Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Is the world’s richest man going to save the Internet from censorship？

00:00:00.000 Hello, my rebels. Very rare day today. Very special day. I've got some good news. I don't

00:00:03.780 say those words very often. But the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, has purchased a 9.2%

00:00:09.560 stake in Twitter, which is actually making him the largest shareholder of that company.

00:00:14.020 And this is after a series of tweets talking about freedom of speech.

00:00:17.260 Is Elon Musk going to bring freedom of speech to Twitter? It looks that way. I'll take you

00:00:22.220 through the good news. And we'll talk about it with our friend Alan Bakari of Breitbart.com,

00:00:26.700 who follows these tech stories very closely. That's ahead. But first, let me invite you to

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00:00:49.280 our paywall, just eight bucks a month. And you know what? We need that money because we don't

00:00:53.040 get any money from Trudeau. So please go to rebelnewsplus.com. All right, here's today's show.

00:01:13.500 Tonight, is the world's richest man going to save the internet from censorship?

00:01:17.520 It's April 4th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.

00:01:22.600 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:26.300 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:30.380 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody

00:01:35.240 right to do so.

00:01:41.920 Boy, this was exciting news to wake up to this morning.

00:01:45.160 Here it is, reported on Bloomberg.

00:01:48.640 Elon Musk takes 9.2% stake in Twitter after hinting at shakeup.

00:01:55.740 Tesla CEO has regularly questioned Silicon Valley giants.

00:01:59.620 Twitter shares post biggest intraday surge since IPO in 2013.

00:02:05.380 Hmm.

00:02:05.920 Let me read a little bit from the story because I think it's a happy story.

00:02:10.360 What do you think?

00:02:10.900 Elon Musk took a 9.2% stake in Twitter, Inc.

00:02:15.880 to become the platform's biggest shareholder.

00:02:19.240 A week after hinting he might shake up the social media industry.

00:02:24.680 Twitter shares surged as much as 27% after Musk's purchase was revealed Monday in a regulatory

00:02:31.580 filing.

00:02:32.140 The gain marked the stock's biggest intraday increase since its first day of trading following

00:02:39.320 the company's 2013 initial public offering.

00:02:43.180 The stake is worth about $2.89 billion.

00:02:47.620 Based on Friday's market close, Musk, 50, polled his more than 80 million followers on Twitter

00:02:54.640 last month, asking them whether the company adheres to the principles of free speech.

00:02:59.680 After more than 70% said no, he asked whether a new platform was needed and said he was giving

00:03:06.380 serious thought to starting his own.

00:03:09.740 Well, he's got enough dough either way, but I think there are enough startup competitors

00:03:15.160 to Twitter already.

00:03:16.860 Getter, Gab, Parler, Trump's own Truth Social.

00:03:21.760 There's a ton of them, but they all lack one thing that Twitter has, the market leader,

00:03:27.920 the place where everyone already is.

00:03:31.500 A lot of those are, you know, other sites are dedicated to catering to conservatives, which

00:03:36.540 I appreciate because conservatives have been censored.

00:03:39.340 We have been here, deplatformed.

00:03:41.340 But that's not the same as the public square then, where everyone goes in the middle of town,

00:03:46.260 right?

00:03:46.500 Well, that's a ghetto, a private club. 0.85

00:03:49.900 What I like about being on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and the others is that people who

00:03:54.900 don't agree with me, they can interact with me and vice versa.

00:03:59.640 How do you ever convert anyone to your point of view?

00:04:02.100 How do you ever have a debate?

00:04:02.980 Have you ever an interesting discussion?

00:04:05.080 How do you ever make a new friend if you're only ever talking to your existing friends or

00:04:10.240 political fellow travelers?

00:04:11.340 Plus, I think it's fun bantering and heckling some liberals, including prime ministers and

00:04:16.620 presidents, fun to meet new people.

00:04:18.820 And by the way, you don't actually have to hate every liberal you meet.

00:04:23.440 You know, I don't know if I've told you this before, but I have one liberal friend.

00:04:27.720 I'm not going to say his name to protect him, not to protect him from conservatives who would

00:04:31.880 be mean for him.

00:04:32.500 I don't think they would be, but to protect him from liberals who would be mean to him for

00:04:36.100 being my friend.

00:04:36.660 Twitter calls itself the public square.

00:04:38.760 They use that phrase, and it's true. 1.00

00:04:40.840 Now, that might change one day, but for now, it is the place, especially for public politics.

00:04:47.540 And now Elon Musk is the biggest owner of it.

00:04:50.220 Not enough to commandeer the ship just yet, not yet, but this could just be the first step.

00:04:55.840 I'm not sure what the press reports mean by saying it's a passive stake.

00:05:01.120 When I read the SEC filings, there was nothing really that said passive about it.

00:05:06.040 Those are voting shares.

00:05:08.220 Elon Musk has been thinking about Twitter for a while, I should tell you.

00:05:12.400 He has more than 80 million followers online himself.

00:05:15.440 He's one of its biggest users.

00:05:17.140 I think he obviously uses it to talk about his businesses, including Tesla and the SpaceX

00:05:23.660 rocket ship company.

00:05:24.880 But he also uses it for fun, almost in a silly way.

00:05:28.980 In fact, I would say he's quite silly.

00:05:30.280 He tweets out jokes or visual jokes in the form of memes, as the kids say.

00:05:35.900 I think Elon Musk is really entertaining, not as combative as Trump, but just as much fun.

00:05:41.280 I think it's a reason why he's liked by so many people.

00:05:44.860 Look at this tweet, by the way.

00:05:47.360 This is from Musk a few months back.

00:05:49.620 This is in December when Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, left and someone named Parag Agarwal took over from Jack Dorsey.

00:05:58.660 That is a Stalinist picture, obviously replacing faces with Agarwal and with Jack Dorsey, disappearing a political rival by removing him from an old photograph.

00:06:09.680 They did that a lot in the Soviet Union.

00:06:11.840 Long before Photoshop, they would just cut out persona non grata from photos.

00:06:16.840 Here's what Musk was worried about.

00:06:20.760 The new boss of Twitter is a censor.

00:06:23.440 And he really doesn't care who knows.

00:06:25.800 I've told you this before.

00:06:26.920 Here's a New York Post story summing it up.

00:06:29.420 In a 2018 interview, Agarwal said Twitter should focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed.

00:06:38.820 Where our role is particularly emphasized is who can be heard, he went on.

00:06:44.220 And so increasingly our role is moving towards how we recommend content, how we direct people's attention.

00:06:53.780 Just to translate into plain English, what he means is you can have all the free speech you like on Twitter, but Twitter will decide whether anyone hears you.

00:07:01.060 If anyone's allowed to see what you have to say, you'll be muffled.

00:07:05.700 You'll think you're talking to the world, but you're just talking and no one else is hearing you.

00:07:10.520 Twitter will block that.

00:07:11.660 Whereas the new favored people, that is, think alike leftists, will have their voices boosted, recommended.

00:07:20.580 Boosted is a phrase they use so everyone gets the right to speak, but Twitter will decide who is heard.

00:07:26.620 It's about the least free thing you could ever say or do.

00:07:32.440 Anyways, that's not how Twitter always used to be.

00:07:34.940 They used to say they were, quote, the free speech wing of the free speech party.

00:07:40.140 Here's the former Twitter executive who was sometimes quoted as having said that way back in 2012.

00:07:47.820 Tony Wang is his name, but he's no longer with Twitter.

00:07:50.660 But here's what he had to say in October of 2020 when Twitter had silenced the New York Post, one of the most venerable newspapers in America, suspending their account, stopping people from reading their scoop about Hunter Biden's laptop.

00:08:05.260 Here's what Tony Wang said back then about the free speech quote attributed to him, free speech wing of the free speech party.

00:08:10.680 Tony Wang said, I don't think this is embraced by current execs like Vijaya, but that's understandable.

00:08:20.760 Companies like people evolve and learn.

00:08:24.000 Companies are not perfect and they certainly are not born perfect.

00:08:28.440 It's important to allow companies to adapt as the world around them changes.

00:08:34.000 So Wang said it was important to give free speech to dissidents trying to speak truth to power in certain countries.

00:08:40.220 He chose places where I think most people would agree that's really necessary.

00:08:44.060 Here's what he said.

00:08:45.800 Not to say that the 2011 version of Twitter was less responsible.

00:08:50.020 Not at all.

00:08:51.180 Twitter was being used by activists in places like Tunisia, Egypt and Iran.

00:08:55.700 It was central to our responsibility to provide dissidents with a voice.

00:09:00.640 All right.

00:09:00.980 I agree with that.

00:09:01.640 But how about speaking truth to power in other countries with powerful governments like Canada, the United States?

00:09:07.260 I like challenging the Ayatollahs of Iran, but can I also please challenge, I don't know, Pfizer or no? 0.69

00:09:15.280 Tony Wang is gone and he himself says the new executives don't care about freedom of speech.

00:09:19.900 Jack Dorsey's Twitter leader.

00:09:21.800 He's gone to, here's Dorsey a few months back talking to Congress about his decision to suspend that New York Post story.

00:09:29.220 Just on the eve of the election, he was being asked questions by a Republican congressman here named Steve Scalise.

00:09:35.700 Here, just watch for a minute.

00:09:36.540 First of all, do you recognize that there is this real concern that there's an anti-conservative bias on Twitter's behalf?

00:09:43.920 And would you recognize that this has to stop if this is going to be, Twitter is going to be viewed by both sides as a place where everybody's going to get a fair treatment?

00:09:55.840 We made a total mistake with New York Post.

00:09:58.920 We corrected that within 24 hours.

00:10:01.280 It was not to do with the content.

00:10:02.880 It was to do with a hacked materials policy.

00:10:04.600 We had an incorrect interpretation.

00:10:07.840 We don't write policy according to any particular political leaning.

00:10:12.380 If we find any of it, we route it out.

00:10:14.240 So we're regarding the Washington Post.

00:10:18.080 We will make mistakes.

00:10:18.980 And our goal is to correct them as quickly as possible.

00:10:21.560 And in that case, we did.

00:10:23.100 So Dorsey claims that the New York Post was suspended, not because it was embarrassing Biden, but because they're using hacked materials.

00:10:31.800 But the laptop was not hacked.

00:10:33.820 It wasn't hacked at all.

00:10:34.820 It was lawfully obtained.

00:10:38.100 And the censoring in the New York Post absolutely skewed the election.

00:10:43.460 I saw this tweet by Dorsey just this weekend.

00:10:46.820 He says,

00:10:47.300 So he's talking about really early Internet stuff back then.

00:11:11.880 I remember those days.

00:11:13.600 I appreciate his contrition, if that's what that is, and what little he said to Steve Scalise.

00:11:20.800 At least he's realized what he's done, although he hasn't made amends in any way.

00:11:25.540 Who knows?

00:11:25.860 Maybe he sold his shares to Elon Musk.

00:11:29.440 And Jack Dorsey's successes are always worse.

00:11:31.700 Maybe Elon Musk can change that.

00:11:33.220 I don't know him.

00:11:33.860 The thing is, it's not just the corporate culture of the tech companies.

00:11:37.920 The entire society we live in is about censorship now.

00:11:41.800 Here's Vox, the flagship liberal website in the U.S.

00:11:46.120 Look at what, I mean, just this is so atrocious.

00:11:49.720 Kicking people off social media isn't about free speech.

00:11:53.740 The debate over deplatforming Trump has overshadowed how effective social media bans are at fighting extremism.

00:12:00.920 Yeah, sorry, mate.

00:12:02.040 By definition, the president of the United States is not extreme or marginal or fringe.

00:12:07.160 And anyone who would say otherwise is truly using the communist way of thinking.

00:12:11.640 Destroy any political opponent in any way.

00:12:14.980 De-platform them, erase them.

00:12:17.920 Here's what Jack Dorsey said about that, actually.

00:12:21.700 He said, I do not celebrate or feel pride in our having to ban Donald Trump from Twitter or how we got here.

00:12:29.520 After a clear warning we'd take this action, we made a decision with the best information we had based on threats to physical safety, both on and off Twitter.

00:12:38.740 Was this correct?

00:12:39.740 Yeah, what a lie.

00:12:41.140 Trump was a threat to physical safety?

00:12:43.860 Yeah, right.

00:12:44.680 While communist China, Putin's Russia, Iran's Ayatollahs are all on Twitter with impunity.

00:12:50.300 What a lie.

00:12:50.920 Jack Dorsey's deep thoughts are, well, they're more than nothing, but not much more.

00:12:56.860 It's the whole culture now.

00:12:58.060 So much of that freedom is lost.

00:13:01.280 It's uncertain how to win it back.

00:13:04.060 I mean, so many taboos are broken.

00:13:06.180 If you can de-platform a sitting president, you can de-platform anyone.

00:13:10.580 Get ready for what they're going to do to try and save the Democrats this November in the states.

00:13:16.100 And that's nothing compared to what they'll do in 2024 when the presidency is up for grabs.

00:13:20.380 You can see what they'll soon do in the United States by looking to see what Justin Trudeau is doing up here in Canada.

00:13:26.780 His censorship plans, regulating social media, appointed boards of censors, giving government the power to destroy.

00:13:34.380 I remember this from Stephen Gilboa, who drafted the censorship bills now being debated.

00:13:40.100 He said it's to stop criticism of politicians.

00:13:44.580 We've seen too many examples of public officials retreating from public service due to the hateful online content targeted towards themselves or even their families.

00:13:54.620 And if you don't stop, they'll, quote, drop a bomb on you.

00:13:58.940 Envision having blocking orders.

00:14:01.460 I mean, that's maybe it's not, you know, it's it would be it would likely be a last result, last result, nuclear bomb in a in a toolbox of of mechanism for for regulators.

00:14:21.020 Yeah. And back then, they hadn't even discovered the thrill of seizing their opponent's bank accounts either.

00:14:26.980 It's dark times.

00:14:28.380 But Elon Musk's surprise move is a little, little ray of hope.

00:14:34.460 Well, here's hoping at least stay with us for more on this with Alan Bukari.

00:14:37.680 Well, last week, my spider senses started tingling.

00:14:52.200 I wasn't alone.

00:14:53.000 Elon Musk, the world's richest man and a bit of a iconoclast, a bit of a dissident and someone who says that free speech is very important.

00:15:01.780 And actually, I believe him when he says he feels that way, started musing about Twitter, the social media company that really is the host of so much public debate.

00:15:12.100 I mean, Facebook is great and it's huge.

00:15:14.800 But Twitter really is where a lot of political discourse happens.

00:15:18.080 And it's one of those rare platforms where both liberals and conservatives go really to fight, although conservatives more and more have been restricted.

00:15:25.640 Of course, Twitter having a very fundamental role in the last U.S. presidential election, deciding in the late hour to block and ban discussions of Hunter Biden's laptop, even though the New York Post published them.

00:15:40.260 Huge censorship that likely swayed that election.

00:15:43.480 Anyways, Elon Musk started doing interesting things.

00:15:46.040 He asked his viewers, his readers, his followers to vote in a poll.

00:15:51.060 Is Twitter free enough?

00:15:52.280 Should he get involved?

00:15:53.260 He started dropping hints and then, bam, today it's announced that Elon Musk has acquired 9.2 percent of the shares of the company, an enormous stake and perhaps a signal of things to come.

00:16:06.920 Joining us now via Skype from Austin, Texas, is our friend Alam Bakari, senior tech writer for Breitbart News.

00:16:13.540 Great to see you again, Alam.

00:16:14.600 It's been too long.

00:16:16.440 Normally, it's just bad news after bad news, more censorship, more deplatforming.

00:16:20.940 But the startling news that Elon Musk is now the big dog at Twitter is very encouraging.

00:16:26.220 What do you think?

00:16:27.520 It's certainly a big white pill.

00:16:30.980 You know, the one criticism I've heard of Elon Musk is that, you know, he signals to conservatives a lot, but he doesn't really put his money where his mouth is.

00:16:39.880 I don't think he can really be accused of that now, unless, of course, he sells his stock.

00:16:44.660 You know, the value has gone up by, I think, over 30 percent just today.

00:16:48.120 So we'll we'll see what happens with that.

00:16:51.260 The other thing to point out is that it's a he bought a passive stake.

00:16:56.000 So what he bought does not give him the ability to directly influence the company, take a day to day role just yet.

00:17:02.860 But analysts are saying this is sort of just, you know, getting the foot in the door down the road.

00:17:08.320 He could buy an even bigger stake that gives him more sway over the company or even buy out Twitter altogether.

00:17:16.160 You know, Elon Musk is worth over, you know, 250 billion.

00:17:20.200 So it's well within his means to buy the entire platform.

00:17:23.740 Yeah.

00:17:23.900 And that's exactly what conservatives were urging him to do when he when he came out with that comment a couple of weeks ago.

00:17:30.340 It's incredible.

00:17:31.120 I mean, I see that Jack Dorsey, the founder and really the spiritual leader in many ways of Twitter, just the other day expressed regret that the glory days of the free Internet are no longer around.

00:17:43.640 And he and he says he takes some blame for that.

00:17:46.760 The first generation of tech people always claim they're for freedom.

00:17:51.160 I mean, the Google guys, they actually had the motto, don't be evil.

00:17:55.200 And then they made the decision to remove that as their motto.

00:17:58.980 I think they had enough self-awareness to realize they couldn't say that anymore.

00:18:03.080 The success of generations are always worse.

00:18:06.140 I think the corporate culture of these places is absolutely colonized by woke leftists who really don't know much on the tech side, but they know a lot on the woke politics side.

00:18:16.780 I mean, these early guys were computer engineers, math guys, computer guys, you know, nerdy guys.

00:18:25.540 But they've been all pushed aside by a wave of people who couldn't program to save their lives.

00:18:31.920 But boy, do they know about microaggressions.

00:18:34.980 To me, that's probably a quarter of the staff at Twitter, YouTube, Google, just a quarter of the people are just the censors in the school these days.

00:18:42.420 I don't know what the math is, but they really have been transformed, haven't they?

00:18:46.660 I think that's absolutely true.

00:18:48.780 And I've always said, you know, it's very easy to, you know, direct all your hate towards the most public figure at the company, which is the CEO in Twitter.

00:18:57.540 That was Jack Dorsey.

00:18:59.460 Facebook, you know, it's Mark Zuckerberg.

00:19:01.400 But in my opinion, these guys are nowhere near the worst people at the company.

00:19:05.720 You know, Jack Dorsey, I've heard from people who work for Twitter that Jack Dorsey was nowhere near the worst guy at the company.

00:19:11.980 He was actually holding back some of the crazies at the trust and safety department, which is where all the censors congregate inside these tech companies.

00:19:23.600 And of course, when he was replaced by Parag Agrawal, there was an immediate purge of conservatives.

00:19:29.000 You're right, I described this in my book, Deleted, about how Silicon Valley went from these ideals of decentralization, of just allowing people to say what they want, and giving people a platform, rather than taking an editorial role to these very, very censored platforms that they've now become.

00:19:49.420 It's a complete inversion of the ideals that the Internet was founded on.

00:19:53.820 And actually, this was something that Google admitted.

00:19:56.200 I obtained a document from inside Google in 2018 published on Breitbart News called The Good Censor, in which they admit that the Internet was founded on principles of free speech, but that this was all changing after 2016 in response to political events.

00:20:12.680 So this is something that Google, arguably the most powerful tech company in the world, admitted in its own research.

00:20:19.060 So it's absolutely exactly as you described what's happened to Silicon Valley over the past decade or so.

00:20:24.200 Yeah. You know, Elon Musk has certainly got his foot in the door, and you're right, he has enough wealth to take things over.

00:20:30.560 But the thing is, let's say he was even more free speechy than Jack Dorsey.

00:20:36.000 I don't know how many people work for Twitter.

00:20:37.760 I guess I could look it up.

00:20:38.760 It's thousands of people.

00:20:39.900 And you can be the boss, but frankly, my observation of these companies is that there's this internal culture.

00:20:51.320 If you were to say we're for free speech now, it would either be ignored or subverted or sabotaged.

00:20:57.780 Who knows? Maybe a lot of people would quit.

00:21:00.080 But I just I sometimes wonder if these companies are even under the control of the CEO.

00:21:06.400 So if there was a directive, whether from the board of directors or if there was a resolution passed at the Twitter annual shareholders meeting to to reembrace free speech.

00:21:18.500 OK, that looks nice on paper, but you've got a thousand little, you know, critters burrowed into Twitter and they're there on a mission.

00:21:30.380 They're not there just as a job.

00:21:31.920 They see it as a mission and they're not going to give it up.

00:21:34.460 I think that there's going to have to be a purge or there's going to be sabotage.

00:21:37.360 I think that's likely, but I think it's a lot more possible to do these kinds of employee turnovers at private companies compared to, say, Washington, D.C.

00:21:48.700 You know, Trump struggled with this as well.

00:21:50.340 He had put out an order and then the bureaucracy would just ignore it or subvert it.

00:21:54.760 But it's a lot harder to fire a bureaucrat than it is to fire an employee of a private company.

00:21:59.160 And we saw we've seen examples of of this where I think it was coin was Coinbase, the Coinbase CEO.

00:22:07.560 He said he no longer wanted politics to be discussed in the workplace.

00:22:12.840 And he gave employees who disagreed a very generous deal to leave the company if they disagreed.

00:22:19.320 And a lot of them did. So it's been it's been done before.

00:22:22.600 I think it can be done again.

00:22:24.000 And another thing to remember is that while the the social justice warriors, if you will, have a lot of influence inside these companies because they're the most vocal minority and they have the media on their side.

00:22:38.680 There are lots of other employees who simply just don't agree with the craziness, but keep their heads down because they don't want to be targeted.

00:22:46.080 I wouldn't underestimate how big that cohort is.

00:22:50.160 They may not all be conservatives, but a lot of them think the social justice nonsense in Silicon Valley has gone far too far.

00:23:01.440 Well, I tell you, you use the word white pill.

00:23:04.200 I mean, from the movie The Matrix, the red pill is to have the scales from your eyes and to be, you know, to lose your Garden of Eden in naivete.

00:23:14.780 And the blue pill is, no, I want to go back to that, you know, lack of knowledge.

00:23:19.660 It's like the red pill is when you eat from the fruit of the tree of knowledge and you see how things really are.

00:23:24.840 It's a pessimistic view, but it's a realistic view.

00:23:27.640 The kids say black pill is that you're just you think there's no hope.

00:23:31.460 You've you've been too disillusioned.

00:23:34.060 But white pill is the phrase for, you know, renewed hope.

00:23:37.720 And you use that phrase when we just started a conversation.

00:23:40.160 I have to say this is the best news I've seen in a long time.

00:23:43.640 And Rumble, the YouTube competitor, the video platform that's now getting into the servers business, Peter Thiel has a stake in that.

00:23:52.260 So you've got Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, really the two most freedom loving guys in Silicon Valley.

00:23:58.600 They're both putting their money with their mouth is I'm excited about it.

00:24:02.960 I mean, I I think that still we're losing every day.

00:24:06.500 It's maybe just today we're losing a little less slowly.

00:24:10.320 Yes. And, you know, both PayPal founders.

00:24:13.040 I think there's a lot of positive things happening in Silicon Valley outside of the big tech companies.

00:24:18.180 Again, we have to see what happens.

00:24:20.140 Maybe Elon Musk simply wanted to boost the price of Twitter and then sell his stake.

00:24:24.140 Who knows? He doesn't really need more money.

00:24:25.860 Yeah. But we've got to wait and see to see if he'll buy more shares and obtain the influence he needs inside the company to actually change things.

00:24:32.700 He hasn't done that quite yet because of the passive stake.

00:24:35.380 But it's a it's a it's a big move.

00:24:37.560 And, you know, he certainly has, as he said, put his money where his mouth is.

00:24:41.100 You know, he's a really avid Twitter user.

00:24:43.620 I mean, I enjoy following him.

00:24:45.480 I feel like I learn things.

00:24:47.000 I think he's really got a quirky sense of humor.

00:24:49.540 I don't know if that's him or if he is a writer.

00:24:51.260 I have to think it's him because in interviews, he's got that sort of mischievous grin and he says and does things that are a little quirky.

00:24:58.620 I I think that's his own stuff.

00:25:00.300 I don't think I think like Trump, he writes his own tweets, except for I don't think they'll they'll be able to cancel him.

00:25:07.480 He's he's not.

00:25:08.840 I mean, there's a method to his madness.

00:25:10.820 I think that we're into for exciting times.

00:25:13.380 What do you think?

00:25:13.920 What's the reaction been so far?

00:25:15.680 Has has Washington, D.C. condemned this or something?

00:25:19.520 I'm not sure they know how to how to take it at the moment.

00:25:24.980 I think they're also going to see where this goes.

00:25:30.040 But, yeah, as you said, there could be exciting things down the road if Elon Musk increases his shares.

00:25:37.340 You know, I know that Musk, even though you might think he would be in league with Joe Biden and the Democrats because he's really a green energy pioneer.

00:25:45.940 He's repeatedly said he himself did not ask for the subsidies.

00:25:49.180 That was his competitors, GM, et cetera.

00:25:51.820 And he had the courage to say, well, the way to solve this problem in Ukraine and Russia is to produce more oil in America.

00:25:58.840 Like he really for a guy who you would think, all right, you're a leading green tech guy.

00:26:03.820 You're going to be a Democrat.

00:26:04.960 He really has that independent streak.

00:26:07.600 I don't know.

00:26:08.080 I I'm really excited about about this.

00:26:12.140 But let me just close with a slightly more pessimistic note.

00:26:15.840 Twitter is where guys like you and me hang out.

00:26:18.320 It's the political discourse.

00:26:19.720 It's the newspaper people tweeting their own commentary.

00:26:22.800 There are other sides of Twitter.

00:26:24.100 There's comedians, there's sports, there's culture.

00:26:27.100 But it is nowhere near the importance of, say, a Google, the world's largest search engine or even YouTube, the world's largest search engine for videos.

00:26:35.740 It having this is like taking over a niche.

00:26:39.500 Like it really is a niche market for political discourse.

00:26:44.820 It's it's far less important than infrastructure, things like Google or or YouTube.

00:26:50.140 Am I right?

00:26:51.640 I think that's accurate.

00:26:53.220 And Facebook as well.

00:26:54.540 Facebook is absolutely huge for for news in particular and political news, which is why they'd be relentlessly targeted by the left that wants to control that information flow.

00:27:06.080 So, yeah.

00:27:06.880 But but let's not underestimate Twitter.

00:27:08.780 You know, Trump was an avid Twitter user.

00:27:11.220 He used Twitter to, I think, maximum effect politically just to get around the media and get his message out.

00:27:16.040 So it's still a very, very important platform.

00:27:18.000 If we can just have one of those big platforms that's ready to free speech, that, in my view, would be a game changer, even if it's not on the level of Google or Facebook.

00:27:26.320 Yeah.

00:27:26.940 Well, listen, I'm hopeful.

00:27:28.860 Thank you for your encouraging reports.

00:27:31.400 Your book, again, Deleted.

00:27:32.600 Tell us just in one more minute about that, because you were prescient on a lot of things.

00:27:36.440 Give us one more minute on Deleted, which you published.

00:27:38.780 In the run up to the last presidential election.

00:27:42.000 Yes.

00:27:42.420 Full title, Deleted Big Tech's Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal the Election.

00:27:47.740 So you can kind of figure out what it's about.

00:27:50.420 Rely on sources from inside Silicon Valley to tell that story of how the big tech companies underwent that massive sea change after 2016.

00:27:59.140 completely altered their platform simply to overwhelmingly just influence the next election.

00:28:06.760 And you'll see that full story laid out there.

00:28:08.900 Obviously, unfortunately, it is kind of what happened in 2020.

00:28:12.200 Hopefully, people can use that book as a guide to stop it happening again.

00:28:15.920 Yeah.

00:28:16.520 There you have it.

00:28:17.400 Alan Bokhari, senior tech boss over at Breitbart.com.

00:28:21.360 Hope to see you again soon.

00:28:23.180 Thanks, Ezra.

00:28:23.880 All right.

00:28:24.420 Cheers.

00:28:24.600 Stay with us.

00:28:25.220 More ahead.

00:28:37.360 Hey, welcome back.

00:28:38.320 Your letters to me.

00:28:39.280 Someone named Rand says, I've been following Alex Epstein for years, common sense, and tons of facts backed by detailed research about energy reality.

00:28:49.660 He is a beacon of sanity in the climate discussion.

00:28:53.380 Trudeau or any of his minions should debate Mr. Epstein.

00:28:56.400 That would be entertaining.

00:28:57.720 You know, I've known Alex for, I don't know, at least 10 years.

00:29:01.020 And what I like about him is that he doesn't concede the ethics of the morality of energy to the left.

00:29:10.740 You know, a mistake that too many conservatives make is saying, yeah, it's bad, but I mean, it's almost like a self-loathing tobacco executive saying, well, fine.

00:29:21.480 Well, we have a bad product, but will you let us sell it to adults or will you let us sell it with plain packaging?

00:29:27.740 Or what, like they're sort of bargaining with you, they acknowledge, like some, I'm saying, you know, a self-hating person.

00:29:33.880 A lot of woke oil companies and politicians on the right are, well, fine, energy is bad, but please, can we have some?

00:29:41.380 Epstein takes a different point of view, saying it's not bad.

00:29:43.920 It's positively good.

00:29:46.160 And energy and cheap, affordable, reliable energy is what has lifted us out of poverty and misery.

00:29:52.700 So I love that approach.

00:29:55.300 It doesn't grant the moral high ground to the other side, it takes it away from them. 0.51

00:29:58.600 So I think he's good.

00:30:00.400 I got a little mug that says I love fossil fuels, by the way.

00:30:04.400 R. McSee says it's earned its name, the Washington Compost.

00:30:09.100 Yeah, they certainly don't like alternative voices like Alex Epstein.

00:30:13.480 Jim Moore says, referring to radical trans activism, he says,

00:30:17.840 I cannot understand the overreach to defend these immoral actions to promote what amounts to 1% or less of the total population.

00:30:25.780 Yeah, well, you know, it's like our discussion with James Lindsay the other day.

00:30:29.860 It's, if you look at it through the Marxist lens, it doesn't matter who the bullet in the gun is.

00:30:35.200 If the gun is communism, I mean, Karl Marx used economic Marxism, the, you know, the working class versus the bosses.

00:30:44.120 But Marxist race Marxism divides people on race, gender Marxism and trans Marxism.

00:30:52.020 If you see it as a way to weaponize people, destroy the establishment, then the, you know, the critical theory template makes sense.

00:31:01.540 I think, I think it is a shock, a shocking attack that, sure, it's on sexual norms, but it's on the establishment, the society itself.

00:31:16.720 And it won't be the last thing.

00:31:18.140 It absolutely won't be the last thing.

00:31:19.840 We'll see what more is to come.

00:31:22.820 That's our show for the day.

00:31:23.960 It's great to be back in the chair here until tomorrow on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters.

00:31:28.680 Good night.

00:31:29.400 Keep fighting for freedom.

00:31:30.180 And let me leave you with this great video of day of our friend Avi Yamini down under talking to his security guard.

00:31:36.900 You know, Avi is one of our best guys.

00:31:39.020 He's two years in a row now voted our viewer's choice.

00:31:42.240 He's just great, our top reporter, according to our viewers.

00:31:48.300 We give him a bodyguard because he's pushed around by Antifa or any thug.

00:31:52.840 The bodyguard's got his back.

00:31:54.500 But sometimes the cops and sometimes others go after the bodyguard to try and get to Avi because they know we'll defend Avi.

00:32:01.640 We have very firmly.

00:32:03.580 So they go after Avi's bodyguard, but we've got his back the same way he's got Avi's back.

00:32:08.440 Enough talk from here.

00:32:09.340 I'll leave you with this video.

00:32:10.560 I'll see you later.

00:32:11.000 Daniel, thank you for joining me again today.

00:32:13.720 It's been a while since we've caught up and a lot has happened that the viewers don't even know about.

00:32:18.200 Those that have supported you at StandWithDaniel.com.

00:32:21.440 There is a whole part of the story since that infamous day where you stood up and protected me from violent assailants.

00:32:28.460 You did your job.

00:32:29.360 This is what you say that's a good thing to do?

00:32:31.360 Look at you.

00:32:32.060 You're going to pick on the girl. 1.00

00:32:33.160 I'll fucking pick whatever I want, you fucking piece of shit. 0.99

00:32:35.700 All right, bro.

00:32:36.380 What?

00:32:36.960 Look at me.

00:32:38.180 Did anyone want to talk to you at all?

00:32:40.620 All right, mate.

00:32:41.080 Did anyone want to talk to you at all?

00:32:42.420 The virus.

00:32:42.920 The virus.

00:32:43.580 Shut the fuck up. 1.00

00:32:44.760 Stand back.

00:32:45.500 Can you tell us what happened after that incident?

00:32:48.760 After that incident, there was a lot of online chatter going on.

00:32:52.360 Certain prolific troll who had been encouraging followers with my name, my security number and the number of LRD to give them a call, make mass complaints, frivolous, vexatious complaints.

00:33:04.240 And from there I was called by police, I was told that they weren't really pressing charges, asked me to come in for an interview and I declined the interview and I thought that was the end of everything.

00:33:16.520 But things turned a little bit weird at some point because it became very bizarre when you hadn't heard anything from police, but Lance was on there online saying that your house had been raided and that your firearms had been confiscated.

00:33:35.000 It turns out, lucky you Lance was right once again and you've now been raided and had your gun license suspended.

00:33:41.680 I saw that pop up online and he had mentioned, which I thought was funny because nothing had happened, I'd had no word.

00:33:47.760 He'd mentioned my house had been raided, which it had not.

00:33:50.440 There was no reasonable cause for police to ever enter the property anyway.

00:33:53.800 But he was boasting about how my firearms, I'd been raided, my firearms had been taken and, which at the time of the boasting simply wasn't the case.

00:34:03.080 Now, you've got to ask yourself, how do I know that Daniel Jones had been raided and had his gun license suspended?

00:34:09.780 How do I know that?

00:34:11.040 He hasn't posted about it, it wasn't in the media.

00:34:13.080 How do I know?

00:34:16.040 How do I know that?

00:34:18.760 Because I'm Australia's most prolific snitch.

00:34:20.660 There was no way anyone knew about what was to come.

00:34:24.760 Police hadn't even contacted you, so you didn't know about it.

00:34:27.840 But Lance Simon was online, boasting about how your house had been raided and your guns had been confiscated before police even reached out.

00:34:38.700 Correct.

00:34:39.300 That's exactly what happened, yeah.

00:34:40.700 And then, not long after that, I actually did receive the letter from police, notifying of a suspension of my firearms license.

00:34:49.300 What'd you do?

00:34:49.800 I spoke to police and, because I was a bit bemused by it, I didn't know why it was happening.

00:34:56.440 And that's where I was told by police I had to have the papers served in person.

00:35:00.640 When I went to the police station, they were saying my firearms were an exhibit, that I had to relinquish them to the police station.

00:35:07.060 I couldn't get them stored at a registered firearms dealer.

00:35:09.580 Sir, I asked the police if I was being charged.

00:35:12.420 They said no, so I willfully disobeyed that request and took everything to a registered firearms dealer anyway.

00:35:20.120 And right after having your guns taken away, you soon after received also a notification that your security license was under review.

00:35:28.600 Is that right?

00:35:28.960 Correct, correct.

00:35:29.900 Yeah, I got a please explain from LRD in response to the incident at, what was it, out the front of Parliament House by the cafe there.

00:35:39.000 Straight away we got you the best lawyer who specializes in this field.

00:35:43.020 Tell us what's happened since then.

00:35:44.260 Well, since then, and I'd like to thank that lawyer, he is the best and he did an amazing job.

00:35:51.420 And since then, he did get the firearms license reinstated with no reason.

00:35:58.060 The plastic was just returned in the mail with a letter basically saying, you've got it back, that's it.

00:36:02.620 After months of communicating with LRD, they produced no evidence for their claims.

00:36:08.940 And eventually a letter was sent just saying that all charges or investigation had been dropped and the license was clear.

00:36:15.800 Which is fantastic news because I remember when this all went down, I promised you one thing is Rebel News will have your back no matter what.

00:36:22.300 I told you our supporters, if they hear what's happening, you know, the targeted campaign to try, get you really to get at me.

00:36:30.840 The people will support you no matter what.

00:36:33.820 And we haven't mentioned it till now.

00:36:35.140 We've let it roll so it could play out.

00:36:37.180 It's been an amazing outcome and we have used, thankfully, to the supporters at StandWithDaniel.com.

00:36:42.640 We've, you know, we've been raising money for your Supreme Court action.

00:36:45.500 That's still going on.

00:36:46.440 But we use those funds to get you the best line.

00:36:48.900 And we're purposely not mentioning his name, not to turn him into a target because we've got him in our back pocket ready for each and every time.

00:36:57.940 Now, two parts.

00:37:00.140 The, you know, obviously those, that campaign was illegitimate.

00:37:05.660 Are you doing anything about going after those who tried unlawfully to create that and to have you cancelled like that?

00:37:15.220 I'm certainly talking with lawyers about the options on the table and what we can do about that insofar as what we can pursue and what we can do.

00:37:24.360 I think it is important that we pursue each and every person who is behind that campaign.

00:37:29.700 And we're going to make sure we do do whatever we can to hold them accountable.

00:37:34.240 We're going to use the best lawyers each and every time.

00:37:37.320 That's what we've learned at Rebel News.

00:37:38.660 Use the best lawyers and you get the best outcome.

00:37:41.500 The outcome is pretty good now.

00:37:42.800 We do have your other matters still in front of the Supreme Court, Victoria Police, the arrests.

00:37:48.960 And we encourage people to keep helping us at stanwithdaniel.com to ensure that we can take that all the way to the end.

00:37:55.080 Plus, follow this through.

00:37:57.320 What would you like to say to the people at home watching this who really didn't even know that they were helping you with all this,

00:38:05.180 but have managed to regain your licence, regain your firearms?

00:38:10.160 I'm just very humbled by it.

00:38:11.980 I'd like to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart because it's just humbling and amazing that people would support me in what's happened.

00:38:21.460 Well, people love you.

00:38:22.560 You know, after what happened that day and the professionalism you showed that day and, you know, you're a tough guy.

00:38:29.680 I know we've been in sticky situations, but people got to see it firsthand.

00:38:32.720 And you became a hero at the rallies that I felt like I wanted to stop bringing you because you were getting all the attention.

00:38:40.180 Yeah, yeah, I had to put a no selfies ban on while at work.

00:38:47.440 Look at what they've got.

00:38:48.920 Capture it.

00:38:49.480 That's fine.

00:38:50.340 This is police brutality in Melbourne, mate.

00:38:52.600 That's uncalled for.

00:38:53.440 He's a security guard working on the job.

00:38:56.300 Did you do that to Channel 9?

00:38:57.540 Did you do that to Channel 7?

00:38:58.900 Did you do that to SBS and ABC?

00:39:00.600 My members are trying to deal with it.

00:39:04.040 And he's not an offender.

00:39:05.780 He's not an offender.

00:39:06.980 He's my security guard.

00:39:08.220 Well, before we go, there is one other piece of amazing news because you were fined that day you were arrested.

00:39:14.560 Yes.

00:39:14.840 And we fought that as well.

00:39:16.780 And what's the outcome of that now?

00:39:19.000 That was dropped.

00:39:19.980 That was all cleared, all dropped.

00:39:21.700 That's gone.

00:39:23.240 Withdrawn.

00:39:24.100 Correct.

00:39:24.380 We're just winning with you, Daniel, and we're going to keep winning with you because we know that as long as we fight for you, that means you're going to fight for me and you're going to always be there by my side.

00:39:34.060 And I feel, you know, I feel safe and protected when you have my back.

00:39:38.160 Thank you so much, brother, for everything.

00:39:39.560 Thank you.

00:39:39.880 It's an absolute pleasure to know that everybody at home and our team, we will leap to your defence every time in the exact same way you've leapt to my defence several times already over the years.

00:39:53.860 So thank you, everyone at home that has helped us at standwithdaniel.com.

00:39:58.060 None of this is possible without you.

00:40:00.280 And till next time, let's celebrate these wins.

00:40:04.500 We'll be right back.

Rebel News Podcast - April 05, 2022

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Is the world’s richest man going to save the Internet from censorship？

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