Rumble rejects UK lawmakers' call to stop Russell Brand monetisation | Hacker News Reader

Rumble rejects UK lawmakers' call to stop Russell Brand monetisation

reuters.com

38 pointsoldschoolib11 comments

Good.

Also, YouTube demonetising someone who has not been convicted of - or even charged with, at this point - anything whatsoever is wildly inappropriate & should likely be illegal as being, essentially, a form of materially harmful libel.

So bizarre the UK government would directly push for demonetisation before any legal trial.

The whole thing is bizzare. Brand, a high list celeb back in those days slept around with hundreds of women.

Not only that he was a drug addict for many years who did rehab. I doubt someone like him has a squeeky clean record but given the combination of things why is anyone surprised?

His allegations don't seem off with his personality and status take into context, he has said all of his interactions were concensual and the accuser says this too.

> He has said all of his interactions were consensual and the accuser says this too.

He has multiple accusers with different issues (some of which are crimes and some not), the TV show covered:

- Having immediate sex with a woman he was dating as soon as she entered his house (the woman says was not consensual)

- Chasing a staff member around naked (staff member says this was sexual harassment)

- Legally dating a 16 year old (consensual but the TV show discusses the power imbalance)

- Various unremarkable things like using staff to get audience member's numbers.

There may be more and I may have gotten it wrong, I didn't memorise the TV program. Feel free to correct.

The government didn’t, a member of parliament sent a letter.

Both are virtue signalling loudly

Check the letterhead. It’s not from the MP’s office.

Good. Regardless of whatever Brand is accused of, this is not the job of government. Innocent until proven guilty is important.

I suspect (as an ignorant) that the letter is leaning on:

1) the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (It's as close to 'Son of Sam law' that the UK has, I believe.)

2) Some combination of Malicious Communications Act 1988 / Communications Act 2003 / Protection from Harassment Act 1997 / maybe even Public Order Act or Data Protection Act.

Relevant wording of note in the letter (not quoted fully in this article) is "monetise his content...including his videos relating to the... allegations" "Use the platform to undermine the welfare of... potentially illegal behaviour"

So the above can be used to argue that this isn't just 'guilty until proven innocent'. Just my diplomatic input.

Whatever 'justice' is in this case, I want it. But I do worry that this is overreach, and too broad. (I don't know enough about this case to have stronger feelings, and I refuse to have the knee-jerk reaction - either way - that the vast majority of people seem to be having).

Letter: https://twitter.com/rumblevideo/status/1704584929026216118/p...

While I don't doubt the truth of this story, I wonder, how easy would it be for a platform to make up an interaction like this? Let's say I was making a free speech platform, and it was relatively unknown. If I claim I got a letter from the government asking me to do something anti-free speech, I could make a big deal about how I'm going to ignore that. Even if I made up that letter, would the government ever publicly state that the letter is false and they never sent it?

It's too bad to see rumble disappear in about 3 years

There should be an insurance product for this

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