In this episode, Russell Brand takes a look at the ongoing hearings into child safety on social media, and asks the question: what are the hearings really about? Are they really about protecting children from online predators, or are they about more government control over their access to information and access to the information they need to do so? Or is it about exerting more control over the information we can access by governments and their agents? And is this really about child safety, or is this about censorship and surveillance of the internet by the US government and its agents, and how can we, as a people, protect ourselves and our children from being affected by this information? Russell Brand is a comedian, writer, and podcaster. His work has been featured in the New York Times, CNN, BBC, CBS, NPR, and many other publications. His music has also been heard on the BBC, NPR and CBS Radio. He is a regular contributor to the New Statesman, and is a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post, The Guardian, The New York Post, and The Daily Beast, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, and has been described as "The Most Influential Person in the World". by Rolling Stone. He has a new book out now, and he's on Netflix, The Dark Side Of, which you can find him on Amazon Prime Video, and on the internet, where he also has a podcast called "The Dark Side of the Mind" and is available on SoundCloud, where you can catch up with him wherever you get your favourite podcast. and listen to his music. Enjoy this episode of Stay Free with Russell Brand! Stay Free With Russell Brand, Stay Free, and Stay Free! - Stay Free - Thank you for joining us on our voyage to truth and freedom. - The Journey to Truth and Freedom, by Russell Brand - . . . by Awakening Wonder, by . by Gabor Mate, and much more. by The Root . We make exclusive content every week, delivered every single day, seven days, 7 days a week, to deliver a detailed breakdown of current topics that the mainstream media should be covering current topics, but if they are covering, they re amplifying the truth and not telling you the truth, but are amplifying establishment messages? by the truth? - by , by Jordan Peterson, Jr., by Sam Harris,
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00:01:09.000We're posing an important question now.
00:01:11.000These ongoing inquiries into online safety, of course, are about an important subject.
00:01:17.000No one would question the integrity of the notion that children should be protected from online bullying, from pornography, from potential forms of exploitation, from being able to access information on how you might harm yourself in a variety of ways, even with the most ultimate and irreversible of acts.
00:01:35.000Now, speaking as someone who is as an adolescent, Experience?
00:01:38.000Well, yes, I'm bullying, but also I had a lot of mental health issues and addiction issues and I did engage in self-harm.
00:01:44.000I recognize that these are important issues and yet more significantly, of course, I'm a parent right now.
00:01:49.000I have three children whose safety is obviously the most important thing in my life.
00:01:53.000So no one's questioning the importance of child safety.
00:01:56.000What we're questioning is what these hearings are really about.
00:02:00.000Because the very same social media companies that are now being harangued and barracked by senators, and it's extraordinary to watch because it's so theatrical, you can tell it's propaganda even as you're watching it.
00:02:10.000There are literally staged moments that couldn't have happened without pre-discussion and without conversation and organisation.
00:02:24.000We all agree that human life is sacred, that we should all protect one another, love one another, that we're all invested in one another and your safety and my safety and our collective safety are important and when we forget that we go crazy.
00:02:36.000That's something we need to be reminded of.
00:02:38.000Like the pandemic period was exploited to introduce measures that were potentially advantageous either in terms of profit or the ability to regulate and legislate, perhaps This conversation around child safety is similarly open to exploitation in so much as it would grant governments the ability to censor and regulate social media companies that would inevitably go beyond getting rid of things that might be harmful for children.
00:03:05.000For a start, there's this tweet by Glenn Greenwald.
00:03:08.000Tom Cotton, one of the senators conducting the inquiry, is a complete imbecile.
00:03:13.000As this clip vividly demonstrates, and both parties' fearmongering over TikTok is grounded in dumb innuendo, there's far more evidence they're censoring for the US government than China.
00:03:23.000This is all about more government control over social media.
00:03:27.000Now, Glenn Greenwald is obviously An expert in this subject has worked long, hard and successfully on the degree to which governments control, censor, surveil their populations, working in ingenious ways to ensure that nothing we ever say cannot be tracked if necessary.
00:03:45.000So let's have a look at this inquiry and note how the CEO of TikTok is vilified and barracked by this extraordinary senator and think about how theatrically And note how language that's literally redolent of McCarthyism is used.
00:04:00.000Are you a member of the Communist Party?
00:04:01.000Are you a member of the Communist Party?
00:04:03.000How do I know Singapore's even a real place?
00:04:06.000If he openly declares himself to be a communist, we take his word for it.
00:04:10.000I think they then had a lawsuit and it was overturned.
00:04:14.000It was the Biden administration that reversed those sanctions, just like, by the way, they reversed the terrorist designation on the Houthis in Yemen.
00:04:33.000His expression doesn't change during this entire inquiry.
00:04:36.000He's either bored by it or understands it on a level so deep that it doesn't register.
00:04:40.000But it was sanctioned as a Chinese communist military company.
00:04:45.000He's got a bit of a nerve saying that because social media companies in the United States have explicit ties to both the military and have often engaged with deep state organizations like the CIA and FBI.
00:04:56.000We know that because of the Twitter files.
00:04:58.000And it's pretty clear that ultimately what the government want is control over social media sites.
00:05:03.000To sort of claim that there's a connection between the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese military and TikTok when TikTok is a company founded in China is actually superfluous.
00:05:13.000It's very difficult to create a company in America that's both successful and doesn't have ties to the state.
00:05:19.000And what we're watching now is the dramatisation of the government looking to get control over social media companies that have become You said today, as you often say, that you live in Singapore.
00:05:28.000be beneficial to ordinary people, sometimes that might be deleterious to ordinary people,
00:05:32.000what the government want is to be able to use that power for their own ends.
00:05:35.000What would make people join them in that crusade? Well if it was, I don't know,
00:05:40.000threatening to my children, we'll use that then.
00:05:42.000You said today, as you often say, that you live in Singapore.
00:05:45.000Of what nation are you a citizen? Singapore.
00:08:16.000Let's look at diets and pharmaceutical measures that were taken in the last few years that may or may not have been beneficial to children.
00:08:21.000If children's safety is the issue, don't just focus on an aspect of children's safety that can be utilised to advance a particular agenda.
00:08:29.000It should be, we care about children's safety in all areas of life.
00:08:32.000That's why Kraft Foods and McDonald's Yes, I think it's well documented.
00:09:03.000I actually think the bald geezer at the back is controlling him.
00:09:06.000I can't become a senator, not with this crazy face, but this pretty boy, you can do it, Cotton!
00:09:11.000Do you agree with the Trump administration and the Biden administration that the Chinese government is committing genocide against the Uyghur people?
00:09:17.000And also this bit, like, he's pretending to care about the Uyghur people.
00:09:20.000Like, you can tell that geezer's like, what's happening to the Uyghur people?
00:09:23.000Can we do something about the Uyghurs?
00:09:25.000I think it's outrageous that they can't practice their religious beliefs in China.
00:09:59.000Anyone who cares about these topics can freely express themselves on TikTok.
00:10:03.000Now, he's taking us to the heart of the matter, because what this inquiry is about is we should be able to censor the information that's on TikTok.
00:10:08.000He's saying, get on TikTok and talk about Uyghurs and sort that out.
00:10:12.000Now, in China, I imagine that information information is heavily censored because for the internal
00:10:15.000politics of China that's an important subject over here you know the Uyghurs people aren't doing
00:10:19.000a great deal about it are they let's face it but what they I believe want to control I believe
00:10:22.000what this congressional or senate inquiry is interested in establishing is the ability to censor
00:10:27.000information that could cause disobedience uprising counter disinformation organization lack of trust
00:10:33.000in political institutions lack of trust in the media the breakdown of the pandemic narrative this
00:10:38.000is what we're witnessing now along with the ubiquitous now censorship laws they've been
00:10:42.000passed in Canada UK EU US people have realized the powerful have realized oh no this online
00:10:48.000technology means that people can instantaneously communicate news organizations can
00:10:53.000formulate around counter narratives communities can organize around different ideas we have to shut that
00:10:57.000down Of course misinformation's a thing, but I'll tell you what is actual definite real-time misinformation, is Tom Cotton pretending to care about Uyghurs and Tiananmen Square when actually
00:11:07.000All any of them care about is control of new media spaces.
00:11:11.000I know that because I've seen how the government in my country give money to organisations like Logically AI and a bunch of other organisations to censor stories.
00:11:18.000Well, let me tell you what the topics are.
00:11:32.000They're all counter-narratives where there's definitely been an attempt to control information and prevent true but unhelpful information getting out.
00:11:39.000And that's what this inquiry is about.
00:11:41.000It's a very simple question that unites both parties in our country and governments around the world.
00:11:46.000Is the Chinese government committing genocide against the Uyghur people?
00:11:49.000I may have a lot of beefs with Joe Biden and Donald Trump, but when the three of us get together and the subjects of the Uyghur people comes up, as it inevitably does because we all care so much about the Uyghur people, that's why you'll never find exploitative practices within companies like Apple, or Facebook, or Meta, or any of our energy companies, or Halliburton, or any of those guys.
00:12:09.000Because if it could happen to a Uyghur, it could happen to any of us!
00:12:13.000Oh God, I promised myself I wouldn't cry.
00:12:39.000He's going to regret pretending to care about them Uyghurs because I think the Uyghurs actually have been employed almost at near slave labour levels to do work for Apple.
00:12:48.000And indeed, Apple have enormous contracts in China and the American government have to have a good relationship with Apple.
00:12:53.000And when bloody the leader of China comes to America, Tim Cook, he's right in there from Apple.
00:13:06.000But what I'm saying is, is Tom Cotton and all of this entire inquiry, if what they really cared about was Uyghurs, they've got a real direct route to the Chinese president, the head of Apple.
00:14:18.000It's like Tom Cotton has seen other inquiries, and he's doing an impersonation of what he's seen at other inquiries, significantly, the McCarthy trials, where he's saying things like, are you a member of the Communist Party, was one of the repeated refrains.
00:14:30.000And McCarthyism is something you should be aware of, because McCarthyism was using the threat of Communism to impose control over the entertainment industry, which I understand exists to this day, to generate a great fear so that people won't speak up and generate
00:14:43.000solidarity with one another, to look for ways to persecute and crush dissent, to generate control when there was a
00:14:47.000perceived external threat. The threat now is a domestic threat. We all know that. The threat now is you can't keep
00:15:22.000Now, Mark Zuckerberg is a divisive figure in these spaces.
00:15:26.000In fact, you know, he's a billionaire CEO of Meta.
00:15:29.000So we all assume that his affiliations will be with the state.
00:15:32.000Certainly, we know that he censored true information on behalf of the state during the pandemic.
00:15:36.000Kind of establishment on that, you know, asked for a bunch of things to be censored that in retrospect ended up being more debatable or true.
00:15:43.000Indeed, Jimmy Dore tweeted on March 15th 2020, Mark Zuckerberg privately contacted Anthony Fauci saying, I also wanted to share a few ideas of ways we could help you get your message out.
00:15:52.000Zuckerberg then censored scientists, professors, doctors, nurses and citizens from criticizing Fauci's recommendations regarding lockdown, school closures and COVID mandates and silenced all criticisms of experimental mRNA vaccines.
00:16:04.000Facebook classified mRNA vaccine injuries as malinformation, meaning information that is likely true but still should be censored to prevent doubts about the experimental rMNA vaccines.
00:16:13.000Numerous Facebook mRNA vaccine injury support groups with hundreds of thousands of members were banned.
00:16:18.000So, Facebook When they were compliant with the government agenda were favoured.
00:16:24.000Now it seems the government have a slightly different agenda, plainly, to introduce more regulatory measures and to control Facebook nominally and explicitly in order to protect children.
00:16:34.000But pause for a moment Do they really care about your children?
00:16:37.000I'm not saying that they don't care about your children.
00:16:40.000But I'm saying that there are lots of areas of public and political and financial life where the care of your children is relegated.
00:16:45.000How are your children's nutritional standards being taken care of?
00:16:48.000What about American infrastructure, health care, information?
00:16:51.000How are children generally being protected?
00:16:54.000Were there any medical measures in the last few years that potentially were not as beneficial as was claimed?
00:16:58.000Whether that's taking children out of school, making children wear masks, potentially recommending certain medications that might not have been beneficial for children.
00:17:05.000So, once again, let's have a look at how Mark Zuckerberg is handled in this Senate inquiry.
00:17:10.000And in particular notice that what takes place is plainly a staged event.
00:17:14.000Their control of social media is about controlling your perception of reality, not protecting your children.
00:17:35.000Imagine the sort of psychological and egoic state.
00:17:38.000There's families of victims here today.
00:17:41.000One consistent thing, and I'm beginning to think the mastermind is that bald geezer because he's there again and he's still not interested.
00:18:03.000Let me reiterate once again that children's lives being negatively affected and ended as a result of information shared online is of course terrible and awful.
00:18:13.000What I'm questioning is, is this inquiry really about protecting children or is the protection of children merely a spearhead that will allow a lot of other regulations to be passed, a kind of Patriot Act should we call it, for online spaces that will lead to
00:18:26.000regulation, censorship and surveillance.
00:18:28.000Certainly we know that typically our governments have that appetite, certainly know our governments
00:18:31.000have been doing that for years, certainly we know that our governments are terrified
00:18:35.000of independent media and independent political movements emerging out of it and the opposition
00:18:39.000that's generated in these spaces. And what I query is the degree to which they care about
00:18:44.000child safety, which like any parent I believe should be paramount for all of us.
00:18:48.000Many held signs with photos of loved ones who they say have suffered because of social
00:19:47.000The UK online safety bill, which was brought about the time that I was being attacked, and we now know that various agencies were involved in that attack.
00:19:52.000We've made videos about that elsewhere.
00:19:55.000What you do know is you cannot trust the government.
00:19:57.000What you do know is that the government wants to control online spaces.
00:19:59.000And what you do know is if the government genuinely care about children, child safety and child health, there's a lot of ways they could do it with food, traffic safety, nutrition, poverty.
00:20:08.000There are so many ways to look at improving child safety, but this way of protecting child safety gives them more power.
00:20:19.000That moment is something that I believe that we are going to be looking back on and talking about for quite some time.
00:20:29.000And then using to legitimize some draconian online censorship measures which I suppose we'll be beneficial to the legacy media because our main competitor is independent media.
00:20:40.000In fact, any time that we get a chance to destroy an independent media figure, we should really get on board with that, whether it's Joe Rogan and the Horse Paste or Any independent media figures with dissenting views, we should find, in fact, anything we can to destroy them because we're going to be annihilated otherwise.
00:20:58.000This is a convenient piece of legislation that allows the control of social media under that most laudable of reasons, the protection of children.
00:21:07.000Who among us doesn't want to protect children?
00:21:14.000So you just have to ask yourself is this about protecting children or is this about them being able to maintain control over a space that is volatile and doubtless has content and it is harmful to all human beings, but they don't care about that.
00:21:55.000Interestingly, Michael Tracy tweeted this.
00:21:56.000Again, it's very difficult to take them seriously in all their valour and all their bombast when we know that wars are escalating across the planet that no one's voted for and we're expected to fund.
00:22:04.000And now for a statement that's beyond irony.
00:22:06.000strategic bombing campaign that they have not authorized.
00:22:20.000And now for a statement that's beyond irony.
00:22:26.000Now, wash that blood off your hands, pick up some missiles and drop them on Iran.
00:22:31.000What do the Senate and Senators and the entire political system care about?
00:22:35.000Your children, who they're hoping will go to war for them, incidentally, in Iran?
00:22:39.000Or do they care about control over the public sphere and the information channels that exist between us right now?
00:22:45.000I can tell you from personal experience, They care very, very deeply about being able to control the space between this and your consciousness and what you say and what I hear.
00:22:53.000They are terrified of this type of communication.
00:22:56.000They're terrified of communities that are starting to coalesce and become disobedient and disenchanted with a narrative.
00:23:01.000That's why they go for something emotional that goes past the rational mind and right into fear and terror.