EZRA LEVANT ｜ The BBC hires a 27-year-old TikTok star to tell you what’s true and what’s not true. What could go wrong？
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Summary
The BBC has a new anti-doubt unit called BBC Verititas, and they want to make sure you know what s true and what's not true. They've hired a 27-year-old TikTok star to tell you what's true, and what isn't true. What could possibly go wrong?
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. Today, I'm going to show you a strange project by the BBC state broadcaster
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over in London. They have this new anti-disinformation squad, 60 people strong,
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called BBC Verify. I'll take you through it. I think you'll get a kick out of it.
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But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. It's the
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video version of this podcast. I want you to do that because I'm going to have this video,
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two videos I play, from this BBC Verify tribe, and I want you to see them.
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To get access, go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month,
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which gives you this podcast in video form. Every weekday I do a show, and my friend Sheila Gunn-Reed
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does one every week. And by the way, the eight bucks a month, it might not seem like a lot to
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you, but it's a lot for us when it all adds up. That's how we pay our bills. So that's
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rebelnewsplus.com. All right, here's today's podcast.
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Tonight, the BBC hires a 27-year-old TikTok star to tell you what's true and what's not true.
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What could possibly go wrong? It's May 24th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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You're fighting for freedom! Shame on you, you censorious bug!
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Hey, look at this tweet from the United Kingdom's BBC State Broadcasters, from a show called BBC
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Breakfast. BBC News has unveiled BBC Verify to address the growing threat of disinceration,
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disinformation, and build trust with audiences through transparency. The BBC's disinformation
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correspondent, Marianna Spring, had more details on BBC Breakfast. Okay.
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Verify comes from the Latin word veritas, which means truth.
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Isn't all journalism about uncovering the truth, trying to verify it? Sometimes it's easy,
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like a sports score. Sometimes, you know, it's subject to debate. But isn't all journalism
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about verifying things? How exactly is this different? Here, take a look at this video that
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accompanies this tweet. Welcome to BBC Verify. Like you said, we are a team of investigative
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journalists here at the BBC. We are also a new brand, and we are a physical location above the
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newsroom in London. And the point of the team, as you said, is to verify video, to fact check,
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to counter disinformation, and to analyse really complex stories so we can get to the truth of
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what's going on. Why does this matter? Well, mistruths can cause really serious harm to society
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and to the people in them. And so we want to show you our workings and really help you understand
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how we get to the bottom of what's happening. And I'm going to give you a bit of a flavour of the
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kind of work that the team are doing. So we're able to look at maps to geolocate specific situations,
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stuff that's going on. And this is just a map of central London, where we are now.
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And this is New Broadcasting House, where I'm speaking to you from. And it's not so important,
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perhaps, for the centre of London, but it is when we're analysing war zones or what's happening
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in hard-to-reach places. And there's a story on the BBC website today. It's looking at Russian
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fortifications on the front lines in Ukraine. And you can read more about it there. And there are
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other ways that we also are able to interrogate what's going on, including on social media.
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I have some undercover accounts that I've set up for the BBC's AmeriCast podcast. And we use these
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kinds of undercover accounts. And these are the characters that the accounts belong to,
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to be able to really understand polarisation online and how what's happening on our social
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media feeds and what we're being recommended and pushed to us can affect all of us. And they
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don't offer us a totally exhaustive insight into what's going on, but they can help us understand
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just how social media works. And then there's also investigating other mistreats and the real
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world harm they can cause. At the moment, I'm investigating the UK's conspiracy theory movement.
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I'm trying to understand more about how it's evolved and intensified since the pandemic here
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in the UK. I'm looking at the alternative media that finds itself at the heart of this movement
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and a conspiracy theory newspaper that's a part of that as well. I'm looking at the way that
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alternative media is funded. I'm looking at its impact on local communities. I'm looking at its
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connections with far-right figures and also its foreign links. That's for a podcast series that will
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be coming out in June. It's called Marianna in Conspiracyland and it will be available on BBC
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Sounds, Radio 4, asking that question, could January the 6th or a German coup attempt like we
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saw there ever happen here in the UK? So there's a real range of journalism BBC Verify will be doing
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and you'll be able to see it online, on iPlayer, across BBC News, on your televisions and radio. So do look
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out for it. Oh boy, there's a lot in there. Why is this team above the newsroom? Why isn't it part of
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the newsroom? Why isn't it just the rest of the newsroom? Now I've met some BBC journalists. I like
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some, I dislike most, but imagine the hubris of this young lady saying she is somehow above the
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other journalists with her massive experience. So she will provide truth-telling abilities that say
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some 40-year veteran and some expert cannot. By using Google Maps, she says, wow, looking at maps.
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By the way, do you trust this young lady to tell you about war zones by her ability to look at
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Google Maps? She's 27 and I looked her up. She has a degree in speaking French and Russian,
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which are interesting, but what exactly makes her an expert about anything other than, I suppose,
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the French and Russian languages? Why is she more senior than other BBC journalists who have
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actually, say, done war reporting? Wouldn't a war reporter for the BBC tell you better what the
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truth is than some social media TikTok star? She says that myths, truths can cause harm, you see,
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and you can rely on her to identify that harm. The weird thing is that she immediately says she
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is deploying mistruths through fake Twitter accounts, fake social media accounts. And weirdly,
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all these undercover fake accounts are in America. This is the British BBC, but they're setting up fake
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accounts in the United States to be able to understand what's going on. So they're using deceptive
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tactics to fight deception. They're using inauthentic fakes to fight fake news, and they say this is to
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improve trustworthiness. By the way, it's against the terms of service of every social media company
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to set up fake accounts. That's just against the rules. They're breaking the rules. I don't know if we
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care about the rules of Facebook or Twitter, but this is exactly what the left and the BBC and the CBC and
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BBC say is foreign meddling in America. In fact, it's not just foreign meddling. It's a foreign
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government. The BBC is the state broadcaster. Now, did you hear what young Marianna had to say?
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That she will investigate the conspiracy theory movement. All right, well, what's she talking
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about? Is she talking about the conspiracy theory that Russia somehow colluded with Donald Trump?
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That was proven to be a conspiracy theory, but the BBC reported is the truth. How about the global
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warming theory that somehow people are causing the earth to bake and we only have 10 years left?
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And that theory was proposed 20 years ago. What about the various COVID hoaxes? And I'm not talking
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about skeptics. I'm talking about the government hoaxes, that the vaccine was safe and effective when
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we found out it wasn't very effective at all. You had to keep taking it, which isn't really a vaccine,
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is it? Or about the official hoaxes about the source of the vaccine? Are any of these conspiracy
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theories going to be assessed or only the ones that the government doesn't like? She said she's
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going to look at funding for alternative media, but not the funding for the BBC, which extracts
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billions of dollars from British taxpayers. What does it matter how her competitors are funded? Is that
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really to get to the truth or is that really to actually attack her competitors? And did you hear
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who she said she'd be looking at? The far right. Okay. But what about the far left? What about the green
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left? What about extinction rebellion? Is she going to look at Greta Thunberg? Who's funding her? Or how
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about Antifa? Or I don't know, Islamic terrorism? Why are none of those things of interest to her?
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Only examining the right. Did you hear her mention January 6th? Do you even know what that is?
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Canadians sort of know. That's a great meandering, as it's called, where that one guy who dressed up
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like a Viking moose meandered through Congress. And yeah, they broke some windows and they trespassed,
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and I don't support them. But it wasn't really a riot. It was a meandering that was led by cops,
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and it was certainly agitated by FBI agents provocateurs. Remember this clip of an FBI
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agent, or at least an accused FBI agent, exhorting the crowd?
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We need to go into the Capitol. Into the Capitol. What? No! No! No! Peacefully!
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Tomorrow? I don't even like to say it because I'll be arrested. Well, let's not say it.
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We need, we need to go, I'll say it. All right. We need to go in. Shut the fuck up,
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Boomer. To the Capitol. Based Fed posting? All right. We need to go into the Capitol.
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The President is dead speaking. We are going to the Capitol where our problems are. It's that direction.
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We spread the word. All right. No Dave, but one more thing. Yeah, so can we go up there?
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No? When we go in, leave this year. Yeah. You don't need to get shot.
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Is that the conspiracy theory they mean? The FBI agent provocateur? Because
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I would watch that. But if this is just the BBC state broadcaster rehashing the US Democrat line
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on about January 6th, how is that even interesting to Brits? Does one in a hundred Brits care about
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Marianna's views about January 6th? Who is she? Well, she studied French and Russian and she
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bounced around different newspapers. She's the ripe old age of 27 and she does both this information
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and TikTok. She sort of reminds me of Canada's Rachel Gilmore, you know, the one who said,
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should we even sit with our family at Christmas dinner? Remember that one?
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Are you going to invite your unvaccinated relatives to sit at the dinner table with you this Thanksgiving?
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Experts are saying you might not want to risk it. Here's why. According to one expert from
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McMaster University, vaccines are super effective, but they're most effective when you're surrounded
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by other vaccinated people. If you invite someone who isn't vaccinated, there's a risk of having
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a breakthrough case. Now, breakthrough cases are pretty rare. There's only ever been about 8,000
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in Ontario, but kids can't get vaccinated yet. So part of keeping those kids as safe as possible
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is telling that one uncle who chooses not to get vaccinated that he might have to sit this one out.
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And like Canada's Rachel Gilmore, she has the same sense of victimology. She says that you're not
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allowed to criticize her. Let me read this tweet from her. After that first tweet went out, she was widely
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ridiculed. And she said this, I've been traveling for my next Radio 4 podcast and brilliant to see
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positive response about BBC Verify. I've also been bombarded with abuse, misogyny, defamatory claims,
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misunderstanding my investigations into harm caused by mistruths and trolling. Here's a taste from past
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year. But I went to the tweet and there was nothing there. I don't know if she knows how to use social
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media. Well, I don't get it. She says, check out this post for a flavor, but a lot worse via message.
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No one should have to experience this level of abuse. I am not in charge of every bit of the BBC
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you don't like. I investigate the real world harm of what happens on social media, disinformation,
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hate, algorithms. But what's she even referring to? And you see what happens so quickly here.
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If you clap back at her, if you mock her, or if you merely misunderstand her,
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she'll say that that's exactly what she's here to fight. People who misunderstand her and people who
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don't like her, people who are mean to her. That's nothing to do with the word verify, is it?
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It's about marginalizing and canceling people she doesn't like. She's showing what she really means
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by truth and untruth. She's just mad about opinions and expression of opinions, including rudeness.
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None of that has anything to do with veritas. Look, truth can be rude, or it can be cruel.
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That's the thing about the truth. She's about silencing alternative voices by denormalizing
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and defaming them. She told you she's going to investigate independent journalism. How about
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investigate the BBC? Here's her boss, the boss of the BBC, a lot like Canada's CBC boss,
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explaining the how, the launch of BBC Verify by Deborah Ternis, CEO of BBC News. I'm going to
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take you through this, and I'm going to give you my thoughts as we go through. And you're probably
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saying, Ezra, why are you focused so much on the BBC? Well, it's interesting, but I think the BBC
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is often a model, a template for the CBC. It's sort of like the bigger brother of state broadcasters,
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and they do a lot of things together, including this whole trust initiative.
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It starts actually interesting. In the early hours of Wednesday, the 3rd of May, video footage
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emerged showing what appeared to be two drones crashing into a dome of the Kremlin complex in
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Moscow. But was the video real or fake? Did this attack actually happen? And how could we tell?
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The exponential growth of manipulated and distorted video means that seeing is no longer believing.
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Okay, but then she doesn't actually answer that interesting question. Then she talks about
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herself a bit. Consumers tell us they can no longer trust that the video in the news feeds is real,
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which is why we at the BBC must urgently begin to show and share the work we do behind the scenes
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to check and verify information and video content before it appears on our platforms. Okay, right.
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But Marianna said that her project is about criticizing independent journalists, going after
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conspiracy theorists, going after the right wing. She didn't say anything about examining the BBC's
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own work. Now that I would pay to watch. I'll keep reading. And as AI, artificial intelligence,
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weaponizes and turbocharges the impact and consequences of disinformation, this work has never been more
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important. Take it from her. It's very important. All day, every day, the BBC's news teams are using ever
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more sophisticated tools, techniques and technology to check and verify videos like the Kremlin drone footage,
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as well as images and information. They do this to ensure our journalism meets the rigorous editorial
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standards the BBC's proud to uphold. Okay, but I say again, nothing Marianna said was about criticizing the BBC.
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It was all about criticizing her critics, wasn't it?
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By the way, I'm glad that the BBC says they're going to fact check the Kremlin. The Kremlin is run
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by an authoritarian regime. The president of Russia is really a lifelong dictator. The elections there are
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neither fair nor free. And let's not forget that Vladimir Putin used to be a KGB agent. Absolutely
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fact check the Kremlin. But I hate to be a stickler. Shouldn't we fact check NATO too? I mean,
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I'm a proud Canadian in Canada as part of NATO, but shouldn't we fact check our own side of the
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battle? Shouldn't we check and verify what our generals and propagandists say too? BBC doesn't
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even think of that. I'll keep reading. But until now, that work has largely gone on in the background,
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unseen by audiences. These same audiences are constantly bombarded with myths and disinformation
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and with fake images, including those generated by AI. And they are telling us that amid this noise
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and sensationalism, they need to see our workings so we can maintain the trust people have put in the
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BBC for the last hundred years. People want to know not just what we know and don't know, but how we
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know it. And this is how our new brand, BBC Verify, has come into being. Okay, but she still hasn't done
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any introspection. The BBC is very good at criticizing everyone else. But will they put
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that same lens, that same magnifying class on their own work? I haven't seen it yet. But you know,
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it's actually worse. Young Mariana is just their mascot. They've hired apparently 60 of these Ministry
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of Truth bureaucrats. Let me read a little more. We've brought together forensic journalists.
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What's that? I know what a forensic accountant is. What's a forensic journalist? Is that a thing?
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An expert talent from across the BBC, including our analysis editor, Ross Atkins,
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and disinformation correspondent, Mariana Spring, and their teams. I didn't know Mariana had a team.
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In all, BBC Verify comprises about 60 journalists who will form a highly specialized operation with a
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range of forensic investigative skills and open source intelligence, OSINT capabilities at their
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fingertips. I still wonder what that open source intelligence and forensic tools means. I think it
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just means Google and Google Maps. That's what open source intelligence is. It's just, so they're
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going to Google things. Isn't that what, isn't that what all journalists do or are supposed to do?
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I'll keep reading. They'll be fact-checking, verifying video, countering disinformation,
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analyzing data, and crucially, this is the important part, folks, explaining complex stories
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in the pursuit of truth. Yeah, it's the explaining part that I'm worried about, isn't it? Let me keep
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reading. This is a different way of doing our journalism. Why? Have you not been fact-checking
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until now? We've built a physical space in the London newsroom with a studio that BBC Verify
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correspondents and experts will report from, transparently sharing their evidence gathering
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with our audiences. They will contribute to news online, radio and TV, including the news channel
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and our live and breaking streaming operation, both in the UK and internationally. That's those fake
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American accounts. And trust them, they're not trying to interfere with the election.
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But like I say, that is not actually doing journalism differently. That's just some attempt
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at creating some new club, some new cast that we should really, really believe this time. Because
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Canadians and Brits and Americans don't believe the current mainstream media, so they're creating this
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new special forces of journalists. BBC Verify will be home to very specific expertise and technology.
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They keep saying that. I just don't know if it's true because they haven't given any evidence of it.
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What is a forensic journalist? Is it a thing? When they say experts, do they just mean the same
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experts we've been listening to about the pandemic? Because they weren't really,
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these experts really didn't know anything, did they? But I want the principle of transparently
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explaining the how behind our journalism to be shared by every journalist in the BBC. And thank you
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to those who are experimenting with new ways to do that. If you know how it's made, you can trust
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what it says. That's what our audiences have told us. Trust is earned and transparency will help us
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earn it. And as for that drone, there are a few answers on Ross Atkinson's explainer video,
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which has had more than a million views on our website. And we'll give people a taste of what
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Verify will be doing day in, day out. Oh, okay. So I went on YouTube and I googled that guy's name
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in drone video. And here it is. I'll just play it for you. It's just two minutes long.
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Watch the video. This is what she's very proud of. Take a look.
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Russia claims that Ukraine tried to kill Vladimir Putin in the early hours of Wednesday.
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This is the first video we have. It's in Moscow. We see an object flying from the left and explode.
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Now, let's play it again and pause here. We know this is Moscow because this is Red Square.
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Here's a recent picture of the same place, with the Kremlin wall in the background and stands for
00:21:23.920
next week's victory parade. You can see those stands in the video too, meaning it's also recent.
00:21:29.880
And if we play the video on and pause again, there's the object flying towards the dome of
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the Senate palace. Moments before it explodes, we can see people on the dome. We don't know who they
00:21:40.660
are or what they're doing. Now, Russia says it was attacked by two unmanned aerial vehicles.
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In other words, drones. We can't confirm that. And if that's one video, here are three more.
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This is a map of Russia with Moscow in the west. And all of these videos show this part of the city.
00:21:59.880
Here's the second. The BBC's verification team has confirmed it was posted at 3.16 Moscow time
00:22:05.220
on Wednesday morning. We see the same dome, with smoke rising from it. The words are the name
00:22:11.460
of a local Telegram channel that posted the video. This next video shows the Senate palace dome,
00:22:17.060
with fire clearly visible. And then this shows an object flying in from the right. Again,
00:22:22.280
we see an explosion. Russia says all of this was a planned terrorist act and an assassination
00:22:28.080
attempt on the president. But it's provided no evidence to back that up. Ukraine says it's
00:22:33.300
all staged by Russia. As for Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin says he wasn't there at the time
00:22:38.780
of the incident. And these pictures from Reuters on Wednesday show the dome looking undamaged.
00:22:44.980
And while we try and work out what exactly it is these videos show, both sides say the other
00:22:50.800
Yeah, I don't. Maybe that's not the video she means, but it sure seems like it. He doesn't
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actually, doesn't actually explain anything. Does he? What exactly is all this then? What's
00:23:07.400
the same as the CBC and Trudeau? They just don't want you to believe anyone else. They don't want
00:23:13.960
you to listen to anyone else. They don't want you to especially listen to independent journalists.
00:23:17.620
Hmm. Or as Jacinda Ardern, the disgraced former prime minister of New Zealand recently put it,
00:23:24.460
only believe what the government says. The government will tell you everything you need to
00:23:31.780
know. We will share with you the most up-to-date information daily. You can trust us as a source
00:23:38.480
of that information. You can also trust the director general of health and the ministry of health.
00:23:44.280
For that information, do feel free to visit at any time to clarify any rumor you may hear,
00:23:50.780
covid19.govt.nz. Otherwise, dismiss anything else. We will continue to be your single source of truth.
00:23:59.820
We will provide information frequently. We will share everything we can, everything else you see,
00:24:06.780
a grain of salt. And so I really ask people to focus. Yeah, no thanks, mate. I'll find the truth
00:24:14.200
myself. Stay with us for more. Well, hello again from our temporary studio in the boardroom of our
00:24:33.040
world headquarters here at Rebel News. Behind me, of course, is one of the plaques or a couple of the
00:24:38.800
plaques we have commemorating donors to Rebel News over the years. I think I've shown you before,
00:24:44.180
the hallways of our office have symbolic bricks, bricks for donors who have donated
00:24:50.600
for different campaigns. We have cornerstones and headstones. And, you know, it's just basically
00:25:00.040
the entire office is dedicated to our Rebel News supporters because unlike 99% of Canadian media,
00:25:08.380
we don't take any money from the government. So we rely on our viewers. Anyways, I mentioned that
00:25:11.600
because that is what you see behind me. We are refurbishing and rebuilding our studio. And I'll tell
00:25:17.960
you about that in another video. But our work continues and I do the show every day, whether it's
00:25:23.740
from here or the other studio. And I see news from our friends at True North that two men have been
00:25:30.880
charged with a shocking arson that burned a 120-year-old Alberta church to the ground over a year ago.
00:25:44.940
And I found this news in True North and I had it sent to me by email as well.
00:25:49.580
I put it to you that if this were not a Christian church, but rather if it was a Jewish synagogue or
00:25:57.260
a Muslim mosque or a Sikh temple or any other religious faith, if it were a gay pride community
00:26:05.980
center of some sort, if it were any other identity group, this would be not just national news but
00:26:11.900
international news. Justin Trudeau would be doing his very serious thespian face and having a
00:26:19.560
moment of silence. And the CBC would be talking about extremist hate and violence and who
00:26:25.480
radicalized people. But no, it's just a Catholic church. And Justin Trudeau's right-hand man,
00:26:31.500
Gerald Butts, said it was understandable anyways. Joining me now to talk about this news and what
00:26:37.300
Rebel News is doing to fight this Christophobia is my friend and colleague, Kian Simone,
00:26:45.240
the chief documentary filmmaker for Rebel News, who joins us now from Calgary. Kian, great to see
00:26:51.160
you again. Thanks for having me on the bus. Oh, it's my pleasure. I want to talk in a little bit
00:26:56.200
about the documentary that you are working on. And it's been an enormous project and we're coming
00:27:01.880
close to unspooling it, as they would say in Hollywood. But first, give me a little bit of info
00:27:08.600
about these charges for a church that was just torched. And this is an old church. I mean, 120
00:27:15.320
years old might not sound old if you're thinking about Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris or St. Paul's
00:27:21.240
in London. But there really aren't any, I mean, this is a really a pioneer-era church that was torched.
00:27:29.400
Tell me what you know about it. Well, like you said earlier when you said that it would be not just
00:27:34.600
national news, but international news if it was a Jewish synagogue or what have you. It's the same
00:27:40.040
sentiment. If it was anything short of a Catholic church, it wouldn't just be news. It would be
00:27:43.720
domestic terrorism designated by the government. And I think that's just the exact, I don't know,
00:27:51.640
symbol of exactly what we're doing with this government, what this government is doing to
00:27:55.480
the Catholics. And it wasn't just Gerald Butzer said it was understandable. It was Justin Trudeau himself
00:28:01.000
as well. He said, given the history of the Catholic church, it's totally understandable,
00:28:06.440
the pain and, and why someone would come to do to that. And he didn't really denounce it by saying
00:28:11.480
that at all. Everyone's got to get vaccinated if we're going to get through this as a, as a community,
00:28:16.680
as a country. Canada, Canada needs to recognize
00:28:21.640
that the shame of our past is echoed today in continuing injustices, intolerance and unfairness
00:28:32.600
towards indigenous peoples. You talked about Canada's last wrongs, the past things they haven't
00:28:38.440
done right. When will you speak out about the 20 vandalized churches? They're burning churches
00:28:43.880
and vandalizing them. And you're not calling it a hate crime. Sir, will you acknowledge
00:28:49.240
persecute religious persecution of Abrahamic faiths in Canada? You know, I think recently in Calgary,
00:29:02.920
there's a Christian pastor named Derek Reimer, who for merely peacefully protesting outside drag queen
00:29:10.520
story hours for children at libraries. He's been jailed. So jailed for that. And they're looking at
00:29:18.520
hate crime charges against him. I don't know if they've been filed yet. This is clearly a hate crime.
00:29:25.160
And no, it's, I can guarantee you that they'll get bail. And I can guarantee you that if they
00:29:31.240
are in any way charged, um, they're, they're appearing in court in High Prairie on May 29th.
00:29:39.000
Um, I'm not sure if they're out on bail. I don't see that detail, uh, in the report. Yeah.
00:29:47.640
Yeah. I mean, let's say the names of the accused. There's no reason why we shouldn't say them.
00:29:51.720
56 year old Kenneth Ferguson and 50 year old Gerald Capote are believed to be from High River. I'm very
00:29:57.320
curious. Why would, I mean, 50 years old, I mean, I'm 51 years old, so it's, it's not old. It's just
00:30:02.280
the beginning of life. But, um, like that's a, that's not some, um, rash youth who got drunk with
00:30:10.440
some buddies and went out for, you know, uh, a crazy night. If you're in your fifties,
00:30:16.840
you've considered things, you're no longer, uh, ruled by your passions, hopefully. And to do something
00:30:23.320
so deliberate and diabolical points towards a premeditated political act of, I'll say it,
00:30:32.680
of active political terrorism. Again, I don't have all the facts. I'm just going off this news story
00:30:36.440
from True North, but it is very strange that there are two people in their fifties.
00:30:41.480
Who are they? What did they do? Why did they do it? Do they have any affiliation with the other? Because
00:30:46.680
there were dozens of churches that were either torched. Most of them were just, just vandalized,
00:30:53.800
but not burnt to the ground. Like it's a string of them, like literally dozens and no one, no one
00:31:01.080
in authority, no one in the established media seems to care. What I'm seeing with this one is that it was
00:31:05.880
in a place called Gruard. I'm definitely pronouncing that wrong, but it's a hamlet, um, of only 160 people
00:31:12.120
who live there. And the, uh, I guess it was that, um, that hamlet was in charge of the St. Bernard
00:31:20.120
Mission residential school. So it seemed like there was, there was history at that place and that,
00:31:24.920
that might've led them to, um, burn that particular one down. But I just think it is insane that that is
00:31:31.240
a place that only 160 people live. I just thought that was a fascinating point.
00:31:37.560
Yeah. Well, it sounds like it may be that. And, and I wonder who put them up to it because of course,
00:31:44.120
in that same article, you know, and I've seen this all over the place, a lot of indigenous people,
00:31:48.040
even those who criticized, um, the Catholic church's role in residential schools, they still
00:31:53.880
love their church. The church is a community center on many reserves. It's a, it's a place for
00:31:59.560
a lot of social services. So I'm very curious to know, and I wonder if the police or the prosecution,
00:32:05.080
um, we'll just paper this over again, if this was an attack on a Muslim mosque or Jewish synagogue,
00:32:12.840
we would already by now have the entire social media feed, every manifesto, everything the person
00:32:20.280
said or did, and we would have proof that it was a right wing terrorist attack. And yet we know very
00:32:26.200
little about this. I'm curious to know about it. Well, listen, Kian, thank you very much for talking
00:32:30.200
about that. The reason I wanted to talk to you, not just because you're in Alberta and you care about
00:32:33.720
the story is because as I mentioned earlier, you're our documentary boss at rebel news,
00:32:38.440
and you have been working on our crowdfunded gold plated, like this is the best effort we've
00:32:46.600
ever put into a documentary. We've really gone the extra mile. We got new equipment for it. We
00:32:51.640
traveled around for it. Why don't you tell us about the Christian documentary for folks who want to
00:32:56.920
know more? They can go to save the Christians.com, which is a special website we set up. That's just
00:33:03.480
the name of the website, save the Christians.com. Kian, why don't you tell me about the name of the
00:33:09.080
documentary that people can find there, the status of it, some of the work you've been doing with it,
00:33:14.920
who's the narrator, the host of the doc, and what's your rough sense of timing of when that documentary
00:33:21.400
Oh, that's a lot to cover, boss. So the name is Church Under Fire, Canada's War on Christianity.
00:33:28.440
I'm actually doing it with Sheila. We traveled Canada last month, probably about three weeks
00:33:33.880
on and off of going to all the pastors around Canada who either had hefty fines or were jailed
00:33:39.880
for opening their church during COVID-19. The documentary itself, it kind of opens up of the last,
00:33:45.560
I'd say, nine or ten years of Justin Trudeau's. It's more focused on Justin Trudeau's War on
00:33:52.040
Christianity. So we kind of do a little layover of that. And then we go into, I believe it's seven
00:33:58.040
pastors who agreed to come on and tell their story of, you know, what's their congregation like?
00:34:04.600
What's their church like? What made them make that decision? And I won't spoil too much, but it was
00:34:11.800
tough to edit because all their answers were the same. And these pastors aren't pastors who talk to
00:34:16.120
each other. It was all the same. And so telling a story for an hour and a half, when everybody's
00:34:23.400
saying the same thing, it was a big challenge, but it was so fascinating because we asked the same
00:34:28.280
pastors the same questions because whether it's Henry Hildebrandt in Ontario or Arthur Pavelowski out
00:34:35.640
here in Calgary, everybody's so different. They're completely different people, completely
00:34:41.480
different pastors and completely different congregations. So why did they make that
00:34:45.400
decision? And it was such a fascinating thing. I forgot your last two questions there. Where's
00:34:51.560
the status of it? Yeah. How's it coming along? Yeah. So we just got picture locked, which is a fancy
00:34:57.080
nerd word for all the edits are done. So I have the whole story laid out and right now I'm color grading
00:35:03.160
it. So it's basically just adding, when we shoot it in raw, it kind of comes out looking dull.
00:35:09.160
And then I would add in some skin color and stuff like that.
00:35:16.360
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard. Once you have located your seat, we ask that you please step...
00:35:45.560
And we couldn't stand by and watch. We had to do something. It was our obligation and our call from
00:36:01.640
God to do something as shepherds. So we did. We got arrested with my brother David in the middle of
00:36:12.840
the highway, inciting people to come to church, participating in illegal gathering, officiating in
00:36:18.280
illegal gathering. And off we went to prison. Three days and two nights we spent on concrete.
00:36:34.920
And we've waited and waited and waited and waited for months and months. And they just keep pushing
00:36:59.560
it away. There's an agenda. I said, there's an agenda. And I said, we won't fall for it.
00:37:04.040
I actually have a pretty cool story about that. If you care to hear, it's...
00:37:08.280
I think people are curious how movies are made and I myself, I'm sort of new to it. So yeah, tell us,
00:37:14.120
tell us what color grading is. Tell us a cool story.
00:37:16.200
The cool story of color grading is actually my least favorite part about filmmaking. It was,
00:37:21.880
at least. It's hard. It takes a lot of time and effort to make sure that you have the shadows and
00:37:29.080
the blacks and the whites, everything correct. So it was two days ago when I first started color
00:37:33.880
grading where I was just kind of getting it all put into play, kind of see what kind of vibe I wanted.
00:37:39.320
And I had this beautiful cinematic color. It looked like straight out of a Marvel movie or something.
00:37:46.360
And my finger slipped. And I put on this weird, hazy glow by accident. And I just sat there and
00:37:53.400
looked at it. It had to have been five minutes where it looked like it was a dream. It looked like it was
00:37:59.160
like a bad dream. And then I kind of just started applying that to everything. And my thought process now
00:38:06.280
is that if this comes out, so this is going to be probably coming out this summer in theaters,
00:38:13.720
and we'll do some events and we can get into that later. But if we start putting it to film
00:38:18.120
festivals, that means we'll have a public release later on this year or early next year. And by then,
00:38:23.720
COVID will be out of our minds. It will only be a bad dream.
00:38:31.400
And it doesn't look over the top. It doesn't look like you're really in a dream,
00:38:35.080
but there's a certain glow to, let's say, Sheila's face when she's walking.
00:38:38.760
And you can see a shimmer. And that looks like a dream.
00:38:42.360
Wow. Well, I'm very excited. I know you've put a lot of effort into it. And Sheila Gunn-Reed is the
00:38:47.960
narrator of the documentary. It's a perfect fit. Of course, she's been on that issue really since
00:38:53.480
the beginning. And this whole effort, you mentioned you traveled the country with Sheila talking to
00:38:59.080
different pastors. This really is a crowdfunded effort because there's no other way you would
00:39:03.480
produce a film like this. The CBC would never produce a film like this. They would produce a
00:39:07.800
film championing the police who shut down the churches. They wouldn't take the side of the
00:39:12.680
churches. And, you know, other people may try and do this, but we needed the dough to do it right.
00:39:17.800
And we explained some of those costs. And folks can learn more about that. And by the way,
00:39:21.400
I think we still have our crowdfunding page open at savethechristians.com. And if you go there,
00:39:26.040
you'll see there's some neat things. If you chip in a certain amount, you can get a credit in the
00:39:30.440
film. And if you chip in a certain amount, you can, like there's fun goodies there to make you
00:39:35.240
part of the team. And I think it's a really good way to do a documentary because we wouldn't have the
00:39:39.240
budget otherwise to do it. So listen, listen, great to catch up with you. I'm excited. That dream
00:39:44.600
feeling sounds very interesting. You piqued my curiosity. And it is true. We are planning to
00:39:53.240
release this. Like the whole idea was to do a theater quality, you know, Netflix quality movie
00:40:01.240
and try and get this thing seen by a wider distribution than merely what we put on YouTube
00:40:07.880
and Rumble every day. And I'm proud of what we put on YouTube, Rumble, Twitter, Odyssey,
00:40:12.360
the other channels we're on. But the idea of doing something that's really Hollywood level
00:40:17.320
is a stretch for us. And we'll see if we can do it. And you're the right man to achieve that force.
00:40:21.000
Kean, great to catch up with you. Thanks for the heads up about these charges in High Prairie.
00:40:25.560
We'll have to check that out. And I can hardly wait to see the movie. Thanks for having me on,
00:40:29.640
Ezra. All right. My pleasure. There you have it. Kean Simone, our head of documentaries. And
00:40:35.240
if you want to learn more, go to savethechristians.com. There's still time
00:40:38.120
to get those perks if you want them. All right. Stay with us. Your letters to me next.
00:40:42.360
Hey, welcome back. By the way, I've got a video coming out soon about why
00:40:57.000
what we're cooking up in the studio instead of the boardroom. Thanks for your patience on that. I'm
00:41:00.600
actually pretty excited. It's the first time we refreshed our studio since coming to our world
00:41:05.640
headquarters in January 1st, 2017. So we've been here for about six and a half years. And as I
00:41:13.960
mentioned the other day, computer and video equipment is sort of like dog years. You know,
00:41:21.240
one year for a person is like seven years for a dog. I think it's sort of similar for computer
00:41:26.120
equipment. So we've had our studio for six and a half years. It's time to freshen things up. So I'll tell
00:41:32.280
you about that later and I'll show you some video later. But let's come to your letters. Free West
00:41:35.880
Guy says the commies are guarding the hen house, just like when the RCMP investigates itself.
00:41:41.880
You know, it's weird because, of course, the Chinese Communist Party and they have the hammer and
00:41:46.120
sickle in their flag. They are communist in terms of being authoritarian and violating civil liberties,
00:41:52.680
but they're very capitalist in their communist way. They call it capitalism with Chinese characteristics,
00:41:59.960
I think is the phrase they use. And they learn that they can bribe just about anyone. And the bribe
00:42:06.360
doesn't have to be explicit. It can be, you know, doing business. It can be giving access to their market. I
00:42:13.160
mean, there's a lot of ways that a country can be corrupted and cash is a big one. I mean,
00:42:21.880
Justin Trudeau is sort of grubby. He'll take $140,000 gift from the CCP. It's that explicit. But
00:42:29.640
I mean, if you know anything about David Johnson, his whole family is intertwined
00:42:34.520
with the Chinese establishment, including sending his children to university in China.
00:42:39.000
I mean, listen, I believe in giving your kids the best, but David Johnson could have sent his kids to
00:42:44.360
any university in the world, really. I mean, he was the president of the university himself.
00:42:47.960
There's no way he couldn't get his kids into Harvard or Yale or MIT or Oxford to deliberately
00:42:54.840
choose to send his children to China. It was not about getting them a classical education. It was
00:43:00.840
about integrating them into the Chinese establishment. That is not some, and obviously everything
00:43:08.360
would have been directed, approved, and managed by the Chinese Communist Party. David Johnston is even
00:43:20.680
H1R 086 says it is not racist to oppose communism because communism breeds racism.
00:43:26.520
Listen, my only point was Gordon Chang is such a good man with a good heart. He believes in freedom.
00:43:31.160
His wife, Lydia, too. And when he says he walks through Chinatown in San Francisco and sees the
00:43:36.280
Chinese Communist flag and he says it's disloyal, it's stunning to hear that. And it's a little
00:43:41.880
nerve-wracking to hear that. And I suppose it's one of the privileges of being a Chinese person
00:43:46.680
ethnically is you can criticize in a way that I wouldn't feel comfortable doing. It's like black
00:43:51.320
people can say tougher things about black culture. Jewish people can say tougher things about
00:43:56.120
Jewish culture. You can be a critic of your own tribe in a way that others might be, you know,
00:44:02.840
afraid to do. And I'm not a politically correct person, but it's quite something to hear Gordon
00:44:07.880
Chang say what he says. And he believes that he loves freedom very much. And it gives me tremendous
00:44:12.520
hope because I know, I don't care what race or ethnicity you are, yearning to be free, I believe
00:44:17.560
that's the human condition. And you know, they used to say the Confucian ethic, the stoic nature of
00:44:25.480
Chinese people means they are not suited to democracy. This was something that was said
00:44:30.360
50 years ago. But if you look at Taiwan, you can see how wrong that is. Taiwan is incredibly vibrant
00:44:38.200
and free and rambunctious. It is a rambunctious political culture. And South Korea, obviously
00:44:44.280
ethnically different. But again, proof that freedom is for everyone. And, and I hate it when people sort
00:44:51.400
of have an assumption. And Hong Kong, Hong Kong loves to be free. I don't know, I feel like it's
00:44:56.840
dark times. There was this moment when Hong Kong was rising up a bit against Beijing that I was quite
00:45:01.880
hopeful, but that's being crushed. And the West didn't say or do anything. Got a little bit of hate
00:45:08.040
mail coming in. It's always refreshing. Reeve DeSantis says, our narrative is the gaslighting
00:45:13.880
that rebel news and the sinner Christians constantly create with no peer-reviewed source
00:45:19.000
in sight. Look, I don't know exactly what you're referring to there, but I'm glad you're watching
00:45:25.400
something you disagree with. I'm glad you have a diversity of sources of information and opinions,
00:45:32.280
and you can check yourself against other views. You know, it's funny, you can, there's certain little
00:45:38.040
tools on Twitter that you can get the Twitter accounts that you follow ranked on a spectrum,
00:45:44.680
right wing or left wing. It's sort of how diverse is your Twitter media diet. And I'm very pleased
00:45:51.160
that I follow as many accounts on the left as I do on the right. Not because I obey them or believe
00:45:57.560
them. I just want to hear what the other side is saying. And by the way, every once in a while,
00:46:03.000
there's a good point on the left. Not enough to convert me necessarily, but I'm glad that
00:46:10.280
you're watching Rebel News because we do represent a swath of society. I think we are more open to
00:46:18.280
different views here than say the BBC or the CBC are, don't you think? That's our show for today.
00:46:24.520
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters in our boardroom,