Rebel News Podcast - April 15, 2021


Just before the Canadian election, YouTube suspends our Rebel News channel


Episode Stats

Length

31 minutes

Words per Minute

166.0492

Word Count

5,229

Sentence Count

403

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

Just weeks before the Canadian election, YouTube has suspended our entire channel for a week. They claim a video I made in January is "illegitimacy" and they want to get us out of the way before the election. I'll show you the letter they sent me, and explain why that's not the problem.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello, my rebels. Bit of a crisis.
00:00:03.280 YouTube sent us a letter last night saying they're suspending our entire channel for a week.
00:00:08.820 I'm worried that's not the last of it.
00:00:10.260 I think they're going to try and absolutely delete our page,
00:00:14.240 even though we have 1.45 million subscribers.
00:00:18.640 I actually think they want to get us out of the way before the Canadian election.
00:00:21.680 I'll show you the letter they sent me. I'll show you the video they claim was the problem.
00:00:25.320 I'll explain why that really obviously isn't the real problem.
00:00:29.420 And I'll give you some ideas about what we're going to do about it.
00:00:32.180 That's next. But before I get to that, let me invite you to become a Rebel News Plus subscriber.
00:00:38.460 That's what we call the video version of this podcast.
00:00:42.580 It's a way of supporting us too.
00:00:44.360 We get eight bucks a month from you, which is less than most other streaming services.
00:00:48.960 That's about half the price of Netflix.
00:00:51.160 But of course, we use it to stay independent and strong.
00:00:53.920 It's especially important now that YouTube's coming for us.
00:00:56.560 Anyways, you can do all that at rebelnews.com and just click subscribe.
00:01:00.960 Here's today's podcast. Thanks.
00:01:02.320 Tonight, just weeks before a Canadian election, YouTube suspends our Rebel News channel.
00:01:22.840 It's April 14th and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
00:01:25.520 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:01:31.320 There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.
00:01:35.380 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.
00:01:41.260 Last night, I received an email from YouTube.
00:01:50.220 They're suspending our entire channel for a week.
00:01:53.920 But frankly, it's clear that they plan to kill us altogether.
00:01:58.900 Just a few weeks ago, they announced they were demonetizing us,
00:02:02.640 killing off $400,000 a year in revenues from ads and viewer donations called Super Chats.
00:02:09.180 That was step one. This is step two.
00:02:12.440 I fear we'll be gone completely within a few weeks, just deleted like we never existed.
00:02:17.660 That makes me sad. We've spent six years building up our YouTube channel.
00:02:21.320 1.45 million people like us enough to have subscribed to us.
00:02:26.500 Our videos typically get a 98% or 99% likes to dislikes ratio.
00:02:32.820 But because we have the wrong political point of view, we're being deleted.
00:02:38.660 And the reason YouTube gave for suspending us is a video I made back in January, which is weird, isn't it?
00:02:47.260 It's called,
00:02:49.220 If Big Tech Can Silence Trump, They Can Silence Anyone.
00:02:52.860 I'm not even kidding.
00:02:53.960 That was the video they decided to suspend us for.
00:02:57.680 Apparently, that video was fine these past 100 days, but now it's suddenly their excuse for suspending our whole channel.
00:03:06.380 You know, it's funny.
00:03:07.700 Just days after we revealed that the Canadian Armed Forces and the U.S. Navy had hired a defense contractor to spy on us,
00:03:15.220 just after that is when YouTube demonetized us,
00:03:19.000 and now just days after the Montreal police attempted to raid our Airbnb hotel rooms without a search warrant,
00:03:25.140 we suddenly get suspended.
00:03:27.160 I'm sure that's a coincidence.
00:03:28.740 I mean, big tech and big government, they'd never work together to marginalize a political opponent, would they?
00:03:35.440 I mean, that's just conspiracy theory stuff.
00:03:37.740 But you really have to see this video that got us suspended.
00:03:41.480 It's about six minutes long.
00:03:43.220 I'm going to play it for you now.
00:03:45.020 You might remember it.
00:03:46.260 It was excerpted from my longer monologue way back in January.
00:03:52.640 Here it is, the full six-minute clip that YouTube claims is, I don't know, illegal?
00:03:59.020 Look at this post by Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Facebook.
00:04:03.880 The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office
00:04:12.120 to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden.
00:04:20.540 Now, that is an opinion, and it could even be an honest or a reasonable opinion.
00:04:27.600 Maybe it's even the majority opinion.
00:04:29.960 But it's not what Donald Trump or his spokesmen have actually said.
00:04:35.360 They've specifically said that Trump will, in fact, accept the final result
00:04:41.200 and assist in the peaceful transition of power.
00:04:45.320 I mean, you don't have to believe him, but that's what Trump says.
00:04:47.740 So, Zuckerberg isn't entitled to his opinions about the future
00:04:53.040 or entitled to his speculation about what's going on in Trump's mind,
00:04:58.280 but those are just speculations.
00:05:00.540 I mean, it's his opinion.
00:05:02.960 But then Zuckerberg said this.
00:05:04.740 His decision to use his platform to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building
00:05:14.740 has rightly disturbed people in the U.S. and around the world.
00:05:19.160 We removed these statements yesterday because we judged that their effect
00:05:24.280 and likely their intent would be to provoke further violence.
00:05:27.980 But he didn't do that.
00:05:31.440 I mean, that's what he said as a matter of record.
00:05:34.760 I mean, I saw the video.
00:05:36.200 I think we showed it last night.
00:05:37.860 Here's what he said.
00:05:38.840 It's only a minute long.
00:05:39.880 Take a look.
00:05:41.020 I know you're pain.
00:05:42.360 I know you're hurt.
00:05:44.040 We had an election that was stolen from us.
00:05:47.980 It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side.
00:05:53.280 But you have to go home now.
00:05:56.260 We have to have peace.
00:05:57.940 We have to have law and order.
00:05:59.220 We have to respect our great people in law and order.
00:06:03.660 We don't want anybody hurt.
00:06:05.240 It's a very tough period of time.
00:06:07.500 There's never been a time like this where such a thing happened,
00:06:11.740 where they could take it away from all of us, from me, from you, from our country.
00:06:16.560 This was a fraudulent election.
00:06:18.620 But we can't play into the hands of these people.
00:06:24.200 We have to have peace.
00:06:26.240 So go home.
00:06:27.660 We love you.
00:06:28.740 You're very special.
00:06:30.600 You've seen what happens.
00:06:31.920 You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil.
00:06:37.220 I know how you feel.
00:06:39.160 But go home and go home in peace.
00:06:42.080 The thing is, you can't see that video anymore.
00:06:45.920 You can't see what Trump actually said now.
00:06:49.760 You have to take Zuckerberg's word for it, his interpretation of it,
00:06:54.020 because he doesn't actually quote Trump, does he?
00:06:56.220 You can't watch that for yourself on Twitter, where it was also deleted.
00:07:01.400 And Instagram is owned by Zuckerberg, so it's deleted there, too.
00:07:05.540 I mean, it's only an inch away from Google banning searches for the White House website itself.
00:07:10.920 Well, these are your new rulers, by the way.
00:07:15.340 It's not Joe Biden.
00:07:16.280 It's these guys.
00:07:17.920 If they can rule Trump, they can rule you, too.
00:07:21.740 You know, you can still see what Nicolas Maduro, the tyrant of Venezuela, has to say on Twitter.
00:07:28.340 Same thing with the Ayatollahs of Iran, or China's countless government propagandists on Twitter.
00:07:33.700 By the way, you can't even access Twitter in those countries, but Twitter lets those tyrants use their forum to attack America and the West.
00:07:43.720 If mighty Donald Trump, who is still president, who is a billionaire who received close to 70, 80 million votes,
00:07:51.920 if he can be silenced by some nerdy twerp in Silicon Valley, everyone can be.
00:07:56.240 I should tell you that today, we received a warning letter from YouTube that our entire channel is in jeopardy.
00:08:05.060 We could be deleted if we dare to claim that there is widespread fraud in the election.
00:08:12.380 It's just an opinion you can no longer hold.
00:08:16.180 You just can't.
00:08:17.240 They won't let you.
00:08:18.140 The masters of the universe say so.
00:08:20.400 You cannot question their point of view.
00:08:22.600 You cannot claim the moon.
00:08:24.640 You can claim the moon is made of cheese.
00:08:27.360 You can say that.
00:08:28.660 You can claim the earth is flat.
00:08:30.400 They won't shut your channel down for being wrong on that.
00:08:33.460 But you cannot have a political opinion that contradicts your new masters on the stuff they care about.
00:08:41.360 Oh, and the Democrats are not looking for harmony or reconciliation.
00:08:44.300 They are looking for vengeance and blood.
00:08:46.540 They are even talking about impeaching Trump again in his final days just because they can.
00:08:52.600 They love what happened at the Capitol.
00:08:54.920 Now, no one was killed yesterday other than a protester who was shot at point-blank range by someone we don't know who.
00:09:02.360 Three others apparently had health emergencies and died as well.
00:09:06.080 But there was no torching, no arson.
00:09:09.520 It wasn't like the Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots that destroyed entire neighborhoods and killed dozens.
00:09:15.200 The only guns that were used yesterday were by police.
00:09:20.000 Oh, boy, the pictures were spectacular, though.
00:09:23.420 This bizarre guy dressed like a Viking or something.
00:09:27.600 Here he is claiming to be a shaman at a global warming protest a while back.
00:09:34.220 That's unusual for a Trump supporter, I think.
00:09:36.560 And here is his actor-for-hire page.
00:09:41.860 It looks like that Viking Chewbacca character is one of the things he specializes in playing for hire.
00:09:50.260 He's an actor named Jake Angeli.
00:09:53.600 I wonder if he was paid to play a role at the riot yesterday.
00:09:57.380 I don't know.
00:09:58.480 An alternative might be he is an actor who happens to actually be a genuine Trump supporter
00:10:03.780 who dresses like a Chewbacca Viking for real.
00:10:08.660 I don't know.
00:10:09.540 It's hard to say anymore.
00:10:11.420 I wonder if YouTube or Facebook would even let us tell you if we found out that he was a plant or a fake.
00:10:17.800 I think that video holds up pretty well, don't you think?
00:10:20.820 I mean, it's only three months old.
00:10:21.880 Now, YouTube claims that video violates their election-related misinformation policy.
00:10:29.340 Let me read that policy to you in full.
00:10:32.700 Don't post content on YouTube if it fits any of the descriptions noted below.
00:10:37.560 Presidential election integrity.
00:10:40.240 Content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches
00:10:45.460 change the outcome of any past U.S. presidential election.
00:10:48.940 As you just saw, our video didn't do that.
00:10:53.760 It wasn't about election fraud at all.
00:10:55.380 It was about big tech banning Trump from social media.
00:10:58.800 The closest that video comes is showing a short video from Trump telling his protesters,
00:11:05.680 supporters on Capitol Hill to go home.
00:11:08.480 But showing that video can't be the problem.
00:11:10.280 That exact Trump video is currently on dozens of other YouTube news channels, including CNN,
00:11:17.500 just for example.
00:11:18.940 Every news station showed that video.
00:11:21.560 They all still have it up on their YouTube pages.
00:11:24.120 Of course, it's part of the history.
00:11:26.360 It's news.
00:11:27.500 Why is that only a suspension for us?
00:11:29.940 By the way, I don't believe that there was massive voter fraud in the U.S. election.
00:11:35.120 That suggests crime.
00:11:37.640 I believe there were obviously particular cases of voter fraud and crimes.
00:11:41.420 But as to mass fraud, I take Joel Pollack's point of view.
00:11:47.180 The election was indeed unfair, but it was legal.
00:11:51.260 As in many states changed the voting rules in the middle of the campaign, just a few months
00:11:58.020 before Election Day, using the pandemic as an excuse, changing the rules to allow the massive
00:12:03.700 use of mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting, the reduction in stringency for signature matching,
00:12:11.120 all that stuff.
00:12:11.740 But that was not illegal.
00:12:14.200 The rule changes were made within the law, often written by courts, in fact.
00:12:20.960 So it was wrong.
00:12:22.720 It was unfair.
00:12:23.460 It was tilted to one side.
00:12:24.760 Yes, yes, yes.
00:12:25.520 But it wasn't widespread fraud.
00:12:28.200 It was done legally, as Joel's book is titled, Neither Free Nor Fair, but legal, not fraud.
00:12:35.800 So why was that video published in January, deleted last night, and used as the pretense
00:12:40.700 to suspend our entire channel?
00:12:43.600 It surely can't be because we showed a quick clip of Donald Trump, can it?
00:12:46.880 I mean, if every other news channel is showing it too, right?
00:12:50.520 We weren't agreeing or disagreeing with Trump's statements.
00:12:52.840 We were discussing them, or more accurately, discussing how they were being banned.
00:12:59.380 And so we were banned for talking about how Trump was banned.
00:13:02.940 That's pretty ironic, since that was what the clip was about.
00:13:05.800 YouTube is owned by Google, as you may know.
00:13:07.780 It's hard to believe that Google's motto used to be, don't be evil.
00:13:13.360 It's hard to believe that Google was founded by a refugee from the Soviet Union, Sergei Brin.
00:13:19.340 What on earth happened to internet freedom?
00:13:21.920 Remember those days?
00:13:24.440 We have to assume that we're going to be killed off completely by YouTube.
00:13:27.580 And we knew this was coming, so we have a plan B.
00:13:30.920 The main part is to get as many of those 1.45 million YouTube subscribers to let us know where we can find them
00:13:36.440 and how they can find us once we're deleted from YouTube.
00:13:39.920 See, YouTube doesn't tell us who our customers are.
00:13:42.700 We've spent six years and, frankly, millions of dollars in journalism building up a customer base for YouTube,
00:13:50.460 giving YouTube content, bringing people to YouTube, against which YouTube sells ads.
00:13:56.460 But YouTube's just going to vaporize us and keep the customers.
00:14:00.560 That's big tech for you.
00:14:01.840 It's an oligopoly, just like John D. Rockefeller and the other robber barons, but that's more powerful.
00:14:09.100 So we want as many people as possible to go to our website, rebelnews.com,
00:14:12.600 and just take one minute to give us their name and email address or mobile phone number.
00:14:16.880 That's it.
00:14:17.260 It just takes about 30 seconds to do, just so that when we're deleted on YouTube, we can still reach out to them.
00:14:22.680 If you're watching this video, we probably already know how to contact you since you signed up for Rebel News Plus,
00:14:28.440 our paywall premium shows.
00:14:29.760 We're working with other video platforms, though.
00:14:32.620 We use a Canadian video server called Rumble.
00:14:35.940 We've been working with them for weeks, and actually we have a meeting with their CEO tomorrow.
00:14:40.840 We're on other sites like BitChute and Odyssey.
00:14:44.320 And there's a powerful new rival to YouTube that's going to be launched later this month,
00:14:49.640 and we'll be one of their founder creators.
00:14:52.720 I'm very excited about it.
00:14:54.600 They're being built with an anti-censorship architecture,
00:14:57.800 so they'll hopefully be more immune to cancel culture.
00:15:03.360 YouTube wants us to die.
00:15:05.720 And it's true, they can injure us by cutting us off from our 1.45 million customers.
00:15:12.140 But we had an emergency staff meeting this morning,
00:15:15.400 and we came up with a more detailed plan to survive and grow.
00:15:20.520 You're going to see some changes to our website in the weeks ahead,
00:15:24.080 some changes even to our videos,
00:15:25.800 as we move to make our site easier to use
00:15:28.420 and more focused on capturing the kind of casual viewers that YouTube used to bring to us.
00:15:34.860 YouTube says their suspension of us will be lifted next week,
00:15:37.640 but we're pretty sure they'll come up with an excuse to hit us again and again.
00:15:42.880 And I genuinely think they plan to exterminate us before the Canadian election.
00:15:47.480 They're going to move fast.
00:15:49.620 I mentioned that U.S. defense contractor that was hired by the Canadian Armed Forces
00:15:53.000 to do a cyber forensic analysis of us.
00:15:55.660 Let me say that again.
00:15:56.740 Justin Trudeau took taxpayers' dollars from the defense budget
00:16:00.080 and hired a military contractor in Arkansas to spy on us.
00:16:04.700 I know that sounds too wild to be true.
00:16:06.440 I didn't believe it until I got the access to information documents from the university.
00:16:10.060 Trudeau prepared a smear campaign with these defense contractors,
00:16:15.440 claiming that Rebel News were foreign meddlers in Canada's elections
00:16:19.520 and that we had to be stopped.
00:16:21.960 They had lots of bizarre claims in there designed to discredit us.
00:16:26.740 I'm pretty sure this is just YouTube working with Trudeau
00:16:29.840 to get a shutdown before the election.
00:16:31.940 This crazy defense contractor report on us
00:16:34.900 is the kind of thing that YouTube would probably use as an excuse.
00:16:37.740 After all, this same military contractor from Arkansas
00:16:40.800 says we were literally the most important YouTube channel in Canada
00:16:45.300 during the last election.
00:16:47.660 YouTube paid this defense contractor to attack us.
00:16:52.400 Are you surprised that YouTube is complying?
00:16:55.540 I mean, we've all seen the storm of headlines lately
00:16:57.980 about the coming wave of internet censorship.
00:17:00.580 Trudeau and his cabinet have clearly called for social media companies
00:17:04.280 to censor what they describe as hurtful political content.
00:17:09.180 And remember, it's literally the second priority
00:17:10.720 Stephen Gilbeau's mandate letter has as heritage minister to censor us.
00:17:15.660 It's hard to believe.
00:17:16.200 Here's a copy of his mandate letter.
00:17:18.140 Create new regulations for social media platforms,
00:17:21.260 starting with a requirement that all platforms remove illegal content,
00:17:24.680 including hate speech, within 24 hours or face significant penalties.
00:17:28.200 This should include other online harms,
00:17:31.580 such as radicalization, incitement of violence,
00:17:33.960 exploitation of children, or creation or distribution of terrorist propaganda.
00:17:38.580 They're going to use that against us, I'll tell you right now.
00:17:41.840 But they'd much rather have YouTube do their dirty work
00:17:44.680 than to be seen to do it themselves.
00:17:46.300 But as God is my witness, we will live on.
00:17:51.380 The fact that YouTube and Trudeau want to silence us
00:17:54.380 just proves to me how important our voice is at Rebel News.
00:17:58.800 I know it feels like I'm always asking for help,
00:18:00.840 but I think that's because Rebel News
00:18:02.560 and all of our passionate, principled reporters,
00:18:04.880 they're always on the front lines, fighting for you.
00:18:08.520 It's going to take a lot more than YouTube to shut us up.
00:18:11.700 Thanks for being there for us, by the way.
00:18:14.920 Stay with us for more.
00:18:15.880 Well, it is lonely being an independent journalist in Canada.
00:18:32.980 I mean, in terms of the sheer number of reporters
00:18:36.520 who are on the government dole,
00:18:39.200 well, the CBC is larger than the rest of the news media combined,
00:18:42.880 and they are fully rented, bought and paid for, in fact,
00:18:47.260 by the Trudeau government.
00:18:48.560 And then in the last few years, the newspaper bailout
00:18:51.080 has put the vast majority of the private sector journalists
00:18:55.680 in this country on the government payroll.
00:18:58.040 I tell you, you can count on one hand's fingers
00:19:00.440 the number of independent journalists.
00:19:03.240 Most of us are in the independent press gallery.
00:19:07.100 That's run by our friend Candace Malcolm of True North,
00:19:10.180 and of course, one of our favorite guests,
00:19:11.500 also from True North, is our next guest today.
00:19:15.120 He's Andrew Lawton, and he joins us via Skype.
00:19:17.180 Andrew, great to see you again.
00:19:19.040 Hey, likewise. Thanks for having me.
00:19:20.660 Well, it's my pleasure, and you're one of the few guys
00:19:22.760 who knows what it's like to be censored and marginalized in Canada
00:19:26.760 because everyone else is on the inside of the tent
00:19:28.940 just drinking champagne paid for by taxpayers.
00:19:31.680 And I know that's sort of a goofy metaphor,
00:19:34.160 but it feels really true.
00:19:35.360 You, along with a couple of our reporters,
00:19:38.780 were kept out of the leaders' debate in 2019.
00:19:42.380 You, along with us, had to go to court to get in.
00:19:45.440 You are by very definition an outsider.
00:19:48.680 You're one of the guys they want to silence too, I think.
00:19:52.320 Yeah, and you know, when you were doing your preamble there,
00:19:54.800 something jumped out at me, Ezra,
00:19:56.240 which is that CBC may have this monumental size
00:19:59.700 compared to private media,
00:20:00.980 but that doesn't translate to audience share.
00:20:03.720 And if you look at the audience,
00:20:05.200 CBC can't even compete with the Canadian media
00:20:08.280 or foreign media, which Canadians prefer.
00:20:11.180 And this is, I think, the fundamental divide here,
00:20:13.540 is on one hand, the official voices that we're told
00:20:16.280 we have to look to and get our news from
00:20:18.700 are not the ones that Canadians are, by and large, gravitating to.
00:20:22.580 And I think that's why independent media is so important,
00:20:25.080 but it also makes the marginalization
00:20:27.320 by the elites of independent media so significant a problem.
00:20:31.920 You know, that's a great point,
00:20:32.880 because if you add up the CBC,
00:20:35.100 and then everyone on the newspaper payout,
00:20:37.440 and then all the other TV companies
00:20:39.180 that get sort of regulatory favors from the CRTC,
00:20:42.760 that really is more than 99% of journalists.
00:20:46.420 It just is.
00:20:47.620 And the independent press gallery
00:20:49.660 is where really the last remaining independent journalists are.
00:20:53.340 But the voices in that independent press gallery
00:20:57.340 are much larger than 1% market share.
00:21:01.500 And I think that's what drives not only Trudeau crazy,
00:21:04.520 but the inside clique of media party types crazy.
00:21:07.940 They've got the big budgets.
00:21:09.320 They've got all the, quote, respect.
00:21:11.400 They get the, you know, front row seats work on the outside.
00:21:15.280 And yet, especially on the issues of the day,
00:21:18.340 civil liberties, pandemic, things like that,
00:21:20.500 people don't trust the inside baseball guys.
00:21:24.500 They trust the outsiders, the independents,
00:21:26.460 like True North and Rebel.
00:21:28.160 I think that's what really irritates the insiders.
00:21:31.160 They have all the privileges, the perks, and the free money,
00:21:33.580 but people still don't trust them.
00:21:35.360 And that's not just my opinion.
00:21:36.720 That big Edelman study that came out about a month ago,
00:21:40.100 52% of Canadians say that journalists aren't just biased,
00:21:44.200 but that they actively lie.
00:21:45.820 Yeah, and whether or not that is true,
00:21:51.360 that that perception exists is a problem
00:21:54.240 that the mainstream media has.
00:21:56.200 And unless the mainstream media is prepared
00:21:57.760 to deal with the trust deficit,
00:21:59.840 and oftentimes they do this by maligning the people
00:22:02.880 that don't trust them.
00:22:03.700 They say, oh, you know, that's the Trump effect,
00:22:05.480 or that's populism, or that's the war on truth,
00:22:08.500 and the war on facts, and all of that.
00:22:10.240 But the reality is they have to build that.
00:22:12.460 It's a two-way street.
00:22:13.280 They have to extend a hand out to the audience
00:22:15.780 they're trying to regain
00:22:16.780 if they want to get that trust back.
00:22:18.580 And we're not seeing that now.
00:22:19.800 Instead, we're seeing kind of what we talked about earlier,
00:22:22.560 which is pushing people further and further
00:22:24.460 to the margins of society and a civilized discourse,
00:22:27.780 but eventually the margins get overloaded
00:22:30.380 compared to the people that are doing the marginalizing.
00:22:33.140 And I think that when you look at the numbers
00:22:34.960 from that poll, that's the point we're at now.
00:22:37.040 The people that are not on their team
00:22:39.140 are greater in number than those who are.
00:22:41.100 You know, I haven't actually even talked
00:22:44.320 about the news of the day,
00:22:45.400 which is last night we get an email from YouTube saying,
00:22:49.480 guess what, guys?
00:22:50.200 Your entire site is suspended for a week.
00:22:52.520 You can't upload videos.
00:22:53.920 You can't live stream.
00:22:55.720 They had demonetized us the month before.
00:22:58.200 And I was worried.
00:22:59.180 I thought, well, what have we done?
00:23:00.360 And they point to a video
00:23:02.680 that we put up three months ago,
00:23:05.820 me talking about how big tech censors,
00:23:08.620 I mean, literally the headline was-
00:23:10.100 They proved you wrong.
00:23:11.160 Yeah.
00:23:11.860 And like, it just seems such a stretch.
00:23:14.140 And I read the policy.
00:23:15.380 They claim we violated.
00:23:17.700 We didn't even-
00:23:18.660 The policy is against claiming widespread fraud
00:23:23.840 in the U.S. election.
00:23:25.360 It wasn't even about fraud.
00:23:26.440 It was about censorship.
00:23:28.040 And I have no idea how they just picked that out of the air.
00:23:31.760 And that video apparently was fine on YouTube for the last 100 days.
00:23:35.820 I just find it hard to believe on face value
00:23:40.300 that that's really why they suspended us.
00:23:42.940 It was one of my calmer videos.
00:23:45.360 I was actually feeling sort of slow and thoughtful and reflective.
00:23:49.640 Like, I wasn't-
00:23:50.260 There was no ranting and raving.
00:23:52.860 I was just saying, isn't that funny?
00:23:54.400 They can censor Trump.
00:23:55.500 They can censor you.
00:23:57.060 You know, we live in a world where you don't even have the right
00:23:59.480 to get primary information.
00:24:00.680 Like, I was sort of sad in the video.
00:24:03.400 It's the last video I would have thought they would have claimed
00:24:06.000 as the pretext to silence me.
00:24:07.420 So that makes me think, maybe there's something else here.
00:24:11.180 I mean, Andrew, the one thing I've really been worried about
00:24:13.620 is not even government censorship,
00:24:15.660 because that at least you can fight in court or whatever.
00:24:18.200 I'm worried that the social media company is being pressured
00:24:20.780 by Trudeau or Stephen Gilboa to get rid of enemies like us or True North.
00:24:25.940 And we'll never know who complained.
00:24:27.820 We'll never know what the real issue was.
00:24:30.260 If it was Trudeau who was coming for me,
00:24:31.940 I could fight him in court like you and I did on the leaders debate.
00:24:36.400 I think that maybe they want to get us off the internet
00:24:38.680 before the next federal election.
00:24:41.540 Well, you raise, I think, a couple of very important points there, Ezra.
00:24:45.040 And listen, I believe that private platforms have the right to decide
00:24:48.860 who should be on them or who should not be.
00:24:50.920 That doesn't mean, I think, that using this power is a good thing.
00:24:54.640 And certainly it's not that I think having that power so concentrated
00:24:57.700 is a good thing, because it isn't.
00:25:00.020 And YouTube's decisions are showing that.
00:25:02.380 And we've had it at True North.
00:25:03.720 I've had it on my own page as well.
00:25:05.700 And in some cases, it's the old,
00:25:07.160 oh, well, it was an accident and we'll restore it.
00:25:09.420 And in other cases, it seems more deliberate and targeted,
00:25:12.760 as you're understanding firsthand here.
00:25:14.620 And what I would point out to people is that private censorship
00:25:18.800 is a different animal than government.
00:25:21.480 And government censorship is the worst form of censorship.
00:25:25.000 But private censorship at the hand of government
00:25:27.920 or at the direction of government is worse than that, even so.
00:25:31.900 And an example of this is that the federal government
00:25:34.320 is mulling this legislation it wants to put forward on online hate,
00:25:39.240 a supercharged version of the bill,
00:25:41.000 or the Section 13 that you fought against for years and years
00:25:44.660 of your life and career a while ago.
00:25:47.360 And the problem with this is that it would now force companies
00:25:50.780 like YouTube, like Facebook, to be deputized by government,
00:25:55.100 to lay down the hatchet, to push the big censor button,
00:25:58.320 and you lose that recourse.
00:26:00.000 You can't go to federal court.
00:26:01.260 You can't fight it in court.
00:26:02.580 You eliminate the transparency.
00:26:04.640 And now that we have private companies
00:26:06.400 that are going to be censoring as agents of the state,
00:26:09.300 things like this are going to become more common.
00:26:11.940 And did you violate YouTube's policies
00:26:13.980 or did you violate the Government of Canada's policies?
00:26:16.620 You would have no idea.
00:26:17.980 Yeah.
00:26:18.300 And more and more, the size and the scope
00:26:22.160 and scale of these companies is literally larger than countries.
00:26:26.360 I mean, if these companies were countries,
00:26:28.720 Facebook would have a population of 2 billion.
00:26:31.860 It's sort of like the company town in the olden day
00:26:34.900 where a mining company would literally own the streets,
00:26:38.040 own the houses, own all the shops.
00:26:39.880 There's a real problem when the entire public square
00:26:42.560 is owned by one gazillionaire.
00:26:45.840 And in that way, he's more powerful than Trudeau.
00:26:48.560 Like Trudeau, if he shook his fist and said,
00:26:51.160 you rebels, we're shutting you down,
00:26:53.680 I'd say, see you in court, buddy.
00:26:55.740 But if Mark Zuckerberg or the president of YouTube said,
00:27:00.340 push the button to shut us down,
00:27:02.540 we wouldn't even know what happened.
00:27:04.320 We would have no recourse.
00:27:05.680 I think that these tech companies are more powerful
00:27:09.120 than any, you know, John Rockefeller of the past,
00:27:13.160 any of the robber barons, as they used to be called in the past,
00:27:17.200 and more powerful than just about any federal politician.
00:27:21.760 I got one last question for you.
00:27:24.780 It's been about, I don't know, five hours since we've announced
00:27:28.580 we've been knocked off the internet.
00:27:29.880 I've had a lot of interest from U.S. media
00:27:33.840 who are really concerned about it.
00:27:36.760 I don't believe a single Canadian journalist
00:27:39.560 or journalistic group like Canadian Journalists
00:27:43.280 for Free Expression, Canadian Association of Journalists,
00:27:45.620 any of them, will speak up for us.
00:27:48.440 In fact, I think the only thing we'll hear from other journalists
00:27:50.920 is celebration.
00:27:52.880 What do you think?
00:27:53.640 You know, I remember, and you and I talked about this briefly
00:27:57.080 on my show this week, the Andrew Lawton Show.
00:28:00.240 I remember when I was in London for the Global Conference
00:28:03.100 for Media Freedom, and I did an impromptu interview
00:28:05.720 with the representative of Reporters Without Borders,
00:28:09.280 or Reporters Sans Frontier, I believe they're called, officially.
00:28:12.460 And, you know, I was saying, you know,
00:28:13.660 what are the issues you think are important?
00:28:15.100 And we had a very pleasant chat.
00:28:17.100 And then I said, you know, about, you know,
00:28:19.400 three or four miles from here, Tommy Robinson is right now
00:28:23.140 on trial for reporting.
00:28:25.920 And she instantly went from pleasant and civil
00:28:29.820 to just very stone-faced and said, well, he's not a journalist.
00:28:32.720 And this is the problem, is that when you talk about press freedom,
00:28:36.920 the media is more interested in defining the press part
00:28:40.560 than they are in upholding the freedom part.
00:28:43.200 Isn't that interesting?
00:28:44.400 Well, listen, Andrew, thank you for letting me commiserate with you.
00:28:47.580 You're one of the few guys who believes in freedom of the press anymore.
00:28:51.140 Thank you for that, and True North.
00:28:53.120 And I love your show, The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:28:55.040 Thanks for having me on it this week.
00:28:57.820 I hope that YouTube will back down, but I really don't think they will.
00:29:01.420 I think that they're going to try and sweep us off the net
00:29:04.280 before the election.
00:29:05.640 I hope they don't target you guys, because if we're gone,
00:29:09.160 I think you guys become the last biggest force on the Internet.
00:29:15.360 I mean, we're bigger than you, just we've been around longer.
00:29:17.360 We've got more staff.
00:29:18.200 But you guys do very, very important work,
00:29:20.140 and I'm worried that you're on their target list too.
00:29:23.160 I don't think you're target number one,
00:29:24.640 but you may be target number two or target number three.
00:29:27.140 So I hope that you and I will still be fighting the good fight
00:29:31.920 for many years to come.
00:29:33.680 So good luck to you, and thanks for joining me today.
00:29:36.300 Likewise.
00:29:36.800 Thanks very much.
00:29:37.380 All right, there you have it.
00:29:38.240 Andrew Lawton of The Andrew Lawton Show on True North.
00:29:41.500 TNC.
00:29:42.220 Stay with us more.
00:29:47.360 You know, when I got the news last night,
00:29:56.980 I was actually driving home from the office,
00:29:59.340 and it hit me like a baseball bat.
00:30:02.400 I was deflated.
00:30:03.960 I thought, oh, we're done.
00:30:07.320 I mean, that's our great asset, our 1.45 million subscribers.
00:30:10.860 It's wonderful.
00:30:12.180 I was really down in the dumps about it.
00:30:15.000 But this morning, we had a wonderful staff meeting.
00:30:17.180 The whole team, we spent an hour going through things.
00:30:20.820 Just practically, the steps we had already taken,
00:30:23.820 steps we can do better,
00:30:25.100 ways we can change our website and our videos.
00:30:27.100 The whole team was with it.
00:30:29.540 And I talked to some key supporters,
00:30:32.220 got people reaching out to us out of the blue
00:30:34.220 to support us.
00:30:35.320 And I just thought,
00:30:36.460 not only are we going to be okay,
00:30:39.540 I think this is going to push us forward
00:30:41.280 to the next level, the next thing,
00:30:43.520 a stronger platform than YouTube.
00:30:45.700 Maybe even one where we get to know
00:30:47.020 who our customers are.
00:30:48.620 I'm pretty excited about it.
00:30:49.800 So thanks for your support.
00:30:51.460 All right, that's the show for today.
00:30:53.100 Until next time,
00:30:54.060 on behalf of all of us here
00:30:55.100 at Rebel World Headquarters,
00:30:56.140 to you at home,
00:30:57.020 good night.
00:30:58.440 Keep fighting for freedom.
00:30:59.460 We'll be right back.