Rumble rejects MP's 'disturbing' letter over income | Hacker News Reader

Rumble rejects MP's 'disturbing' letter over income

bbc.co.uk

48 pointscs02rm038 comments

Mr Brand is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law or he admits his crimes.

Google taking down his YouTube income before a guilty verdict is horrible.

For some reason Google/Youtube have not demonetized R. Kelly, and he was found guilty. Or Cardi B. She admitted to drugging men and stealing from them.

They don't care about mr Brand, R Kelly, Cardi B or their victims. They only care about their bottom line so if negative press comes out then it's damage control time. The accused is nothing more than a liability to cut loose. R Kelly and Cardi B not liabilitys because they're not currently generating negative press. There guilty but no one cares enough to rage against them. So they are in the clear. When the smoke clears for Mr Brand he will likely get to make a new account and no one will notice because they're raging against whatever they read on their social media feeds.

Blame societies social media attention span and business as usual for this failing.

I heard quite often that "a company can do whatever it want with their content". I was working through this topic a very long time. Can YouTube host whichever content it likes, and not others? If I was a small shop owner I would like to be able to serve whoever I like, but I recognize the power of big corporations who can make you disappear from the Internet.

In my opinion it all boils down whether the company is a gatekeeper, or not. I would like the small owner to have some ability to decide, but Amazon should not be able to decide who can buy/sell based on their skin color, preferences, political biases.

In the US, there are protected classes (skin color, political biases from your list, as well as others) that you cannot discriminate on. Being accused of a crime (not convicted) isn't one of those.

More importantly though, Google hasn't banned Brand, they've removed ads from his videos. Advertisers are very sensitive about where their ads show up. This is why X/Twitter has struggled so much under Musk - major companies don't want their brand next to certain kinds of content.

Not serving ads along Brand's content isn't gate keeping. It's not sending advertisers (and their dollars) to someone embroiled in a scandal. Just like how he's probably not getting lots of calls right now to host award shows, star in films, or be the face of company advertising.

Google is protecting their revenue stream, which is completely unsurprising to me.

Thanks for explaining this

Cursory googling tells me Youtube removed two of R. Kelly's channels.

Specific for the residents of USA: What's the current status of the Section 230 debate? Due to that, the platforms cannot have editorial decisions, right?

Youtube serving videos about a UK national to residents of the UK is probably covered by UK law, regardless of your section 230.

On the other hand, no UK law has been invoked here, it's just a letter.

> Due to that, the platforms cannot have editorial decisions, right?

Incorrect[0]. Section 230 allows platforms to exercise editorial discretion, even political bias, when moderating content.

[0]https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referre...

It is unusual that they've done it to him and not a whole bunch of other far worse behaving people.

Dame Caroline Dinenage, UK Minister of State for Digital and Culture has petitioned social media companies including Rumble, TikTok, Facebook, X, the BBC and Channel 4 to suspend Russell Brand from the platforms after a Channel 4 programme made accusations of sexual assault against him.

He denies these accusations and they have not been tested in a court of law. Rumble have declined.

The sexual assault allegations have not been put to law because every victim realizes that (a) it's a deeply miserable experience having to describe what happened to you over and over again, (b) a load of people will call you a slut on social media, (c) it may impair your chances of ever getting work again, and (d) if people don't believe you you may get countersued.

Courts and police are terrible at dealing with this stuff. That's the lesson of Weinstein, Savile, Rotherham, etc.

See e.g. David Carrick, Met police officer, who after 17 years was finally prosecuted and admitted guilty to 85 offences, after the Met had a brief outbreak of taking this stuff seriously after Wayne Couzens, another police officer was jailed for the murder of Sarah Everard.

Are you then suggesting that allegations suffice? That there is no need for "innocent until proven guilty" in the face of such allegations?

I think the point is that this is a particularly fraught area of discussion, and that the "best" approach may not be the one which is legally enshrined, because the legally enshrined approach is severely flawed in its ability to actually address sexual assault.

Whether that means we should treat allegations as proof is a related but -- I think -- separate question.

Some kind of extralegal response then?

That standard is required for criminal sanctions, but it is not required for private parties to change who they freely associate with, who are free to take a more balance-of-probabilities approach.

I'm free to say that he's probably a rapist, because I'm not a court of law and I have free speech.

(The irony is that Brand spends all the time on his youtube channel making unsubstantiated and probably false allegations about all sorts of public figures such as Bill Gates)

I'm free to say that he's probably a rapist, because I'm not a court of law and I have free speech.

I really hope that you're not in the UK, if you are you've just exposed yourself to a libel suit which could cost you your house, and that obnoxious turd has enough money already.

> Courts and police are terrible at dealing with this stuff.

Perhaps, but not as terrible as self-appointed "activist" lynch mobs.

It's a mark of where we are that "lynch mobs are a bad idea" has become open to debate.

And not a good one.

Thanks for demonstrating my point.

Yes, let the mob decide. Frontier justice is clearly the way to go because the current system has flaws.

The letter Rumble posted isn't asking them to suspend him from their platform, as far as I can see.

Not directly

And Harvey Weinstein claimed the same thing - innocent !!!! - come on - with so many accusers unrelated to each other - it is kind of obvious to any person that he crossed the line with woman he slept with.

Whether it broke the law is a question that needs to be dealt with by a court.

These accusations are 20 years old, why wasn't any of this brought up when Brand was a liberal darling? Why is it only as he gains popularity and opposes the war in the Ukraine do media organizations, governments and tech companies decide in lockstep to act this way?

It's taken a long time to assemble a libel-proof case, and several people have reportedly already been sent libel threats. Brand has already won a libel case back in 2014 about allegations that he cheated on his girlfriend. Perhaps that needs revisiting.

Roger Ailles etc ...

It was different times back then - woman complaining about sexual harassment or unwanted advances in the workplace was discounted and not taken seriously.

Remember how Trump was defended - oh take it easy woke woman - it was just locker room talk.

> Whether it broke the law is a question that needs to be dealt with by a court.

Absolutely.

> it is kind of obvious to any person that he crossed the line

What line are you talking about, if not the law?

Even if Brand is convicted of something and sent to prison, a parliament member should never write such a request.

I thought recidivism was a concern?

A lot of people are going to end facepalming themselves when the truth comes out.

"DAMN! I didn't trip over myself fast enough to make sure this personality was immediately demonetised on every internet social media platform after they were accused of a crime on a TV channel!"

said nobody, ever.

The plausibility factor is rather high (Occam's Razor) - he has millions in the bank and his little believing cult - he will survive this if he is innocent.

Odd he did not sue for libel yet.

It's not clear whether you're missing the point on purpose or not, so I'll just come right out and say it; his guilt for any crimes of which he is accused is entirely unrelated to how sensible the proposition is that entities ought to be able to completely shut down people on every social media platform by accusing them of something and then immediately demanding that they be demonetized by these platforms.

Dinenage is, of course, one of the main proponents to the "online safety bill" and an opponent of gay marriage.

I heard from a bloke down the pub that she kills squirrels with her bare hands, lovely squirrels, so I'm writing to parliament to demand that they stop her wages for such disgusting behaviour.

I don't think the bloke down the pub / squirrel thing will fly, but it does seem to be a fairly regular event that MPs are forced to stand down after allegations of sexual misconduct.

For contrast: John Hinckley Jr has a YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCck3J5KR3INUP1K-hrBe8iA/vid...

A task force that was set up after Jimmy Saville died in response to him luckily getting away with it for a lifetime no cover by the government whatsoever is investigating. Jimmy fucking Saville! Why is the task force not investigating the fucking king?

These politicians are fucking shameless, and these corporations who cave to this shit are unscrupulous. Did the guy rape? Maybe. Probably even. So put the guy in prison if he did.

Apparently, the urge to censor and deplatform by gross authoritarian government employees is so strong that innuendo, accusations, and guilt-by-association are now enough to deny people their voices. (I'm writing in a general sense, not just about Brand)

Bills of Attainder are alive and kicking in the British Parliament, it seems.

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