Rebel News Podcast - CBC teams with CRTC to kneecap their competitors. Including The Rebel Media.

00:00:00.000 Tonight, the CBC and the CRTC regulator team up to kneecap their competitors, including us.

00:00:07.280 It's January 29th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:00:12.020 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:00:15.820 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:00:19.900 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I'm publishing it

00:00:23.540 is because it's my bloody right to do so.

00:00:30.000 Interesting column by Michael Geist today.

00:00:34.520 He's a professor who has an interesting niche.

00:00:37.060 Copyright law, digital media, that sort of thing.

00:00:40.480 I haven't seen him weigh in on the political censorship aspects of digital media yet,

00:00:45.340 but on those other issues, I'd say he's the closest thing to an independent thinker in Canada on the subject.

00:00:52.060 Here's his latest story.

00:00:54.340 CanCon is such an 80s word.

00:01:05.180 It's so obsolete, it's so old-fashioned.

00:01:07.340 It's like the words VCR or VHS, remember those?

00:01:11.540 Of course, CanCon refers to the rule that Canadian TV and radio stations

00:01:17.080 were forced to broadcast a minimum quota of Canadian-made shows or songs.

00:01:24.140 CanCon stands for Canadian content.

00:01:27.460 Even if nobody liked the songs, or if nobody liked them as much as they liked, say, British songs or American songs,

00:01:33.240 and they had really weird rules for determining if a song was Canadian enough to count.

00:01:39.760 Brian Adams, one of the most successful Canadian musicians of all time,

00:01:43.320 but because he spends time in California and London, England,

00:01:46.720 they said he wasn't Canadian enough to qualify as CanCon.

00:01:52.040 Which is weird, because he was Canadian enough to receive the Order of Canada.

00:01:58.600 That whole debate seems weird, so out of it, so old-fashioned in the era of the Internet.

00:02:05.180 Well, which buggy whip do you like on your horse and carriage, you know?

00:02:08.800 Well, we're in the age of streaming music on your smartphone or Netflix

00:02:13.100 or a million other ways to get what we want, no matter what some Ottawa regulator has to say about it.

00:02:18.200 I mean, just get a real job already.

00:02:20.620 There are still those authoritarian impulses in the Internet, for sure.

00:02:25.340 I mean, what YouTube or Facebook or Twitter suggest for you to watch and listen is increasingly political,

00:02:30.520 and what they hide from you, too.

00:02:31.860 But still, the idea that a bureaucrat would force you to watch a lame Canadian music video

00:02:38.980 before you got to watch what you really went online to watch is pretty laughable to today's generation.

00:02:44.920 For now, anyways, back to the olden days when there were just a handful of TV and radio stations

00:02:51.360 and just a couple of newspapers, you really had to listen to these bureaucrats saying,

00:02:57.240 what was good for you, eat your spinach.

00:02:58.580 Their opinions counted for more than yours did.

00:03:03.900 They really got to tell you what to see and what to hear,

00:03:07.860 which is just one step away from telling you how to think, don't you think?

00:03:11.360 Well, those same control freaks want back in.

00:03:14.720 Here, let me read from Michael Geist's article.

00:03:17.860 The battle over the future of Canadian broadcasting and telecommunications

00:03:21.020 is quickly emerging as a hot-button policy issue,

00:03:23.740 with a government-mandated review of the law recently garnering thousands of public responses.

00:03:30.480 While recommendations from an expert panel are not expected for months,

00:03:33.860 Canada's broadcast regulator, the CBC, and several high-profile cultural groups

00:03:37.600 are lining up behind a view that Canadian culture is facing an existential crisis.

00:03:42.120 I love that line, high-profile cultural groups.

00:03:49.340 Are we all part of the culture?

00:03:51.620 Our customs, our tastes, our choice in music and language and food and entertainment and lifestyle,

00:03:59.720 isn't that what culture is?

00:04:02.460 And the books we read, and is that for us to determine?

00:04:06.120 A cultural group, isn't that just a clean way of saying a lobby group of people who want to pretend

00:04:12.620 they're better than just being a lobbyist, so they're the keepers of the culture.

00:04:17.900 No, they're not.

00:04:20.180 I'll read more from the article.

00:04:21.520 He says,

00:04:22.460 Among the new ideas being proposed are new taxes on internet and wireless services,

00:04:26.780 mandated CanCon requirements for Netflix,

00:04:29.560 and the prioritization of Canadian content in search results,

00:04:32.680 from online services to enhance its discoverability.

00:04:36.120 All right, now we're getting down to it, aren't we?

00:04:39.200 It's about taxes.

00:04:41.560 That's the true Canadian culture at the end of the day.

00:04:44.460 Taxes and regulations.

00:04:46.080 Oh, and promoting friends and insiders and friends of insiders.

00:04:49.320 It's the little club.

00:04:50.660 It's the elite.

00:04:51.380 It's the fancy people who know better than you what you really want.

00:04:55.800 And they literally want to make search engines on the internet force-feed you things you don't want,

00:05:01.340 but they want you to want.

00:05:04.100 They want to do this even more than they're doing now.

00:05:05.800 Yeah, the 80s called, and they want their cultural policy back.

00:05:10.180 Let me read some more.

00:05:11.260 There are unquestionably real communications policy issues in Canada

00:05:14.940 for innovation, science, and economic minister Navdeep Bains

00:05:18.980 and Canadian heritage minister Pablo Rodriguez to grapple with.

00:05:23.160 Some of the world's highest wireless prices hamper adoption and usage.

00:05:27.760 Privacy safeguards had failed to keep pace with online threats.

00:05:30.880 And public interest voices say they don't feel heard

00:05:32.980 at the Canadian Radio, Television, and Telecommunications Commission under chair Ian Scott.

00:05:37.660 Hey, there's a great point in there, isn't there?

00:05:40.940 It's like our zombie environment minister, Catherine McKenna.

00:05:43.900 She only and always talks about global warming, right?

00:05:47.180 Even on freezing days like today, which is actually a shame because there are some real environmental

00:05:53.280 issues in Canada that could need some attending to, like the 100 Quebec cities and towns that

00:05:58.920 literally dump raw sewage right into the river untreated.

00:06:03.380 Same thing with CRTC issues.

00:06:05.280 I would like someone, maybe the CRTC, to open up competition for cell phone prices in Canada.

00:06:13.240 Wouldn't you?

00:06:14.260 I mean, just how about bring in, let someone come in who's good at customer service?

00:06:21.080 I mean, that seems a bit more related to the real life of Canadians than telling us what movies

00:06:25.060 we should watch on Netflix or YouTube.

00:06:27.600 And if every single Canadian paid 10 bucks a month less in cable fees or cell phone fees,

00:06:38.900 10 bucks a month, that's real tax relief, especially for young people or poor people.

00:06:44.600 And these days, everyone needs a phone to be part of the modern culture.

00:06:47.260 How about that?

00:06:47.780 It's like a tax cut for people, but of course, it's not a tax cut because the money doesn't

00:06:52.380 come out of the public coffers, but rather the overfed cable and cell phone monopolies.

00:06:57.760 I'd be all for that, wouldn't you?

00:06:59.400 Don't you think that?

00:07:00.320 How about go in an election with that?

00:07:01.980 I'm Justin Trudeau, and I'm going to bring in cell phone competition and cable competition.

00:07:05.880 I'm going to save you 10 bucks a month.

00:07:08.660 Yeah, yeah.

00:07:10.080 No.

00:07:11.400 Let me read what's really going on here.

00:07:14.380 Snobby insiders can't convince you to watch their shows, so they want to force you to watch

00:07:19.940 their shows and force you to pay for it.

00:07:21.280 Let me read some more.

00:07:23.220 At the same time, Canadian cultural groups are raising dystopian fears that if Canada

00:07:27.340 maintains an open market for online video services, it could mean the end of Canadian

00:07:31.500 content and bankruptcy for Canadian broadcasters.

00:07:34.780 Yeah, don't threaten me with a good time, people.

00:07:37.040 Here's some more.

00:07:37.900 These fears are not new.

00:07:39.200 For decades, the prospect of U.S. content flowing across the Canadian border has been viewed

00:07:43.060 as a threat, leading to policies that amounted to creating a Canadian broadcast wall.

00:07:47.900 Canada adopted rules that permitted replacing U.S. television signals with Canadian ones,

00:07:54.360 so-called simultaneous substitution.

00:07:56.860 The blocking of U.S. satellite television services and tight restrictions on foreign

00:08:00.420 investment in the broadcasting sector.

00:08:02.620 Really?

00:08:03.360 Really?

00:08:03.640 So that's the big fear of Canadian broadcasters, that if they don't get big protection and

00:08:09.680 big tax treatment from the government, we Canadians might watch U.S. content on TV.

00:08:15.500 Oh, by the way, here are the top shows on Canadian TV this month.

00:08:21.240 Did you see that?

00:08:22.020 Numeris.

00:08:22.620 It's the new Nielsen ratings.

00:08:25.680 January 7th to January 13th.

00:08:27.720 So for that week, what's the number one show in Canada?

00:08:31.160 It's called Young Sheldon.

00:08:34.160 That's an American show about a kid from Texas.

00:08:36.920 What's number two?

00:08:38.500 New Amsterdam.

00:08:40.700 That's an American show about a hospital in New York.

00:08:43.900 Next is The Big Bang Theory.

00:08:45.640 That's an American show.

00:08:46.760 Next is Blue Bloods.

00:08:48.020 That's an American show.

00:08:48.920 It's an American cop show.

00:08:49.760 I won't go through all 30 of the words, 30 of the shows, but all the way down, it is

00:08:54.820 American shows.

00:08:56.020 All the way down, except for a couple of newscasts, the only Canadian drama is Murdoch Mysteries

00:09:03.480 and Hockey Night in Canada is the very bottom.

00:09:07.880 Every other show in the top 30 is American.

00:09:11.720 Put it up just for one more time.

00:09:12.860 Show people one more time.

00:09:13.900 The 30 top shows in Canada, they are American shows.

00:09:21.640 The Conners, NCIS, The Rookie.

00:09:24.060 There's one newscast.

00:09:24.840 Chicago Med, Hawaii Five-0, Criminal Minds, Chicago Fire, NCIS, Los Angeles, MacGyver for

00:09:31.960 God's sake, Chicago PD.

00:09:34.220 We've got three Chicago shows in the top.

00:09:36.940 Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, Chicago PD.

00:09:39.900 Chicago Shoe Store, Chicago Recycling Bin.

00:09:45.360 We're obsessed with it.

00:09:46.420 That's what we're watching now.

00:09:48.180 So yeah, these are the folks who want to block us from watching American content.

00:09:52.720 Yeah, I'm watching more Chicago show than if I lived in Chicago.

00:09:58.020 Canadian cable companies are the ones force-feeding us American content.

00:10:04.080 At least those private broadcasters have the excuse they're trying to make a buck.

00:10:08.140 And apparently Canadians love Chicago.

00:10:10.640 But the worst offender is the CBC, obviously, which is utterly obsessed with the United States.

00:10:17.640 In particular, they obsess over Donald Trump.

00:10:21.360 It's so weird.

00:10:22.600 It's so creepy.

00:10:24.420 They're just, it's like a stalker.

00:10:27.340 And what's their excuse?

00:10:28.240 They don't have to chase ad money.

00:10:30.360 They get a billion and a half dollars a year.

00:10:32.080 So yeah, these are the people who are going to save us from watching American content.

00:10:36.740 But that's all they give us.

00:10:39.700 They don't really care about Canada or about being Canadian or about Canadian culture.

00:10:46.300 They care about cutting out competitors who are just better at making TV and music.

00:10:51.860 They are, especially all those folks in Chicago, I guess.

00:10:55.260 All right, I'm going to read some more from this article.

00:10:56.820 Many of those same arguments for protecting the domestic industry are today repackaged for the Internet,

00:11:03.120 with Netflix viewed as an unregulated behemoth that threatens to overwhelm the Canadian broadcasting sector

00:11:09.540 and destroy some of the funding mechanisms that have been used to support Canadian film and television production.

00:11:14.580 I get Netflix.

00:11:19.940 Does Netflix really threaten Canada?

00:11:22.480 Do you feel threatened by it?

00:11:24.120 Does Netflix even have the power to threaten anybody?

00:11:27.700 Or is it actually the individual choice of 6.7 million Canadian families?

00:11:35.880 A far larger number than voted for Justin Trudeau, I should remind you.

00:11:40.080 6.7 million Canadian families who would rather see what they want to see,

00:11:45.980 when they want to see it, from a huge range of choices.

00:11:50.740 Including, by the way, Canadian content, if they want to choose it.

00:11:53.440 I know I'm just going through Michael Geis' article here, but I really liked it,

00:11:58.160 and I wanted to share it with you.

00:11:59.280 Let me read some more.

00:12:01.300 Yet the data indicate that there is no CanCon funding crisis,

00:12:04.920 according to most recent numbers from the Canadian Media Producers Association.

00:12:08.420 The total annual value of the Canadian film and television production sector exceeds $8 billion.

00:12:12.960 Its largest amount ever spending on Canadian content production has hit an all-time high of $3.3 billion.

00:12:18.240 In fact, the increase in foreign investment in production in Canada has been staggering.

00:12:23.360 Before Netflix began investing in original content in 2013,

00:12:26.700 total foreign investment, including foreign location and service production,

00:12:29.660 Canadian theatrical production, and Canadian television was $2.2 billion.

00:12:33.060 That number has more than doubled in the past five years to $4.7 billion.

00:12:37.420 Now, of course, if you're like me, you're laughing.

00:12:40.860 I mean, the Energy's pipeline was $15 billion.

00:12:44.020 The Northern Gateway pipeline was $12 billion.

00:12:46.260 And Trudeau just destroyed all that, and yet we're tying ourselves in knots over some change

00:12:51.880 for some hucksters who want Hollywood North.

00:12:55.300 But what's really going on here?

00:12:57.580 I'll tell you.

00:12:58.140 If, in fact, there has never been more money spent on Canadian cultural products,

00:13:02.940 why the demand for regulation?

00:13:05.160 Michael Geist just said there's more money going into the TV business than ever.

00:13:09.720 So why, why, why are they demanding more regs?

00:13:12.980 Well, because, first of all, you can always bring out more money through more regulation

00:13:18.680 for your friends.

00:13:20.540 The CBC, if you can believe it, even after a massive raise from Justin Trudeau,

00:13:24.760 they, he took them up to $1.5 billion a year.

00:13:27.140 They're now asking for another $400 million a year.

00:13:32.180 So that would jack them up to nearly $2 billion a year.

00:13:36.380 So that, that's one reason.

00:13:38.380 That's one answer.

00:13:39.420 More is never enough for these people.

00:13:42.640 The second reason, which I think is what truly motivates a lot of these folks,

00:13:46.200 is, is control.

00:13:47.500 They're controlling.

00:13:49.300 I think for a lot of these people, it's more important to control what you see and hear

00:13:53.500 and think than, than just money.

00:13:55.100 They want to change your behavior.

00:13:56.740 They want to change your mind.

00:13:57.960 That's what that weird Gillette ad was all about.

00:14:00.100 It's not about selling razors.

00:14:01.980 It's about making you change how you think.

00:14:06.080 I'll skip to the end of Geist's column.

00:14:07.580 He says,

00:14:08.820 In other words, rather than embracing the opportunities that come from unprecedented global demand for

00:14:12.780 scripted television programming and competing for the attention of Canadian viewers,

00:14:16.960 some prefer to place their bets on a digital wall consisting of new taxes and regulations

00:14:21.740 and Canadian consumers are going to pay for it.

00:14:25.980 I like Michael Geist because he's one of the only guys looking out for consumers.

00:14:29.440 Don't you think?

00:14:29.760 He hates high cell phone bills, hates high data costs, hates the idea that we're going

00:14:33.840 to have to pay more to produce TV shows in Canada that no one really wants to watch.

00:14:38.900 You'll notice that, that, that an awful, unfunny Canadian show, have you ever heard, I even

00:14:46.140 hate to say that, that Schitt's Creek, that's the funniest thing about the show is the pun.

00:14:50.180 But once you've said, okay, you have your laugh, that's all the laugh.

00:14:53.260 There's no more laughing after you say the name.

00:14:54.900 You'll notice that that show, Schitt's Creek, is not on the list of the top 30 shows in Canada.

00:15:02.740 They pour millions into that and nobody wants, it's an awful show.

00:15:08.880 I want to like it.

00:15:10.540 Frankly, I hate the fact that my fond memories as a kid of Eugene Levy, when he used to be so funny on

00:15:17.220 SCTV and some of his earlier movies, I'm mad that my fond memories of Eugene Levy are being

00:15:23.140 replaced by my new belief that he is desperately unfunny, but just taking work for the cash.

00:15:30.580 Well, here's how that works in a CanCon world.

00:15:33.660 Let me quote this article in a magazine called Vulture.

00:15:36.560 That's Eugene Levy's son.

00:15:37.920 Let me quote.

00:15:42.200 Just to tell you, the show Schitt's Creek, because I'm sure you've never seen it.

00:15:46.180 Eugene Levy's untalented son, Dan Levy.

00:15:48.500 Listen, it's tough to have a famous, successful dad.

00:15:50.840 I can imagine.

00:15:53.360 So Eugene Levy's untalented son, Dan Levy, is the co-star of the show, and he is sullen and unfunny, and he overacts.

00:16:03.300 And I don't think anyone's ever laughed.

00:16:05.180 They used the laugh track a lot on that show.

00:16:06.860 But look, you've got to hire him, and you've got to cast him, and you've got to overpay him, because his dad is CanCon royalty.

00:16:18.520 And you need that CanCon, and now he's CanCon.

00:16:21.640 It's all in the family.

00:16:23.020 It's nepotism.

00:16:25.060 Let me quote this deliciousness from that Vulture article.

00:16:27.920 This is the unfunny Dan Levy.

00:16:29.620 I was always very reluctant to lean on him, his dad, for anything, because I did feel like if I was going to explore the entertainment industry, I didn't want to feel like I hadn't done it on my own.

00:16:42.260 Okay, that's great.

00:16:43.520 That's what every son of a rich man says.

00:16:48.380 So that lasts about 30 seconds until he says this.

00:16:53.100 In the same interview, he says,

00:16:55.000 So he asked his dad to create a TV show with him.

00:17:00.860 Got it.

00:17:01.520 Got it.

00:17:02.120 I would never ask my dad for anything.

00:17:03.800 I want to make it on my own.

00:17:06.180 Oh, I don't have the talent.

00:17:07.220 Hey, Dad, can you get me a show at CBC and make me a millionaire because I'm part of the CanCon family?

00:17:13.200 And obviously this.

00:17:14.840 That sensibility came from my dad.

00:17:18.220 His comedy was always left of center.

00:17:21.640 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could detect that because it was the CBC.

00:17:26.300 Look, that's what this is.

00:17:27.140 This is nepotistic jobs for insiders and their friends and families who can't make it on their own in Hollywood, on Netflix, on the Internet.

00:17:37.040 This is free money for people who feel entitled to it.

00:17:41.100 This is people wanting you to watch their left of center comedy because you need to be worked on.

00:17:49.000 And don't you forget it for one second.

00:17:52.100 This will become about censoring, blocking, and de-platforming any competition, whether it's music, comedy shows, or Canadian news and opinion like ours.

00:18:07.660 Stay with us for more if you want to see some scary censorship.

00:18:12.140 Ellen Bakari is next.

00:18:13.280 Your algorithms on YouTube, when you are searching for national action, will then promote the likes of Tommy Robinson and Britain First.

00:18:37.820 This is despite the fact that the Finsbury Park mosque where somebody was killed, and that's recently been in the headline.

00:18:45.600 Despite the fact that videos of Tommy Robinson were cited as part of the online radicalization of Darren Osborne in the Finsbury Park court case, YouTube continues to promote them videos.

00:18:58.960 What have you got to say about that?

00:19:00.580 We are working to make sure that videos that promote hate or promote violence, if they violate our policies, are removed from the platform.

00:19:08.100 If they walk right up to the line, we have also, at the encouragement of this committee, developed a new enforcement mechanism to limit the features that these have.

00:19:17.120 They should not be appearing in our recommendation engine.

00:19:20.140 If they are, I will take this back to our team and see what the problem is.

00:19:24.180 I'll give it the R. I mean, they are appearing. 0.89

00:19:26.700 They are in my recommended timeline at the moment.

00:19:29.580 So because I've been searching on my iPad for national action videos, I, as a result, have the first two videos recommended to me by YouTube.

00:19:40.860 When I just click on, as I've just done this afternoon, I click onto YouTube, the first two recommendations are Tommy Robinson videos.

00:19:49.460 Well, that is an excerpt from the United Kingdom Parliamentary Committee grilling a senior Google executive in charge of anti-terrorism.

00:20:03.140 You might be thinking, why does Google have an anti-terrorism boss?

00:20:06.680 Well, to stop terrorists from using the system to recruit and propagandize.

00:20:13.040 He did not know who Tommy Robinson was because Tommy Robinson is not a terrorist.

00:20:18.460 He went there to talk about terrorism.

00:20:20.620 But member of parliament after member of parliament was furious that when they typed in, show me populist British political leaders, Tommy Robinson came up in the search results and they want it gone.

00:20:34.180 Well, I'm pleased to say that Google didn't take the bait in that parliamentary committee, but they obviously did quietly later on when the cameras were not rolling.

00:20:45.180 And joining us now with the scoop on this is our friend Alan Bokhari, the senior tech correspondent for Breitbart.com, who joins us via Skype from the United Kingdom.

00:20:54.480 Alan, great to see you. Thanks for joining us today.

00:20:57.460 Great to be honest, Rob.

00:20:58.380 You know, it's quite something, these MPs who despise Tommy Robinson, and listen, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but when you're searching for topics about Tommy Robinson and watch a Tommy Robinson video and then YouTube suggests another one, that's based on your own declared interests.

00:21:16.080 It's like when people contact me and say, Ezra, why are dating sites showing up on rebel ads?

00:21:21.160 Well, it's based on the cookies on your browser from what you're looking at.

00:21:25.320 It's not us, it's you.

00:21:26.560 And that's what I would say to these MPs.

00:21:29.120 You're obsessing about Tommy Robinson and you're surprised that the Internet is giving you what you want, but they just want to censor him.

00:21:35.480 Yeah, I mean, that sounds to me like YouTube search algorithm is working as intended.

00:21:41.160 It's giving you more of what you're searching for and the type of content that you're searching for.

00:21:48.720 What these MPs wanted to do is make sure that even if you're searching for content that would appeal to a Tommy Robinson fan, you wouldn't see Tommy Robinson videos.

00:21:59.300 That seems entirely contrary to the idea of organic search, this idea that, you know, when you search for things, when you activate your cookies, then YouTube and other social platforms will give you content that's similar to that.

00:22:13.780 That's the whole point of recommended videos.

00:22:15.960 It's giving you content that's similar to the video that you just watched.

00:22:20.240 So what the MP was complaining about sounds totally reasonable to me.

00:22:24.840 Yeah.

00:22:25.540 You know, it's called a search engine.

00:22:27.900 And I think they want to hide engine that actively hides things that are contrary to their points of view.

00:22:35.200 And the reason I show that video, and that video is not from this year.

00:22:38.380 In fact, I showed that last summer when Tommy was in prison.

00:22:42.420 But you have broken a story in Breitbart.

00:22:45.040 You've broken a series of stories.

00:22:47.180 One of them is called YouTube Admits It.

00:22:51.180 YouTube Doubles Down.

00:22:52.480 So let's start with this one.

00:22:53.380 YouTube Admits It Meddled With Abortion Search Results, But Calls Down-Ranked Videos Misinformation.

00:23:01.440 And show the next one.

00:23:02.160 I'll read both headlines.

00:23:03.940 YouTube Doubles Down.

00:23:06.140 Will Censor Recommended Videos to Stop Misinformation.

00:23:11.000 So tell us first about the abortion case.

00:23:14.120 How did that come to your attention, that Google was hiding results from one side of that abortion debate?

00:23:21.660 And our viewers don't need to, you know, to have ESP to guess which side they were hiding.

00:23:27.480 How did you learn about that?

00:23:28.740 So a while ago, at the end of December last year, a Slate journalist got in touch with YouTube to complain about, well, you know, I call her a journalist, basically a left-wing activist playing in journalism.

00:23:46.120 She commented on YouTube to complain about the prominence of pro-life videos in search results for the search term abortion.

00:23:54.760 And what happened was immediately after that, there was a significant change to the YouTube search results that this late writer has noted that pushed content from mainstream news organizations and left-wing news organizations, pro-abortion content,

00:24:10.420 from Vice and BuzzFeed and the BBC and the BBC and the CBC and other mainstream sources up the search rankings and it pushed all the pro-life content down the rankings.

00:24:20.700 And we were then contacted by sources within Google who gave us a list, a blacklist.

00:24:28.480 That's not my terminology.

00:24:29.880 That's YouTube's terminology.

00:24:30.700 They called it a blacklist of so-called controversial search queries.

00:24:35.760 And what we were told, based on the information we received, was that shortly after that Slate journalist contacted YouTube, they made an addition to that folder, to that file, rather, that added the terms abortion and abortions.

00:24:53.020 And what that did was it activated an algorithm that pushed mainstream sources up and pushed non-mainstream videos down.

00:25:00.340 And the result of that was virtually all pro-life content was knocked out of the top 10 search results for abortion, which is significant because many people don't really go beyond the top 10 search results in any search engine.

00:25:12.320 Yeah.

00:25:12.520 You know, there's so many things in what you've said there that are shocking.

00:25:15.460 Number one, your obvious point that most journalists, especially in BuzzFeed and Vice and Huffington Post, they're not really journalists.

00:25:24.480 They're activists calling with journalists' credentials to shake down a YouTube, saying, oh, I noticed that Tommy Robinson's on your website.

00:25:31.660 Oh, I noticed that this website is using PayPal.

00:25:34.780 I'm going to do a story on that unless you change it.

00:25:37.320 So these journalists aren't reporting the news.

00:25:39.500 They're trying to change the news by using their journalistic powers as a threat.

00:25:47.260 Of course, the YouTubes, Twitters, Facebooks of the world are only happy to comply.

00:25:50.820 Anyway, it's always aiming one way.

00:25:54.760 It's always leftist censorship of right-wing ideas.

00:25:59.460 But what scares me is what else is being done that we don't know about?

00:26:05.920 What other search terms are being hidden that we don't know about?

00:26:08.960 Tell me what else was on this blacklist you received.

00:26:11.520 Well, we know that search terms related to the Irish abortion referendum were also on the blacklist.

00:26:19.980 So they were middling with pro-life and pro-abortion debates even before this journalist got in touch with them.

00:26:26.680 There were a range of search terms related to terrorist attacks that were also on the blacklist.

00:26:31.860 There was a search term related to Maxine Waters, a Democratic congresswoman, who was also on the blacklist.

00:26:37.080 So they're actually interfering with search results on behalf of Democratic politicians now.

00:26:42.440 And by the way, that's an interesting point you made about journalists behaving like activists.

00:26:46.400 It really seems at the moment that journalists are kind of calling the shots at these tech companies because the more recent change that YouTube announced,

00:26:55.720 that they're going to censor recommended searches, happened just one day after a big BuzzFeed story on how recommended searches are supposedly leading to hyper-partisan content and misinformation.

00:27:08.380 You know, let's talk about that story because I'm just thinking of the idea that YouTube deciding what's misinformation.

00:27:16.640 I think the videos that come when I think of YouTube misinformation, I think the crowning story that will for all time live as the worst example was the Benghazi terrorist attack on September 11th, 2012.

00:27:34.640 The anniversary of 9-11, right before the U.S. presidential election, massacred four Americans at the consulate.

00:27:44.140 And this was a real problem for Barack Obama, who was being reelected.

00:27:48.060 So he and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and Susan Rice and all the others cooked up a story that involved YouTube in two ways.

00:27:56.020 Number one, and forgive me just for scratching this itch for a second, Alan.

00:28:00.220 Number one, they said, oh, this wasn't a terrorist attack.

00:28:03.080 This was people upset over a YouTube video that criticized Islam.

00:28:07.960 So they were falsely blaming an odious YouTube video for the attack.

00:28:14.500 So they were inventing some outrage at a YouTube video that obviously no one in Benghazi had seen.

00:28:20.740 It was an American video.

00:28:22.520 But then they all went on TV for two months just to bluster their way, brazen their way through the election, saying this was not a terrorist attack.

00:28:32.180 This was, you know, a grassroots opposition to a video.

00:28:35.640 So they all lied on YouTube.

00:28:39.120 So they lied about YouTube.

00:28:41.760 And then they lied on YouTube.

00:28:44.920 You'd think that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Susan Rice would be banned for misinformation on YouTube. 0.89

00:28:50.400 But of course they won't be.

00:28:51.840 It's absurd to think that anyone could be the arbiter of the truth other than each one of us as citizens.

00:28:57.740 Yeah, this whole concept of misinformation is laughably vague.

00:29:02.080 And they totally don't apply their standards consistently.

00:29:04.480 I mean, look at the past two weeks.

00:29:07.060 We've had the bogus BuzzFeed story about Moscow Tower that was debunked by Robert Mueller himself.

00:29:13.120 That was a disaster of fake news.

00:29:14.880 Then we had the journalists smearing the Covington students who, you know, had the audacity to wear MAGA hats in front of, you know, far left agitators in Washington, D.C.

00:29:25.080 And they were attacked as harassing simply because they wore MAGA hats and, you know, stood still and, you know, didn't, you know, bow down and apologize to these left-wing activists who were actually harassing them.

00:29:35.560 So we've had all sorts – and, you know, you can go back further.

00:29:38.620 You can go to, like, the Rolling Stone UBA case, another example of fake news.

00:29:43.720 There are so many examples of just total hysteria and inaccuracy on the mainstream media.

00:29:51.580 And YouTube has no way of policing that because all of the outlets that promote these false narratives are given a great verified checkmark and are promoted in the algorithm.

00:30:03.240 So that when they make a change to their blacklist like they did with the abortion search results, all these videos from, you know, really dodgy mainstream outlets like BuzzFeed and Vice and others will go straight up at the top of the search results.

00:30:20.500 You know, it's funny.

00:30:21.460 The other thing about misinformation, they called all the down-ranked abortion videos misinformation.

00:30:25.340 One of those videos was a personal video from someone who said she was pressured to have an abortion and regretted it.

00:30:33.240 That's not misinformation.

00:30:34.620 That's a personal story.

00:30:35.780 And yet YouTube kicked it off their top ten search results.

00:30:39.220 It just shows you what a blunt instrument this method they have is.

00:30:43.420 It just arbitrarily promotes mainstream sources and arbitrarily downranks non-mainstream sources regardless of how accurate either one of those categories are.

00:30:53.820 Yeah.

00:30:54.160 You know, it's infuriating.

00:30:57.060 I mean, Alex Jones of Infowars, I found him entertaining.

00:31:01.600 I found him over the top.

00:31:02.500 I think he had a persona that was, you know, as big as Texas.

00:31:07.480 And, you know, if you don't like it, don't watch it.

00:31:10.420 He was drummed out of the public square for being a conspiracy theorist.

00:31:14.920 I don't know what other word one would use for the two-year mainstream media mania about Russia, Russia, Russia.

00:31:21.980 And after two years of investigation, there's still no proof of it.

00:31:25.260 I mean, all these indictments that Mueller is bringing are for process offenses or for not, you know, not answering a question candidly.

00:31:35.280 He has yet to uncover any collusion.

00:31:37.400 I would call that the largest conspiracy theory of the Trump age.

00:31:41.400 But that's called great journalism in the New York Times.

00:31:44.660 I think that's what this shows is that one man's truth-telling is another man's propaganda.

00:31:50.380 And the only way to resolve that is to let each of us decide.

00:31:53.440 And they won't let us decide, each of us.

00:31:55.760 That's what terrifies me.

00:31:57.580 The fact that you said Maxine Waters, that odious, extremist Democrat who calls for citizens to get in the face of any Republicans they meet on the street.

00:32:08.660 Or the Irish referendum on abortion.

00:32:10.740 I am certain, Alan, that Justin Trudeau will be so favored in his re-election this year.

00:32:17.460 I'm certain that the rebel is disfavored in the same way.

00:32:20.840 We do not know what secret aid or hobbling and hindrances these tech companies are making to our elections.

00:32:32.940 I think that's almost a democratic emergency.

00:32:36.880 Oh, it absolutely is.

00:32:38.660 And, you know, pivoting away from YouTube to Facebook for a second,

00:32:41.900 Facebook has been pretty brazen about how it interferes in an election, not just in the U.S., but around the world.

00:32:46.940 So before the November midterms, they suspended 800 alternative news sources on their platform.

00:32:53.800 And those were anti-establishment pages from both the left and right.

00:32:59.100 Before the Brazilian elections, they mass suspended WhatsApp accounts that were supporting Bolsonaro.

00:33:04.640 Before the French election, they suspended thousands upon thousands of pages.

00:33:09.480 So they're doing it right before elections.

00:33:12.280 I mean, it's so obvious that they're trying to interfere with the outcome.

00:33:15.400 I mean, I don't see how anyone can deny it at this point.

00:33:18.740 Well, I am genuinely scared by it.

00:33:22.460 And the thing, I mean, a dozen years ago, I was prosecuted by a government agency

00:33:27.080 for republishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed.

00:33:30.460 And right now, Alam, we are being prosecuted by an election finance enforcer

00:33:36.180 in a jurisdiction in Canada, Alberta, it's called,

00:33:39.080 who claims we're violating an election law through our journalism.

00:33:44.200 We're going to win.

00:33:45.100 I won the fight a dozen years ago.

00:33:46.640 We're going to win this one in Alberta.

00:33:47.840 Because when the government comes at you, Alam, at least there's some disclosure.

00:33:52.520 There's some process.

00:33:54.340 There's some appeal.

00:33:55.920 There's some paperwork.

00:33:57.120 But when Facebook, YouTube, Google, Twitter come for you,

00:34:01.980 you don't even know what happened.

00:34:05.680 There's no accountability or progress whatsoever.

00:34:09.600 People have no recourse.

00:34:11.640 In the U.S., that's largely because we're all protected by Action 2.

00:34:15.760 It gives them legal immunity, not just from a user-generated content,

00:34:22.300 you know, sort of label on that plan.

00:34:24.000 But it also gives immunity for blocking and filtering content.

00:34:27.520 So you can't even sue them if they unfairly suspend your pay,

00:34:31.740 regardless of how many years or how much money you invested into it.

00:34:35.240 So it's totally screwing over the consumers.

00:34:40.260 I mean, some of those pages have basically banned before the November election.

00:34:44.400 The people have invested years and years of the long-term building.

00:34:49.020 And now they're going to be in the conversation.

00:34:51.220 I think we're losing our connection.

00:34:55.340 If I was a conspiracy theorist on the left, I'd say Russia was interfering.

00:35:00.980 I won't have a conspiracy theory.

00:35:02.820 I'll just say we're losing the Internet.

00:35:04.600 But it's great to talk with you.

00:35:05.840 Thank you so much.

00:35:06.980 Folks, I want to recommend these two articles.

00:35:09.380 Let's just put them back on the screen.

00:35:10.740 This is from Breitbart.com, where Alam is their senior tech correspondent.

00:35:14.600 The first one is called YouTube Admits It Meddled With Abortion Search Results,

00:35:19.020 But Calls Downranked Videos Misinformation.

00:35:21.380 And let's put the other one up just for one more time.

00:35:23.600 YouTube Doubles Down Will Censor Recommended Videos to Stop, Quote, Misinformation.

00:35:29.840 And you heard that misinformation is actually politics that YouTube disagrees with.

00:35:35.220 Alam, great to see you.

00:35:35.920 Thanks so much for joining us today.

00:35:37.920 And I continue to say that you are covering the most important beat in journalism right now.

00:35:43.980 Thanks for your time.

00:35:45.920 Thank you.

00:35:46.620 All right.

00:35:47.640 That's Alan Bocari of Breitbart.com.

00:35:49.800 Stay with us.

00:35:50.300 More ahead on the road.

00:35:50.900 Hey, welcome back.

00:36:03.260 On my monologue yesterday about Chrystia Freeland, Derek writes,

00:36:06.380 Great show tonight, Ezra and Chrystia Freeland.

00:36:08.280 You should go through other key cabinet ministers as well.

00:36:11.100 Well, none of them have any real world experience.

00:36:16.220 At least Chrystia Freeland has real world experience.

00:36:18.360 She wrecked something, burnt through 20 million bucks, and caused 150 laughs. 0.98

00:36:23.280 But at least she did something.

00:36:25.220 What did Miriam Monsef do other than be a false refugee who filed a false refugee application? 0.99

00:36:34.180 What did Catherine McKenna do? 0.97

00:36:37.880 She was an activist social justice lawyer.

00:36:40.540 What does that even mean?

00:36:42.200 Okay, Bill Morneau inherited a company from his dad.

00:36:44.780 So, yeah, good.

00:36:46.600 Won the genetic lottery.

00:36:48.760 The best thing that ever happened to Bill Morneau is that his dad was born first.

00:36:53.960 Is there anyone in the liberal government who's a self-made man or woman?

00:36:59.580 Anyone who's ever run a company?

00:37:01.520 Anyone who's ever, I was going to say, has a military background.

00:37:07.940 They put Seamus O'Regan in charge of Veterans Affairs.

00:37:10.760 And now they put Wilson Raybould from B.C. in that position.

00:37:17.820 No one has ever done anything.

00:37:22.420 At least Chrystia Freeland failed, which is more than the rest have.

00:37:28.600 They just did never do anything.

00:37:31.640 Tell me.

00:37:32.260 Tell me if I'm missing someone.

00:37:34.060 Tell me an accomplished young man or woman in this liberal government.

00:37:38.140 I can't think of one.

00:37:40.360 All right, Canada's back.

00:37:42.800 Back in the dumpster.

00:37:45.920 You know, there are some ancient rules that don't change.

00:37:52.800 The other day we were talking about Sun Tzu.

00:37:56.840 I mentioned that when I was talking to Lorne Gunter.

00:37:59.840 You ever read Sun Tzu, The Art of War?

00:38:02.220 It's little proverbs about the art of war.

00:38:06.600 And I think that book is popular even with non-soldiers because it talks about any conflict, any battle, how to size up your enemy and preparation.

00:38:16.560 China and Iran, which used to be called Persia, have been doing diplomacy for thousands of years.

00:38:26.340 When Europe wasn't, before London and Paris were even cities, before Columbus even came to the New World, China, the Chinese emperors and the Persian emperors were doing diplomacy.

00:38:40.640 For us to think that we can have some pundit journalist and her millennial hipster squad walk in and run circles around these ancient strategists. 1.00

00:38:57.780 Why?

00:38:58.220 Because we're hipper on Twitter than them?

00:39:00.800 Because we got the latest look or something?

00:39:03.220 I mean, the hubris there.

00:39:05.960 And when I was reading how Chrystia Freeland wrecked Reuters next by not trusting anyone in the company, bringing in all her own friends, firing everyone who actually knew anything, and was surprised when it didn't work, I think that's exactly what she's doing in foreign affairs. 0.77

00:39:20.920 She's just going with her hip friends. 0.82

00:39:23.260 And that's not how China works.

00:39:25.000 And I tell you this because strength and respect, that's the currency of foreign affairs, not sucking up.

00:39:35.220 That's why they call Donald Trump Donald the strong and Uncle Donald.

00:39:38.800 He's so rough with China. 1.00

00:39:40.720 Let's say it.

00:39:41.340 He's rude to China, but he's strong and his word, he backs it up. 1.00

00:39:46.320 That's why they give him the red carpet.

00:39:48.400 And that's why they give us the bum's rush. 0.91

00:39:50.360 On my interview with Lauren Gunter, Betty writes,

00:39:54.080 Apparently it was too much to ask that John McCallum remembered he was representing Canada as the ambassador to China, that his role was diplomatic and he shouldn't be handing out legal advice to the Chinese.

00:40:04.960 You know, I forget which British wag it was over 100 years ago, said a British diplomat's job is to lie abroad for his country.

00:40:18.400 And that's a triple pun.

00:40:21.120 To lie, as in to tell a lie abroad in foreign places for his country, to lie for your country.

00:40:28.480 But we don't use the word anymore, but to lie abroad is what they would do with old battleships.

00:40:35.860 They would turn the battleship sideways so all the guns would be facing and to fire.

00:40:42.140 So to lie abroad had that double entendre.

00:40:45.360 And then, of course, the plain meaning of the words, it's a triple entendre.

00:40:48.640 Now, he was sacked because you're not supposed to say that.

00:40:51.800 You're not supposed to say a diplomat's job is to lie for their country, right?

00:40:55.700 You're not supposed to say that.

00:40:57.060 But, in fact, that can be part of the journey.

00:41:01.520 You don't want to be known as liars.

00:41:03.740 You don't want to be known as people who are unreliable who can't be trusted.

00:41:07.200 So it's very important not to be known as liars.

00:41:11.740 But at the end of the day, you do whatever you have to do for your country.

00:41:17.220 That is what a diplomat does.

00:41:18.900 He lies abroad for his country.

00:41:21.800 We have John McCallum, managed by Chrystia Freeland, who don't even believe that there is a national interest.

00:41:30.500 They believe in a global harmony, and it would be too arrogant to assert a Canadian interest.

00:41:38.220 They won't even tell the truth abroad for their country, will they?

00:41:42.160 Well, there you have it.

00:41:43.120 That's our show for today.

00:41:44.280 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, good night.

00:41:47.700 And keep fighting for freedom.

00:41:48.640 We'll be right back.

Rebel News Podcast - January 30, 2019

CBC teams with CRTC to kneecap their competitors. Including The Rebel Media.

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