Juno News - December 04, 2022


＂Freedom＂ sweater triggers CTV journalist


Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

184.42036

Word count

902

Sentence count

55

Harmful content

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A Canadian journalist posts a picture of a Canadian flag with the word "Freedom" written on it, and the rest of the internet goes into a frenzy. This is hate speech, and we're here to talk about it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 We go to a bit of a fun, more fun one here.
00:00:02.840 A legacy media journalist went clothing shopping, Harrison.
00:00:06.180 Yes, Andrew, he went Christmas shopping,
00:00:08.960 tried to get in on the early deals.
00:00:11.040 He found himself, and I really do feel bad for Glenn.
00:00:13.740 He had to withstand some serious danger here.
00:00:18.880 He went to one of the outlets just beside Ottawa
00:00:21.140 and take a look at what he was faced with.
00:00:23.420 I mean, the absolute horror, Andrew,
00:00:25.260 the absolute horror of seeing an Under Armour sweater
00:00:28.260 with the word, wait for it, freedom.
00:00:31.720 With a Canada flag, Andrew.
00:00:33.120 I mean, it's bordering on hate speech.
00:00:36.100 This is the kind of stuff I think that C-11, 1.00
00:00:38.460 the online, all this legislation,
00:00:40.620 the online hate speech bill that's going to come through,
00:00:43.200 this is the kind of stuff that we need to censor
00:00:44.800 because it's just too much to handle, Andrew.
00:00:47.440 Yeah, so this is Glenn McGregor, Ottawa journalist,
00:00:51.000 went to the, I don't know if it's Tangier or Tanger or Tangier,
00:00:55.740 maybe it's in Algeria, I don't know.
00:00:57.020 He went to this Tangier outlet store, outlet mall in Cannata,
00:01:00.880 which is a suburb of Ottawa.
00:01:02.860 He is there, he sees this,
00:01:06.000 and doesn't actually comment on why it troubles him.
00:01:10.200 He plays it very smart.
00:01:11.580 He just posts the tweet, he plays it straight,
00:01:14.280 and then everyone immediately jumps on him
00:01:16.800 as though he's effectively triggered by the word freedom.
00:01:19.780 Now, here's the thing.
00:01:21.340 Glenn McGregor covered the convoy,
00:01:23.160 so I assume that what he's seeing there
00:01:25.660 is that perhaps this is a nod by Under Armour
00:01:28.480 to the Freedom Convoy,
00:01:30.880 but the reality is the Under Armour Freedom Campaign
00:01:33.840 has nothing to do with the convoy,
00:01:36.400 nothing to do with Canadian politics.
00:01:38.560 It is actually about veterans.
00:01:41.240 It is a veterans initiative.
00:01:43.500 Proceeds from the sale of Under Armour Freedom products
00:01:46.020 go towards veterans who are fighting for freedom.
00:01:49.540 But Glenn shares this,
00:01:51.480 and here's just some of the response that he gets.
00:01:54.480 Terry Hagen writes,
00:01:55.560 wow, they just lost my business.
00:01:58.020 Ms. T. Mick says,
00:01:59.520 what?
00:02:00.120 Honestly, I have to throw out so much now.
00:02:03.440 And Bellissimo says,
00:02:04.780 never buy from that company again.
00:02:06.740 Now, whether these people were Under Armour customers
00:02:09.500 to begin with, I have no idea.
00:02:11.540 But the point is,
00:02:12.400 is that now people are whipped up into a frenzy
00:02:14.480 based on what is a misrepresentation,
00:02:17.660 tacitly anyway,
00:02:19.520 of what this thing was.
00:02:20.920 Because I don't have an easy time believing
00:02:23.220 it was just being shared
00:02:24.400 because he liked the pattern that was on it.
00:02:27.220 I think the libs of TikTok response
00:02:29.200 was my favorite here.
00:02:30.520 This is hate speech,
00:02:31.520 literally shaking.
00:02:32.900 Did you survive?
00:02:34.500 Yes, no, exactly.
00:02:35.380 I mean, that's all you can really do
00:02:36.620 when you look at something like this.
00:02:37.700 It's absurd, Andrew.
00:02:38.860 And I mean, it's,
00:02:40.600 we've reached a point now
00:02:41.840 where the legacy media,
00:02:44.380 Glenn McGregor being one of,
00:02:45.560 being one of the main offenders,
00:02:47.580 in my opinion,
00:02:49.020 because of the convoy,
00:02:51.020 had been so shaken
00:02:52.180 that the sight of the Canadian flag,
00:02:54.380 and we know this to be true
00:02:55.140 because the legacy media
00:02:56.060 write articles about the Canadian flag
00:02:57.540 all the time.
00:02:58.520 The Canadian flag being a symbol of hate,
00:03:00.440 being seen as a freedom convoy symbol.
00:03:02.720 It's a negative thing.
00:03:03.980 The sight of the Canadian flag
00:03:05.380 is horrifying to some of these people,
00:03:09.340 let alone, Andrew,
00:03:10.400 even worse,
00:03:11.240 the word freedom
00:03:12.020 on top of the Canadian flag.
00:03:13.620 I mean, you can't even begin to imagine
00:03:15.980 how horrifying it must be
00:03:17.440 for these legacy media journalists.
00:03:18.580 But think about this.
00:03:19.800 This all goes back to
00:03:21.020 the conversation we started
00:03:22.240 the show off with
00:03:23.180 about legacy media
00:03:24.420 and independent media.
00:03:26.120 I have not,
00:03:26.740 I don't for a second
00:03:27.820 believe that the Canadian public
00:03:29.820 seeing the word freedom
00:03:31.720 and the Canadian flag
00:03:33.220 are triggered,
00:03:34.480 are hit with a tsunami
00:03:37.980 of phantom honking, Andrew,
00:03:39.480 that they can't handle themselves.
00:03:40.940 I mean, I don't believe that
00:03:42.160 for a second,
00:03:43.920 but legacy media journalists
00:03:44.960 who created their,
00:03:45.860 who created their sort of
00:03:47.180 their information silo
00:03:48.280 where they really believe this stuff.
00:03:49.920 They believe the phantom honking.
00:03:51.060 They believe the fact
00:03:51.760 that the Canadian flag
00:03:52.520 is seen as this,
00:03:53.600 as this hate.
00:03:53.840 They believe that freedom
00:03:54.800 is now this fringe ideal.
00:03:56.700 Right, exactly.
00:03:57.880 They literally believe this stuff
00:03:59.420 and then that becomes their reality.
00:04:02.540 That becomes their truth.
00:04:03.400 And there's just no way,
00:04:04.760 there's no way
00:04:05.600 that that is what,
00:04:06.480 that is what the majority
00:04:07.400 of Canadians really think of
00:04:08.800 when they see the word freedom.
00:04:09.720 There's no way
00:04:10.660 that that's what the majority
00:04:11.540 of Canadians think of
00:04:12.300 when they see the Canadian flag.
00:04:13.800 But, you know,
00:04:14.720 it takes a certain person,
00:04:15.920 I really do believe this,
00:04:17.880 to be triggered by the word freedom
00:04:20.380 and a Canadian flag
00:04:21.320 so much so that they'd be willing
00:04:22.640 to embarrass themselves
00:04:23.740 by posting it on social media.
00:04:26.040 You know, he didn't add context,
00:04:27.380 but like you said,
00:04:27.860 we all know what he's getting at here.
00:04:29.340 It takes,
00:04:29.960 it takes a certain level
00:04:31.440 of,
00:04:32.360 of complete,
00:04:33.900 you know,
00:04:34.200 removal from,
00:04:35.200 I believe
00:04:35.940 the normalcy,
00:04:39.640 real life,
00:04:41.040 reality
00:04:41.420 to be willing
00:04:42.580 to post something like this,
00:04:43.600 totally absurd, 0.99
00:04:44.660 ridiculous. 0.97
00:04:45.760 And honestly, 1.00
00:04:46.880 what else can you do
00:04:47.460 other than laugh
00:04:48.080 and just say,
00:04:48.620 you know,
00:04:48.800 you hope that,
00:04:49.640 you hope someone like Glenn
00:04:50.760 can recover one day
00:04:51.720 from this horrifying experience.