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June 8, 2019 - Tim Pool Daily Show
22:28
Media Outlets Escalate WAR On Youtubers, Smear Philip Defranco As Far Right

Media Outlets Escalate WAR On Youtubers, Smear Philip Defranco. The war on youtube has been dramatically escalating in the past few weeks with Philip DeFranco getting the latest hit. So far we have seen the #VoxAdpocalypse as the biggest force in taking down small and independent creators but we also saw CNET write a hit piece on gaming channels resulting in a loss of advertisers.Now the latest story insinuates that Phil Defranco is "far right" and was part of a path to being made radical. However the story is mostly nonsense and their subject claims only to be a conservative.Why then include Phil Defranco? In my opinion, so that far left and social justice activists can imply that Phil is a part of or associated with the far right. Even if it wasn't intended to escalate they already have implied that Phil is far right even though I'm sure that the subject of the NYT story watched The Young Turks or other large Youtubers. For Vox's Carlos Maza with Steven Crowder it was easy, he said naughty words, but Phil is a rather neutral commentator so whether intentional or not this could lay seeds for future activists to make claims about Phil and his politics.The past few weeks should make it clear that there is an effort to destabilize youtube and target our channels and businesses. Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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tim pool
The mainstream media is declaring war on YouTube, and they are escalating dramatically and quickly.
Of course, many of you are probably familiar with the Vox Adpocalypse.
Many channels got wiped out, got their monetization removed.
I mean, they can't make money anymore because of Vox.
One of these channels made videos of, like, nature sounds.
I kid you not.
Historical channels, teachers, etc.
And Vox doubled down after this, with a letter demanding more.
We saw an article from CNET where they targeted advertisers that appeared on gaming channels because they felt the gamers were sometimes angry.
And it worked.
People like Jeremy Hambly reportedly lost sponsors.
But now the controversy is escalating because Philip DeFranco is being sort of targeted here.
Now, I don't want to get all conspiratorial, but what you're seeing on my screen right now It's a story from the New York Times, where you can see a bunch of different YouTubers.
Now, I want to make sure I point out, you have some intellectuals, Milton Friedman, you have Jimmy Kimmel, for instance, being associated with YouTube.
Just YouTube right now.
But you'll notice Philip DeFranco.
Now, why does this bother Philip DeFranco and many other YouTubers, and why would I consider this an attack on YouTube?
Certainly, Jimmy Kimmel is resilient.
He's fine.
Some of the other intellectuals who are not far-right or alt-right don't care about YouTube.
But what do you think happens, then, when you scroll down on this story?
As I scroll down, it says, First, Caleb Kane was a college dropout looking for direction.
He turned to YouTube.
We scroll down, and many images start to disappear.
Soon, he was pulled into a far-right universe, watching thousands of videos filled with conspiracy theories, misogyny, and racism.
You'll notice now that only a few channels, uh, about half of the channels remain, of which, yes, Philip DeFranco, Alex Jones, Lauren Southern, Milo Yiannopoulos, Jordan Peterson, and Gavin McInnes, others, etc.
But yes, there's Philip DeFranco.
And then finally, many of the creators disappear, and it says, I was brainwashed, and Philip DeFranco is the last image on my screen!
So yes, Phil is naturally upset about this.
I was brainwashed.
The last thing, so the implication here, I'll scroll back up and watch them all reappear.
It's talking about how this guy watched YouTube and went down the rabbit hole of radicalization.
This is a lie.
An absolute lie.
Produced by the media.
It is atypical, the results they're talking about.
They're finding edge cases, specific users who did specific things and chose to watch this content, and claiming that YouTube as a whole does this.
Factually untrue.
I have done numerous videos explaining how they're lying.
I believe they're lying for one reason.
YouTube takes away their money.
YouTube takes away their traffic.
So why would they insinuate that Philip DeFranco over here, milk toast fence-sitter, right?
Like myself.
Actually, he's more of a middle ground, like, commentator than I am.
I am much more activist-y.
I have no problem talking about free speech and these things.
But Philip DeFranco is by no means a political actor in the culture war.
So why then?
As they imply, this guy was being radicalized.
You scroll down.
His face is the last thing you see when it says, I was brainwashed.
Why would they do that?
Now, I want to make sure I stress, it appears that this system they're using isn't always the same.
I think Phil posted photos that showed a different kind of breakdown.
As you scroll down, different images will appear and reappear.
But when I opened the story just now, this is what I saw.
What do you think's going to happen then when people read this story and it says, I went down the rabbit hole, I was brainwashed, and the last thing you see in terms of brainwashing is Philip DeFranco?
I believe this is designed intentionally or, look, you can call it negligence or you can call it intentional.
We also can see that when we scroll up, David Rubin is here.
What they're trying to do, in my opinion, whether it was intentional or not, it's a common tactic we see from activists.
What they have here in this story is now you can reasonably say Philip DeFranco has been associated with the alt-right.
Let me break down the activism before we read through a lot of the comments from different people and what happened here and how they're defending it.
Naturally, Philip DeFranco's upset.
But I believe this is an overt attack on YouTubers on purpose.
Kevin Roos, I have worked with at Fusion.
I believe his motives to be malicious.
I believe this is intentional.
It's my opinion.
Because when you actually look at the data, we can see that the greatest radicalization over the past 10 years has been news websites like the ones he works at.
He was working at Fusion, as was I. There's other websites like Huffington Post, BuzzFeed.
I almost mixed them up there.
But this is a thread I talked about before.
about how the media is radicalizing people.
Zack Goldberg said, I spent some time on LexisNexis over the weekend,
depending on your political orientation, yada yada, I think we can say holy effing S.
What he found is that terms in news articles, such as diversity and inclusion skyrocketed dramatically.
I mean, several orders of magnitude.
Whiteness, race theory, unconscious bias, all of these things exploded around the same time.
What's radicalizing people today is digital media websites primarily on Facebook and Twitter.
So it's really interesting then when you see CNET, Vox, The New York Times blame YouTube.
So let me make sure I explain this before we move a little bit further on why they're doing this to Phil.
Facebook and Twitter have direct share metrics.
When you post something, you can watch in real time if it is successful or not.
YouTube does not have a direct share function.
You cannot watch a YouTube video and click share and have it appear to all of your YouTube subscribers.
You can have it appear on your main channel, but people won't get notified for the most part.
What ended up happening is that these terms you're seeing made people angry and angry gets the most shares.
I was told this explicitly by marketers for some of these companies.
What they found was that social justice content did really well and they made money from it.
They could watch the shares going up on Facebook in real time.
They knew what worked and didn't and they created formulas to chase this narrative.
It rapidly and dramatically radicalized people, not necessarily to the far left, though we do refer to it as far left very often, I think we should make this distinction, into identitarianism.
The white liberals, because in the story I talked about this, white liberals are the only group in... I don't know what the data set was, but they show among all racial groups and ethnicities, white liberals are the only group that are negative, that are negative in terms of in-group, out-group bias, meaning they hate themselves.
Only group.
It's due to this radicalization.
So then we see journalists providing safe harbor for these fringe identitarian activists, like Carlos Maza, who targeted Steven Crowder.
First it was Alex Jones.
And we all said, it will not end there.
Now it's Steven Crowder.
And we said it wouldn't end there.
Then CNET smeared several gaming commentary channels because sometimes they were angry.
Got their ads pulled.
And sure enough, within days, now it's Philip DeFranco.
You're next.
They already took down journalism channels, historical channels, podcasts, but let me explain to you the goal of this New York Times article.
While it is my opinion they do this for a reason, it may just be an accident.
I want to make sure that's clear.
I'm not sitting here suggesting that Kevin Roos is twirling his mustache and doing this on purpose, though I believe him because I know I've met him personally and worked with him on several issues, and based on history, you know, of what I did at Fusion, Let me just say I believe there is, in all likelihood, at least he knows the results of this and is fine with it.
At the very least, I think he knows what he's doing.
What will likely happen in the future now is that one of these activists at a media company will eventually write an article saying, Philip DeFranco, comma, who has been associated with the alt-right, comma, was seen at VidCon this year, yadda yadda yadda.
They'll take something innocuous, an article about, you know, YouTube launches a new program for creators who like doing backflips.
They'll then use this as an opportunity to justifiably claim he was associated with the alt-right, because guess what?
He was.
Look at this.
I was brainwashed.
Just him.
And look who they've put him next to.
They've put him next to Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, Stefan Molyneux, etc.
He has now been successfully associated with the alt-right.
You'll then see something else happen.
At some point on Wikipedia, it will say, Philip DeFranco has been... Philip DeFranco's critics have aligned him with the alt-right, as they have.
Though he denies this, doesn't matter.
That citation will then be used to say, Philip DeFranco, You know, an associate of the alt-right, and it escalates from there.
Eventually, they will just say, an alt-right YouTuber.
That's the game they play.
Interestingly, in this article, as you actually go down, it's one guy who chose to watch videos.
That's it.
He chose.
The thing about Facebook and what Vox and BuzzFeed and Huffington Post do is they choose to escalate their content watching the shares work.
I know because I worked within some of these companies.
I've had marketing professionals say to my face, we know because we do A-B testing.
We change titles.
We change subheads.
We change images to see what's working in real time.
They'll post a link on Facebook, and they'll count how many shares it's getting in the past hour, and then say, oop, not enough.
YouTube doesn't have that ability.
It's much harder to radicalize on YouTube.
The example I often give to disprove this narrative is, how many Superman extremists have you met?
How many Goku extremists have you met?
How many skateboarding extremists have you met?
Just because you watch DC Comics doesn't mean you will become a fan of Superman.
In fact, if you Google search superhero, if you go on YouTube and search for superhero, and you see a video about Superman, it's also possible you come to detest and hate Superman.
Sure, every video shows Superman doing great things, but you might actually not like him.
YouTube cannot determine what is more radical than anything else.
It is not possible, for the most part, or extremely unlikely, that YouTube created a list of words they deem to be more radical than anything else.
So think about it.
How could YouTube determine whether or not you actually like Superman or are critical of Superman?
Perhaps you like Green Lantern.
I know this might seem silly, me doing this, but trust me, it's very important.
Somebody watches a video on immigration.
YouTube then suggests more videos on immigration.
The person has to choose to escalate in whatever direction they want.
They could easily choose to go and watch Jimmy Kimmel.
They could easily choose to go and watch Stephen Molyneux.
It is the person's choice.
YouTube doesn't understand the difference between nationalist and globalist.
They're just words.
So that's the ultimate point.
How many people do you know are walking around wearing Superman costumes trying to fight crime?
None, because they're not being radicalized by YouTube.
YouTube isn't turning people into extremists.
It's just showing them more of the same if they choose to click on it.
But I assure you, When we look at the other data, we can see, yes, this is radicalization.
Inundating people over and over and over again, rapidly, in a short amount of time, with the same content, drives this narrative.
The important thing that differentiates YouTube is that on YouTube, YouTube doesn't arbitrarily choose to show you unconscious bias.
YouTube will show you things associated with these concepts over time.
So if you watch Superman, you might see X-Men.
That's it.
It doesn't mean you'll like it.
It doesn't mean you'll actually go for it.
But when the only thing you see on Facebook is what's perfectly created to get shares to be sent to you, you will only see this, you will only see these videos, and it will radicalize you.
Let me clarify.
YouTube can radicalize people.
And I don't want to play a whataboutism game.
We can point out the pitfalls of YouTube and the potential for people to watch these videos.
But on Facebook, your feed only has so much in it at a time.
Twitter has the same problem.
And because they can track the real-time sharing metrics of this content, they know what works and doesn't to get more views.
It happens so rapidly.
This is why I believe they're targeting YouTube.
They know they are the threat, and YouTubers are challenging them.
Let's go back to Philip DeFranco real quick and talk about what he does.
Philip DeFranco is a rather neutral commentator.
He does politics.
He said before he's not a journalist.
I push back.
I believe he is.
He researches stories and tries to present the information without bias.
That is journalism.
Is he the best?
I'm not going to say that, but I think he does a good job.
I like his content.
This is one of the reasons they have to target him and associate him with the alt-right.
Because YouTube is not radicalizing people.
Watching Philip DeFranco does not guarantee you will then watch some fringe extremist.
Furthermore, I've shown the data over and over again, YouTube is more likely to recommend left-wing content as opposed to right-wing content.
That's just a fact.
But let's, let me, let me, I want to show you a few more things before we, before we carry on, because I think I've made my point to a certain degree, but He talks about how this guy eventually started choosing to watch SJW videos and global warming stuff.
He also watched many videos by members of the so-called intellectual dark web, like Joe Rogan and Dave Rubin.
During 2017, he began watching more left-wing channels.
The point is, they want to associate you with the worst of the worst.
One of the things that KeenStars brought up that I commented on my past video on my second channel was that Independents are being forced to side with conservatives, but also, they want this to happen.
Now, I will say, I didn't actually get into the comments from Phil, so let's go through this really quickly.
This story emerged when Phil tweeted this earlier today.
Hey, New York Times, what the F is this?
And he shows several images where you can see.
It starts with Phil and others, and over time, it removes other people until it's talking about brainwashing and Phil is one of the last people.
That's literally what I got.
So, I mean, I understand the system changes, but for me, Phil was the last one.
I can't imagine that the potential for this was accidental.
Kevin Roos responded by saying, since I'm getting some questions about it, the collage up top is just a sample of stills from Kane's viewing history.
Some are far right, some aren't.
I assure you, in this man's viewing history, you will find the Young Turks.
I would be absolutely shocked if that wasn't the case.
Philip DeFranco is just a mainstream, high-profile YouTuber.
So what they're doing is, they've chosen Phil on purpose.
They've chosen him on purpose.
Well...
Linz DeFranco, I believe Phil's wife, said, And maybe, let's say for a second, that Kevin Roose knows that Philly D isn't even remotely alt-right, but included him for clicks and attention.
That is just as bad because it plays into the desperate culture of inaccurate clickbait journalism that is altering the realities of millions of people who don't care to read the actual articles.
I understand what Kevin Ruess is getting at with the article itself, but come on dude, be better.
How long until Wikipedia says Phil DeFranco is alt-right?
So we'll just go over a few more comments that were made and then we'll take off on this one.
So Kevin Roos responded saying it's just a sample of his viewing history.
Some far right, some not.
Phil responded, then please speak with your graphics department because this slowly disappearing thumbnail collage with escalating language seems to insinuate a lot.
You know how many people skim or just read headlines.
The goal here When they do things like this is legally protected insinuations.
The New York Times never said!
Phil was alt-right?
unidentified
No!
tim pool
It's just an image!
We never said that.
But now you can absolutely claim there's an association.
And that's an opinion.
But from there, you can continue to escalate until, in a year from now, they will say Phil DeFranco is alt-right.
And I'll tell you this now.
A warning to people like Phil and others.
Philip DeFranco's backlog is full of juvenile videos where he makes off-color comments.
I don't think any of it is particularly offensive, but you can easily clip small sections And pull out-of-context clips like they do for everybody.
And show a collage of Philip DeFranco saying outrageous things and say it's proof.
So, I do have this comment from Keemstar.
Who said there's an all-out war against YouTube by the media?
It's time to educate advertisers.
Keem has tweeted the other day that he's been talking to some top YouTubers to go after their advertisers.
The war is coming.
I'm sorry, the war is here.
Steven Crowder was not the first.
When they came for Alex Jones, people said, yeah, but Alex Jones is, you know, directing people and harassment and fake news.
Now they come for Steven Crowder.
He said mean words.
Then they came for gamers simply for being angry.
Now it's Philip DeFranco.
It's begun.
This absolutely is an attack on his business and his character and it will not end here.
You are a fool to believe it will end here.
And I'm going to show one more comment because I believe it shows how far this has gotten.
Amanda the Jedi!
You may not know who she is.
She is a smaller YouTuber.
She plays video games on the internet.
When I saw Keemstar tweeting about this, I thought it was very crazy that somebody who is just YouTube culture was stepping up and saying this is going too far.
Amanda the Jedi, who is a smaller YouTuber who makes commentary videos on movies and Spider-Man and plays video games, who I happen to watch, full disclosure, I thought when she tweeted this, you can see I retweeted it, how the hell is the New York Times going to try and put the idea that Philly D is anything remotely close to alt-right?
This is why people are starting to trust traditional journalists less and less.
This may be the most important comment, if you were to ask me.
Because Amanda is not a political actor.
She's not a big YouTuber.
She is a smaller content creator who produces entertainment and gaming commentary, being pulled into this because of what they've done to Philip DeFranco.
This shows, in my opinion, that creators who are typically apolitical Like Keemstar, now being pulled into the fight.
But Keemstar is big, right?
So he has dealt with a lot of these issues.
He did cover the news.
But Amanda the Jedi talks about Spider-Man?
Marvel movies?
Video games?
She does comment on some of these things, but this is what happens.
What we're seeing here, and I'm not saying this to be disrespectful, highlighting that she's a smaller creator.
I think it's the perfect example of how they radicalized people.
Not to imply that this is radicalization, but you are bringing people who are not political into the political battle against you.
Highlighting the mistrust in journalism because you target PewDiePie.
Because you target Philip DeFranco.
And we know, because we're fans, they are not crazy people.
I'm gonna end with one very, very important thing.
These platforms, these companies, Vox, etc.
They don't realize they only have reach.
And there's a difference between reach and influence.
YouTubers like Philip DeFranco have influence and reach.
And there's a difference.
If Vox writes a story saying X is bad, some people might read it.
Many people might not agree.
If Keemstar, a YouTuber with influence, says X is bad, his fans say, we love you, Keem.
The people on YouTube are friends with their creators.
They're part of a community.
They're talking to individuals.
They send me emails.
I can't respond to all of them.
I'm sorry.
Because I seriously get hundreds.
But I do respond every so often.
Because the people who watch me aren't empty faces who are just reading the newspaper and don't care about the brand.
They're people who care about the individual.
They're people who like what the individual does and respect the individual.
Someone like Philip DeFranco is a long-standing, credible creator that people like.
He has fans who watch his content because they trust him.
They attacked him.
If Phil comes out and says, I don't like this and X is wrong, his fans will very likely say, how dare you attack my friend?
Do you think people are friends with the New York Times?
No.
Of course not.
And that's the difference.
If Keemstar really does, if he's being serious when he says he's talked to these big creators, if he really does come out, With other big YouTubers.
And those YouTubers say, from now on, we're all boycotting this advertiser because they targeted this YouTuber.
Their fans are gonna say, I'm game.
Let's do this.
Because we're friends.
Now, of course, it's not like we're literally friends.
But the point I'm trying to make is there's real connection between an individual and the people who watch their content versus a massive blind corporation.
And the small actors that seek to cause damage to the content we love.
They did it with PewDiePie.
And you think PewDiePie's fans abandoned him?
Of course not.
They're gonna- It's- When this war goes full steam, it's gonna be epic.
I'll leave it there.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
Uh, I've got more segments coming up later.
The next on youtube.com slash timcastnews, my second channel.
This is gonna get interesting.
Because the escalation is really- It's- It's happening really fast.
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