joe Biden last year said that Xi Jinping was a dictator.
Do you agree with Joe Biden?
Is Xi Jinping a dictator?
Senator, I'm not going to comment on any world leaders.
What?
Now, Mark Zuckerberg is a divisive figure in these spaces.
In fact, you know, he's a billionaire CEO of Meta.
So we all assume that his affiliations will be with the state.
Certainly, we know that he censored true information on behalf of the state during the pandemic.
Kind of establishment on that, you know, asked for a bunch of things to be censored that in retrospect ended up being more debatable or true.
Indeed, Jimmy Dore tweeted on March 15th 2020, Mark Zuckerberg privately contacted Anthony Fauci saying, I also wanted to share a few ideas of ways we could help you get your message out.
Zuckerberg then censored scientists, professors, doctors, nurses and citizens from criticizing Fauci's recommendations regarding lockdown, school closures and COVID mandates and silenced all criticisms of experimental mRNA vaccines.
Facebook classified mRNA vaccine injuries as malinformation, meaning information that is likely true but still should be censored to prevent doubts about the experimental rMNA vaccines.
Numerous Facebook mRNA vaccine injury support groups with hundreds of thousands of members were banned.
So, Facebook When they were compliant with the government agenda were favoured.
Now it seems the government have a slightly different agenda, plainly, to introduce more regulatory measures and to control Facebook nominally and explicitly in order to protect children.
But pause for a moment Do they really care about your children?
I'm not saying that they don't care about your children.
I sort of am, I suppose.
But I'm saying that there are lots of areas of public and political and financial life where the care of your children is relegated.
How are your children's nutritional standards being taken care of?
What about American infrastructure, health care, information?
How are children generally being protected?
Were there any medical measures in the last few years that potentially were not as beneficial as was claimed?
Whether that's taking children out of school, making children wear masks, potentially recommending certain medications that might not have been beneficial for children.
So, once again, let's have a look at how Mark Zuckerberg is handled in this Senate inquiry.
And in particular notice that what takes place is plainly a staged event.
Their control of social media is about controlling your perception of reality, not protecting your children.
A stunning moment.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg faced a withering grilling over allegations his company is failing to protect children on social media.
There's families of victims here today.
And look at the politicians again, this other one.
Look at the style of it.
Look at the tone of it.
Imagine the sort of psychological and egoic state.
There's families of victims here today.
One consistent thing, and I'm beginning to think the mastermind is that bald geezer because he's there again and he's still not interested.
Have you apologized to the victims?
Would you like to do so now?
Well, they're here.
You're on national television.
Would you like now to apologize to the victims who have been harmed by your product?
Show them the pictures.
Zuckerberg stood and turned to address the hearing room filled with the families.
That is a sort of a prep moment.
Let me reiterate once again that children's lives being negatively affected and ended as a result of information shared online is of course terrible and awful.
What I'm questioning is, is this inquiry really about protecting children or is the protection of children merely a spearhead that will allow a lot of other regulations to be passed, a kind of Patriot Act should we call it, for online spaces that will lead to
regulation, censorship and surveillance.
Certainly we know that typically our governments have that appetite, certainly know our governments
have been doing that for years, certainly we know that our governments are terrified
of independent media and independent political movements emerging out of it and the opposition
that's generated in these spaces. And what I query is the degree to which they care about
child safety, which like any parent I believe should be paramount for all of us.
Many held signs with photos of loved ones who they say have suffered because of social
media.
Clearly a person with some pretty strong ties to government when it's convenient.
Certainly a person who, during the pandemic period, was willing to have a particular type of relationship with the government.
And I'm sure even that, I pray, was motivated by a desire to do good.
I'm not going to assume that everybody's evil unless there's corroborating evidence.
I really think that's an important way to go.
But what I'm saying is this situation where these poor, either grieving or hurt parents
are holding up these pictures because they've been told to by someone like, "What we're
going to do is we're going to have a moment where you hold up a picture, then the press,
'Oh, this is a bit as it where we're going to do the photograph'."
It's a staged moment so that all of us start to associate online censorship, children's
safety.
Online censorship, children's safety.
But the genie's out of the box.
They're already trying to pass hate speech laws in Ireland, where they're not clear about what they mean by hate.
Oh, just hate, badness, stuff we don't like.
Is that what you mean?
The UK online safety bill, which was brought about the time that I was being attacked, and we now know that various agencies were involved in that attack.
We've made videos about that elsewhere.
You can have a look for yourself.
What you do know is you cannot trust the government.
What you do know is that the government wants to control online spaces.
And what you do know is if the government genuinely care about children, child safety and child health, there's a lot of ways they could do it with food, traffic safety, nutrition, poverty.
There are so many ways to look at improving child safety, but this way of protecting child safety gives them more power.
Isn't it curious?
That's the one they've chosen to focus on.
Wow.
That moment is something that I believe that we are going to be looking back on and talking about for quite some time.
And then using to legitimize some draconian online censorship measures which I suppose we'll be beneficial to the legacy media because our main competitor is independent media.
In fact, any time that we get a chance to destroy an independent media figure, we should really get on board with that, whether it's Joe Rogan and the Horse Paste or Any independent media figures with dissenting views, we should find, in fact, anything we can to destroy them because we're going to be annihilated otherwise.
This is a convenient piece of legislation that allows the control of social media under that most laudable of reasons, the protection of children.
Who among us doesn't want to protect children?
Many of Epstein's clients.
Yeah, don't worry about that.
Forget that story.
That's not convenient right now.
So you just have to ask yourself is this about protecting children or is this about them being able to maintain control over a space that is volatile and doubtless has content and it is harmful to all human beings, but they don't care about that.
They care about control.
This is the one issue we are putting party aside and saying no.
No, no.
Uyghurs.
Uyghurs.
That's the one issue.
We all agree on Uyghurs.
Oh yes, no.
Uyghurs.
That's important as well.
This will not happen to America's children.
Or Uyghurs.
Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri continued to blast the billionaire.
Shouldn't you be held accountable personally?
I'm actually quite into this now.
You're a billionaire.
Will you set up a victim's compensation fund with your money?
The money you made on these families sitting behind you.
Yes or no?
Interestingly, Michael Tracy tweeted this.
Again, it's very difficult to take them seriously in all their valour and all their bombast when we know that wars are escalating across the planet that no one's voted for and we're expected to fund.
And now for a statement that's beyond irony.
strategic bombing campaign that they have not authorized.
Hashtag priorities.
Again, it's very difficult to take them seriously in all their valour and all their bombast
when we know that wars are escalating across the planet that no one's voted for and we're
expected to fund.
And now for a statement that's beyond irony.
Now, wash that blood off your hands, pick up some missiles and drop them on Iran.
What do the Senate and Senators and the entire political system care about?
Your children, who they're hoping will go to war for them, incidentally, in Iran?
Or do they care about control over the public sphere and the information channels that exist between us right now?
I can tell you from personal experience, They care very, very deeply about being able to control the space between this and your consciousness and what you say and what I hear.
They are terrified of this type of communication.
They're terrified of communities that are starting to coalesce and become disobedient and disenchanted with a narrative.
That's why they go for something emotional that goes past the rational mind and right into fear and terror.
We've got to protect your children.
There are a lot of things that we need to protect our children from and I would include on that long list the government.
Well, that's just what I think.
Remember, we stream every day on a channel that's not included in that hearing, as a matter of fact, and I applaud them for that.
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