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UK Column News Special: Taking The Fight To The Censors · UK Column Radio

0:08
Speaker 1: Good afternoon.
0:09
Speaker 2: It's Thursday, the twenty fourth of October twenty twenty four,
0:11
Speaker 2: just after one o'clock.
0:12
Speaker 1: Welcome to UK Column News.
0:13
Speaker 2: Well, this is the UK Column News special because we're
0:16
Speaker 2: going to be talking today about taking the fight to
0:18
Speaker 2: the centers. Joining me Mike Robinson is Brian Gerrish and
0:22
Speaker 2: we also have Charles Mallett and Wilsey from Resistant g
0:26
Speaker 2: B joining us today to discuss this. Now, just by
0:29
Speaker 2: way of introduction, if you were watching yesterday's news program,
0:35
Speaker 2: Wilsey was talking about we had a bit of the
0:37
Speaker 2: clip from his comments at the UK Column on location
0:42
Speaker 2: on Saturday when he was talking about the fact that
0:46
Speaker 2: the Talk radio had had their YouTube channel cut taken
0:50
Speaker 2: down for whatever reason, and of course that this may
0:54
Speaker 2: have helped push the idea that particular news applications needed
1:02
Speaker 2: to be protected in light of the censorship regime which
1:07
Speaker 2: is being imposed at the moment. Now, this was the
1:09
Speaker 2: report at the time from January twenty twenty one. Talk
1:12
Speaker 2: Really urgently seeks answers from Google after its YouTube channel
1:15
Speaker 2: was shut down. That was almost immediately reversed because of
1:20
Speaker 2: the intervention of MPs amongst others. Now, of course, at
1:23
Speaker 2: around the same time, or at least within a month
1:25
Speaker 2: or two of that, the UK Columns YouTube channel was
1:28
Speaker 2: also shut down. But surprise, surprise, where there were no
1:32
Speaker 2: MPs writing to our rescue that day, Brian. So the
1:36
Speaker 2: point is that as the online safety legislation developed, in
1:40
Speaker 2: fact from the earliest stages, it was the idea that
1:42
Speaker 2: they wanted to protect journalistic content, so called journalistic content
1:47
Speaker 2: from the mainstream media.
1:49
Speaker 1: And well this was part of it number of categories.
1:53
Speaker 2: We'll talk with Willsey about this in a second, the
1:55
Speaker 2: idea of democratic content.
1:57
Speaker 1: So ministers added.
1:59
Speaker 2: A new specific duty to the bill for category one services,
2:03
Speaker 2: and the category one services are the likes of YouTube
2:07
Speaker 2: and Facebook and so on, all the big organizations to
2:12
Speaker 2: protect content to find as democratically important. So we'll talk
2:16
Speaker 2: about what that means in a second. But they then
2:20
Speaker 2: talked about journalistic content, and this they said, content on
2:24
Speaker 2: news publishers website is not in scope.
2:26
Speaker 1: So on the Telegraph or the.
2:29
Speaker 2: BBC or any of the big media news media organizations
2:33
Speaker 2: on their own website is not in scope of this legislation.
2:37
Speaker 2: It's only what appears on the social media channels. This
2:41
Speaker 2: includes both their own articles and user comments on these articles,
2:46
Speaker 2: but they said that articles by recognized news publishers, and
2:49
Speaker 2: this was at that time the first time we heard
2:51
Speaker 2: this term of recognized news publishers shared on in scope
2:54
Speaker 2: services will be exempted from the restrictions placed the censorship
2:58
Speaker 2: restrictions placed by the Line Safety Act and Category one
3:02
Speaker 2: companies will now have a statutory duty to safeguard UK
3:05
Speaker 2: user's access to journalistic content shared on their platforms, and
3:09
Speaker 2: it went on to say that this means they will
3:11
Speaker 2: have to consider the importance of journalism when undertaking content moderation,
3:15
Speaker 2: have a fast track appeals process, and will be held
3:19
Speaker 2: to account by OFFCOM.
3:22
Speaker 1: So that looks good now.
3:24
Speaker 2: Of course, it doesn't rule out the possibility of content
3:27
Speaker 2: being taken down entirely. But what it's very clear, what
3:29
Speaker 2: it was very clear about and still is very clear about,
3:32
Speaker 2: is that if content is being removed, that there has
3:36
Speaker 2: to be a way to fast track any appeal that
3:40
Speaker 2: a recognized news publisher puts in and to deal with
3:44
Speaker 2: it appropriately. And it appears that that probably means actually
3:48
Speaker 2: having a face to facecourt obviously not a face to
3:51
Speaker 2: face conversation, but at least a human to human conversation
3:54
Speaker 2: rather than just.
3:54
Speaker 1: Relying on the AI.
3:57
Speaker 2: Now the question is what is a recognized news public sure,
4:00
Speaker 2: and well this is from the legislation itself, so this
4:04
Speaker 2: is Part fifty six. In this part recognized news publisher,
4:07
Speaker 2: it means any of the following entities. The British Broadcasting
4:11
Speaker 2: Corporation top of the list. Of course S FOURC in
4:14
Speaker 2: Wales is the second on the list. The holder of
4:17
Speaker 2: a license under the Broadcasting Act nineteen ninety or nineteen
4:20
Speaker 2: ninety six, who publishes news related material and connection with
4:24
Speaker 2: broadcasting activities authorized under the license, so that would be
4:28
Speaker 2: SKY News, gb News, these kinds of organizations and any
4:33
Speaker 2: other entity which and the first one of these is
4:36
Speaker 2: meets all the conditions in subsection two, which will have
4:39
Speaker 2: a look at in a second is not excluded an
4:42
Speaker 2: excluded entity in sub section three, and they have specifically
4:46
Speaker 2: mentioned anybody that might be perceived as promoting prescribed organizations.
4:50
Speaker 1: In sub section three.
4:52
Speaker 2: And then the final point here is it's not a
4:54
Speaker 2: sanctioned entity, so can't be RT and it can't be
4:59
Speaker 2: any Iranian or or other similar news organization. So let's
5:03
Speaker 2: look at subsection two which goes into more detail here.
5:07
Speaker 2: So the conditions in order to define yourself as a
5:10
Speaker 2: recognized news publisher. Are these that you have a principal
5:15
Speaker 2: as a principal purpose of publication of news related material,
5:19
Speaker 2: and such material is created by different persons and as
5:22
Speaker 2: subject to editorial control. So this can't be an individual
5:25
Speaker 2: who's simply running a news blog on the internet. It
5:28
Speaker 2: has to be an organization with multiple people working for
5:31
Speaker 2: it and with an editorial mechanism. There publishes such material
5:36
Speaker 2: in the course of a business, whether or not carried
5:39
Speaker 2: on with a view to profits. So you don't have
5:41
Speaker 2: to be a profit making organization, but you do have
5:43
Speaker 2: to be running a business. Is subjects to standards code,
5:47
Speaker 2: has policies and procedures for handling and resolving complaints, has
5:51
Speaker 2: a registered office or other business address in the United Kingdom.
5:55
Speaker 2: Is the person with legal responsibility for material published in
6:00
Speaker 2: the United Kingdom. And finally, it publishes its name, and
6:05
Speaker 2: it publishes the name and address of any person who
6:07
Speaker 2: controls the entity. So those as we'll discuss in a
6:12
Speaker 2: second aren't beyond most people to organize if they want to,
6:16
Speaker 2: but certainly there are many independent news organizations in the
6:20
Speaker 2: UK that will fall under that situation. Of course, another
6:24
Speaker 2: aspect of the Online Safety Act was the idea of
6:28
Speaker 2: false communications. Excuse me, but false communications are They define
6:35
Speaker 2: it as such. A person commits an offense if the
6:38
Speaker 2: person sends a message the message conveys information that the
6:44
Speaker 2: person knows to be false at the time of sending it.
6:47
Speaker 2: The person intended the message or the information to cause
6:50
Speaker 2: non trivial psychological or physical harm. I'm not sure how
6:53
Speaker 2: they know that, and the person has no reasonable excuse
6:56
Speaker 2: for sending the message. But guess what, if you're a
6:59
Speaker 2: recognized news publisher, you cannot commit an offense undersection one
7:04
Speaker 2: seven nine, and that also cannot be committed by the
7:10
Speaker 2: holder of a license under the Broadcasting Act ninety.
7:14
Speaker 1: So there we go.
7:16
Speaker 2: Let me pass over or welcome at least our colleagues
7:20
Speaker 2: here and ask for any comment that you might have
7:23
Speaker 2: will see I have you got any thoughts on this
7:25
Speaker 2: as we've covered so far.
7:32
Speaker 3: In detail what the requirements are, and I'd urge anyone
7:35
Speaker 3: who wants these protections to try and sign up for
7:37
Speaker 3: them because they are actually quite easy to jump through.
7:41
Speaker 3: They're very simple hoops. I mean, for some people it
7:44
Speaker 3: might be difficult with the business address, for example, if
7:47
Speaker 3: they're worried about being docs and there's some sort of
7:50
Speaker 3: whistleblower or some sort of undercover journalists. But apart from
7:53
Speaker 3: people like that, I think most people will be able
7:56
Speaker 3: to meet these requirements. I mean, it does create essentially
8:00
Speaker 3: a two tier system, but then when you look at
8:03
Speaker 3: articles seventeen or nineteen, you've got more broad definitions which
8:07
Speaker 3: do protect people. And I think it's time to start
8:09
Speaker 3: using this against people who wants the censor us.
8:15
Speaker 4: Charles any thoughts, Yeah, I mean, I think Wills is
8:19
Speaker 4: absolutely right, and I think you know we've said this
8:21
Speaker 4: before we came out on Saturday, the on location event.
8:25
Speaker 4: We have to take it at face value and as
8:27
Speaker 4: it stands at the moment. But I do think, like
8:30
Speaker 4: all legislation, and this is a constant theme on UK column,
8:33
Speaker 4: it is drawn up in such a way that it
8:36
Speaker 4: can be subject to almost any interpretation. And I think
8:41
Speaker 4: that there are ways in which we have to be
8:44
Speaker 4: alive to the possibility that the goalposts will either be
8:48
Speaker 4: moved or at least we will find that certain organizations,
8:53
Speaker 4: the smaller and what was it piece Carl describe them
8:57
Speaker 4: as small but risky organizations might find themselves defined as
9:03
Speaker 4: for example, supporting a prescribed organization. And I think it's
9:06
Speaker 4: no coincidence that we're seeing the terrorism legislation used with
9:11
Speaker 4: a very heavy hand now, sending a clear signal with
9:15
Speaker 4: arrests of multiple people now, specifically with regard to Palestine
9:21
Speaker 4: and the link to Hamas, which courses a prescribed organization.
9:24
Speaker 4: So it is as though there is groundwork being laid
9:28
Speaker 4: now in order to set traps further down the road.
9:32
Speaker 4: Which is not at all to say that we shouldn't
9:34
Speaker 4: be pursuing this, but I think we really should be
9:36
Speaker 4: mindful of the ways in which it can be manipulated
9:39
Speaker 4: in future.
9:42
Speaker 5: Yes, indeed, have you any comment, Well, totally agree with
9:46
Speaker 5: Charles there, But I look at this and I think
9:49
Speaker 5: there is something very interesting here because it will say
9:53
Speaker 5: it gives us, let's say, free press, the opportunity to
9:58
Speaker 5: actually mix with the bigger companies and also to be.
10:06
Speaker 1: Arguing within the law.
10:08
Speaker 5: Now, we could have lots of discussions about the fact
10:10
Speaker 5: that law's biased, or the law is designed to squeeze
10:13
Speaker 5: people out, or as Charles has just said, the law's
10:16
Speaker 5: going to ultimately change and work against us. But there
10:20
Speaker 5: are too many people, in my opinion, who see things
10:23
Speaker 5: utterly black and white, and they just want to do
10:27
Speaker 5: nothing or move away from the system. But here we've
10:31
Speaker 5: got an opportunity to get into the system, and not
10:34
Speaker 5: only for the UK Column, other news organizations or maybe
10:39
Speaker 5: individuals who want to set up a news organization have
10:43
Speaker 5: got the opportunity to do it under the existing rules
10:47
Speaker 5: and then get stuck into a real debate with other
10:51
Speaker 5: media organizations over why we lead free and unrestrained press.
10:57
Speaker 5: So it's a loophole, it would appear, but I think
11:02
Speaker 5: it's one that as many people as possible should pour
11:05
Speaker 5: through that chink in the wall in order to take
11:08
Speaker 5: the battle to the heart of the established media that,
11:12
Speaker 5: of course, in general the law works to protect.
11:15
Speaker 2: So it's a loophole, but the question is does the
11:18
Speaker 2: loophole work? And so, in order to test this, the
11:23
Speaker 2: UK Column who We had our YouTube channel shut down
11:26
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one, as everybody knows, said a letter,
11:30
Speaker 2: followed up by an email to the YouTube legal team,
11:33
Speaker 2: and in response we got this Hello, if you feel
11:38
Speaker 2: that your channel was blocked or removed in error, you
11:40
Speaker 2: can learn note about you can learn more about how
11:42
Speaker 2: to appeal your suspension, and they included a pdf document,
11:47
Speaker 2: which had some nice photographs of them receiving our legal letter,
11:51
Speaker 2: and well that didn't seem terribly optimistic. However, sometime later
11:58
Speaker 2: we went through the appeals process and we cited the
12:04
Speaker 2: Online Safety Act and the fact that we are a
12:06
Speaker 2: recognized news publisher under the Online Safety Act, and before
12:10
Speaker 2: we knew it this happened. After taking another look, we
12:15
Speaker 2: can confirm that your channel does not violate our community guidelines.
12:19
Speaker 2: Thank you for your patience. Why we reviewed this appeal right, So,
12:23
Speaker 2: that was within two hours of the email being or
12:26
Speaker 2: the subsequent appeal being entered into, and so at that
12:32
Speaker 2: point we couldn't really say for sure whether it was
12:35
Speaker 2: the letter that we had sent that was responsible for this,
12:38
Speaker 2: and I suppose at this point we still can't really
12:40
Speaker 2: say for certain that that is what has happened. But
12:44
Speaker 2: just today there's been a new development, and that is
12:47
Speaker 2: this that that email, as you can see, was dated Friday,
12:51
Speaker 2: the fourth of October twenty twenty four, and since that
12:57
Speaker 2: point we have noticed that YouTube has taken down. I
13:02
Speaker 2: would think about half a dozen or eight YouTube videos
13:06
Speaker 2: from our YouTube channel on the basis of medical misinformation,
13:10
Speaker 2: and I'm thinking to myself, oh well, maybe this hasn't.
13:13
Speaker 1: Worked after all.
13:14
Speaker 2: So I decided I would challenge one of these takedown
13:17
Speaker 2: notices and well, this is the email that they had
13:22
Speaker 2: originally sent to us. We wanted to let you know
13:24
Speaker 2: that our team reviewed your content. We think it violates
13:27
Speaker 2: our medical misinformation policy and the video concerned excuse me
13:31
Speaker 2: was UK Collum News from the thirty first of March
13:34
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one. And well, within an hour of the
13:39
Speaker 2: appeal going in, this is what came back. After another look,
13:45
Speaker 2: we can confirm that your content does not violate our
13:49
Speaker 2: community guidelines, and so they took they took the action
13:54
Speaker 2: to reinstate the video again, so that again in this case,
14:00
Speaker 2: I again cited the Online Safety Act, and I again
14:03
Speaker 2: said that we are the Online Safety Act obliges YouTube
14:09
Speaker 2: to protect the content of recognized news publishers, and that
14:13
Speaker 2: really they should restore that video, which they immediately did so.
14:17
Speaker 2: Since this is the first time, Charles and Wilsey that
14:19
Speaker 2: you have heard this piece of news, be interested in
14:22
Speaker 2: your thoughts on that.
14:25
Speaker 3: Charles, would you like to go first or you go?
14:30
Speaker 3: I think this is amazing positive news. I think they
14:32
Speaker 3: are scared of this because this will be going to
14:36
Speaker 3: an individual reviewer. That review is going to be sitting there.
14:38
Speaker 3: They're going to be looking at all of this legal
14:41
Speaker 3: jargon that you've put in there, and they may be intimidated.
14:45
Speaker 3: The only thing that's of the concern is how have
14:47
Speaker 3: they been given any information on this? Have they been
14:50
Speaker 3: given guidelines or have they just seen all of this
14:52
Speaker 3: legal information? Then a quick Google search and gone, oh,
14:56
Speaker 3: that seems to check out if regardless whether they've been
14:59
Speaker 3: give information from up on high management, it does seem
15:05
Speaker 3: like this works. So I mean, using this against the reviewers,
15:09
Speaker 3: citing this to the reviewers should hopefully intimidate them. But
15:12
Speaker 3: what we need to see is we need to see
15:14
Speaker 3: YouTube giving specific guidance to all of its reviewers that
15:18
Speaker 3: where there is the recognized news publisher, where it is
15:20
Speaker 3: of journalistic importance and when it is of democratic importance,
15:24
Speaker 3: they need to maintain free speech and they need to
15:27
Speaker 3: keep a level playing field as explained by the Act.
15:31
Speaker 3: So I mean, this is good, but again we don't
15:34
Speaker 3: have full confirmation that they've really changed their policies. It
15:37
Speaker 3: seems to be more a change in culture or tone.
15:43
Speaker 4: Charles Well, I think the first the main positive to
15:47
Speaker 4: draw from this is that challenging does yield results, and
15:51
Speaker 4: I would say that this should apply to absolutely everything.
15:54
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter what it is, what it concerns, but
15:57
Speaker 4: challenge it. Always challenge this stuff. I'm not just talking
16:00
Speaker 4: about censorship and online safety or so called online safety,
16:05
Speaker 4: so challenge. I think, as with so many instances, we
16:09
Speaker 4: are where we are. But we talked about this a
16:11
Speaker 4: little bit in Extra yesterday. Of course, it is absurd
16:14
Speaker 4: that we exist in an environment where control of our
16:19
Speaker 4: content is subject to the decision making process of either
16:25
Speaker 4: an individual or a corporation. Nonetheless, that is where we are.
16:30
Speaker 4: But what I think this demonstrate is the tendency to
16:35
Speaker 4: censor first without due process and in effect hope for
16:41
Speaker 4: the best and just expect that you're not going to
16:44
Speaker 4: be challenged on it. But of course, the moment you are, you.
16:46
Speaker 3: Realize that you're on thin ice.
16:47
Speaker 4: The only thing I would say is that within the Act,
16:51
Speaker 4: Section eighteen, within the Online Safety Act, it does just
16:55
Speaker 4: show how, in effect the government has set the conditions.
17:01
Speaker 3: To sort of pass the buck.
17:03
Speaker 4: Because we've got the specific clause about liability criminal or
17:09
Speaker 4: civil liability, and the onus. It's saying if the provider
17:13
Speaker 4: of the service judges that they may incur criminal or
17:18
Speaker 4: civil liability, then they should take content down immediately without
17:22
Speaker 4: going through the steps that have been set out. But
17:25
Speaker 4: of course, why should they be the arbiter when it
17:30
Speaker 4: concerns criminal or civil liability. I mean, it's again in
17:34
Speaker 4: terms of manipulation, it's all too easy for them to
17:37
Speaker 4: remove something and say, well, we thought that it was
17:43
Speaker 4: you know, too close to the line or whatever it is.
17:46
Speaker 4: But of course we see now in terms of challenging
17:49
Speaker 4: things that are a different situation, different time. But the
17:55
Speaker 4: problem is that the provider of the service does still
17:58
Speaker 4: have a huge amount of power. And then of course
18:01
Speaker 4: again within Section eighteen, we've got the issue of still
18:07
Speaker 4: there you know, of course a recognized news publisher being
18:10
Speaker 4: banned from using a service. So we wait to see
18:13
Speaker 4: sort of how that will play itself out and indeed
18:18
Speaker 4: what challenges can be made against that sort of circumstance.
18:21
Speaker 4: But no, I mean, I think this is fantastic and
18:24
Speaker 4: this is the whole point. You know, again, something we
18:26
Speaker 4: talked about on Saturday is that this has to be
18:29
Speaker 4: done across the board. You know, the whole idea of
18:33
Speaker 4: a non partisan coalition of all providers of all editorial
18:38
Speaker 4: lines getting together to take this on absolutely.
18:44
Speaker 2: So we want again to extend the invitation to anybody
18:48
Speaker 2: who is running an independent media organization of whatever political
18:54
Speaker 2: persuasion or whatever, whatever your editorial position is on anything,
18:59
Speaker 2: this doesn't really matter. We are all experiencing, are all
19:02
Speaker 2: going to have to operate within this regime. And as
19:06
Speaker 2: of Commas said, this regime really will begin in earnest
19:10
Speaker 2: towards the end of this year. And so we would
19:14
Speaker 2: invite everybody who's involved in independent news production to get
19:17
Speaker 2: in touch with us. Let's get together and see what
19:20
Speaker 2: we can all do to push back on this agenda,
19:25
Speaker 2: and that means might involve anything up to and including
19:28
Speaker 2: formal legal action. And the other point to make here
19:31
Speaker 2: is that this is not just about YouTube. YouTube has
19:35
Speaker 2: been particularly grageous when it comes to what they described
19:39
Speaker 2: as medical misinformation, but in many many other areas they.
19:43
Speaker 1: Are quite liberal.
19:45
Speaker 2: So you know quite a lot of content on YouTube
19:48
Speaker 2: which other platforms have been shutting down. As I mentioned
19:53
Speaker 2: on Saturday, I think the worst case of censorship that
19:57
Speaker 2: we have for any of the platforms that we're involved
20:00
Speaker 2: is TikTok with that are just constantly shutting down channels
20:04
Speaker 2: and don't give any explanation as to why they're shutting
20:07
Speaker 2: them down. There's no appeals process possible and so on.
20:11
Speaker 2: So since younger people are on platforms like Instagram and TikTok,
20:16
Speaker 2: these are important platforms for anybody that's putting out news,
20:21
Speaker 2: and so we need to not just be considering YouTube, Facebook,
20:25
Speaker 2: at Twitter, but also TikTok and and Instagram and these
20:30
Speaker 2: kinds of platforms is right across the board, and anybody
20:34
Speaker 2: that wants to contact us on this and get involved
20:38
Speaker 2: with this, please use the email for email address Online
20:42
Speaker 2: Safety at uk CO dot org and we will put
20:45
Speaker 2: this in the show notes under this program later on.
20:49
Speaker 5: So yes, well we could come on to this a
20:55
Speaker 5: little bit later, but I wouldn't say. The other thing
20:57
Speaker 5: that's going on in parallel with this is that we've
21:00
Speaker 5: clearly got some concern beginning to arise within legacy mainstream
21:06
Speaker 5: media over the fact that journalists are being targeted in
21:11
Speaker 5: their own homes. There's been a number of raids and
21:14
Speaker 5: people's computers and equipment taken. The National Union of Journalists
21:20
Speaker 5: has actually made a little bit of comment. They probably
21:23
Speaker 5: haven't spoken out in public as strongly as many people
21:28
Speaker 5: would expect them to defend journalists and free speech. Nevertheless,
21:34
Speaker 5: my sense that there's an undertone of increasing concern within
21:39
Speaker 5: the journalistic community that journalists are being raided by the
21:45
Speaker 5: police on minimal evidence of any real crime. And of
21:51
Speaker 5: course this is a very very serious position for UK
21:56
Speaker 5: to be in. And so I see these two things together.
21:59
Speaker 5: We've got the censorship being imposed by the big controlling platforms,
22:05
Speaker 5: but also we've got censorship which is being imposed by
22:09
Speaker 5: the state using the police in order to silence people
22:13
Speaker 5: who are carrying out but bonafidi journalistic work. I don't
22:17
Speaker 5: know what your thought on that is, Charles.
22:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, well I think absolutely. I mean, like I was
22:24
Speaker 4: sort of mentioned earlier, specifically with the terrorism on the
22:28
Speaker 4: terrorism front and the link especially with Hamas, and of
22:32
Speaker 4: course when we think, you know, if you want to
22:35
Speaker 4: consider the fact that her mass was only prescribed in
22:37
Speaker 4: November twenty twenty one, so in effect it looks a
22:41
Speaker 4: lot I mean, even if there were perhaps specific reasons
22:44
Speaker 4: to be able to make that prescription. Nonetheless, it's very
22:48
Speaker 4: timely now for the authorities to have that with which
22:52
Speaker 4: to hang people on. So I think we have to
22:55
Speaker 4: be very mindful of that bit. I think the other
22:59
Speaker 4: thing that I would say is the sort of boiled
23:02
Speaker 4: frog element to it, which I think is really significant
23:06
Speaker 4: in that, you know, people who are we talk about
23:09
Speaker 4: the younger audience, and I think a lot of younger
23:13
Speaker 4: people will just accept that content gets taken down and
23:19
Speaker 4: that in some sense is that's okay, and that the
23:24
Speaker 4: you know, the situation has been inverted in that the
23:26
Speaker 4: responsibility has shifted from the individual to be able to
23:30
Speaker 4: discern either what they want to watch or listen to
23:33
Speaker 4: in the first place, but certainly far away from them
23:37
Speaker 4: now is the decision as to whether they want to
23:39
Speaker 4: pay anything any attention. And we live in this extraordinary
23:43
Speaker 4: inverted world where where now on the receiving end of this,
23:48
Speaker 4: we have several layers of bureaucracy and sort of corporate
23:54
Speaker 4: influence that are deciding what we should be watching and
23:58
Speaker 4: how we should be thinking. And I think that's the
24:01
Speaker 4: bit that we really need to keep concentrating. And I
24:05
Speaker 4: mentioned this again on Extra yesterday, and I think what
24:07
Speaker 4: would be really interesting at some point during our discussion
24:10
Speaker 4: today is to have you and Mike talk about the
24:13
Speaker 4: way in which this has drifted, certainly in the over
24:17
Speaker 4: the lifetime of UK column because it has built and
24:22
Speaker 4: built and built to this crescendo. But it's you know,
24:25
Speaker 4: it's not like it hasn't come from somewhere, and I
24:27
Speaker 4: think this is the thing that we really need to consider.
24:30
Speaker 4: It is outrageous.
24:32
Speaker 1: Well yeah, well we can talk a little bit. We
24:34
Speaker 1: can go back a number of years.
24:35
Speaker 2: So we've mentioned the whole ADVOD situation in the past,
24:39
Speaker 2: and that actually it's worth just touching on that again
24:42
Speaker 2: because that gives an indication as to what the motivation
24:47
Speaker 2: behind this is.
24:48
Speaker 1: Now.
24:48
Speaker 2: If you remember, back in twenty eighteen, twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen,
24:55
Speaker 2: Matt Hancock, who was at that time was secristic for
24:58
Speaker 2: Digital Media and board because the sorry no just for
25:04
Speaker 2: media's culture, median sport, because the digital.
25:07
Speaker 1: Hadn't come in yet, that's right.
25:08
Speaker 2: So he ran the care Cross Review because he, as
25:12
Speaker 2: he described it, he was concerned about the future of
25:15
Speaker 2: the mainstream press and he was wanting to make sure
25:18
Speaker 2: that there was some kind of solid foundations that the
25:22
Speaker 2: mainstream press could operate because without a free press, as
25:26
Speaker 2: he described it, even though it's not free, you know,
25:30
Speaker 2: there is no democracy. So it was clear in twenty
25:34
Speaker 2: eighteen that there was some concern in government circles about
25:38
Speaker 2: the situation with the mainstream press. But actually, when we
25:41
Speaker 2: go back to twenty thirteen when ADVOUD was attacking us,
25:45
Speaker 2: ad VAUD at that time, for those who don't know,
25:47
Speaker 2: was the authority for television on demand. We had an
25:51
Speaker 2: up and coming YouTube channel, and their main concern was
25:55
Speaker 2: that our content was too television like. Right, This was
26:00
Speaker 2: term they used, you are too television like and so.
26:04
Speaker 2: And in the course of the communications with them, it
26:06
Speaker 2: was clear that their concern was that we were in
26:09
Speaker 2: somehow competing with the BBC or other mainstream news channels.
26:14
Speaker 2: And I said to them at the time, look at
26:16
Speaker 2: what you're saying. First of all, they said to us
26:19
Speaker 2: that we are running a video on demand service. And
26:22
Speaker 2: I said, no, YouTube is running a video on demand service.
26:25
Speaker 2: We're just putting content on YouTube's video on demand service.
26:29
Speaker 2: And they tried to tell us and know it was
26:31
Speaker 2: us that was running the video on demand service. And
26:34
Speaker 2: so I said to them, well, you know, what you're
26:36
Speaker 2: effectively doing is that you're taking an organization with you know,
26:40
Speaker 2: thousands of pounds in the bank and putting it against
26:43
Speaker 2: an organization with billions of pounds in the bank, and
26:47
Speaker 2: you are attempting to say that those two organizations should
26:50
Speaker 2: be operating on an equal regulatory playing field, and that
26:55
Speaker 2: they were absolutely clear that that's exactly what they were doing.
26:58
Speaker 2: And that has been the feature of this or one
27:01
Speaker 2: of the features of this legislation as it has developed,
27:05
Speaker 2: in my opinion, is that it is there to try
27:07
Speaker 2: and make sure that anybody that's coming along to so
27:11
Speaker 2: called disrupt the mainstream media isn't actually going to be
27:15
Speaker 2: able to manage to do it in an effective way
27:17
Speaker 2: because the mainstream media is the voice of the government
27:20
Speaker 2: and there's to be no kind of narrative out there.
27:25
Speaker 1: So that so that that's what I would say about that, Charles.
27:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I absolutely agree.
27:30
Speaker 4: I mean, I'd be really interested to hear Wilsey's thoughts
27:33
Speaker 4: on that, you know, on sort of where this has
27:35
Speaker 4: all come from.
27:37
Speaker 3: Well, I statistic yesterday actually, I believe Matt Goodman was
27:41
Speaker 3: talking about that how people get thirty percent of their
27:45
Speaker 3: news on average from the internet. That's only going to
27:48
Speaker 3: grow as people get older, As a lot of the
27:51
Speaker 3: older generation who watch television begin to unfortunately die off,
27:55
Speaker 3: We're going to end up in a world where realistically
28:00
Speaker 3: fifty sixty seventy eighty percent of people get their information
28:03
Speaker 3: from social media. And so I mean that for the
28:07
Speaker 3: mainstream news outlets, it's a bit difficult for them because
28:11
Speaker 3: they're now trying to do this transition and they want
28:14
Speaker 3: these sort of special protections because now there's a huge
28:17
Speaker 3: amount of competition. There's loads of different people. Every Tom
28:19
Speaker 3: Dick and Harry you can get a camera, go out,
28:21
Speaker 3: record things, report on things, and a lot of the
28:24
Speaker 3: time it is individuals and they'll be able to come
28:26
Speaker 3: in do commentary and do commentary much better than anyone else.
28:30
Speaker 3: Back in the day. I mean, you used to often
28:33
Speaker 3: have reviews within newspapers of movies. Now that's not really
28:38
Speaker 3: a thing anymore. People go to the critical drink on YouTube.
28:41
Speaker 3: What they're doing is a sort of gatekeeped version of
28:45
Speaker 3: what we can have now, which is beautiful, a beautiful
28:48
Speaker 3: amount of competition, and then people can discern in a
28:51
Speaker 3: free market of ideas, you can find the truth, and
28:54
Speaker 3: I think the truth will win in a free marketplace,
28:56
Speaker 3: which is why they're trying to stop it. But I think,
28:58
Speaker 3: you know, we've talked a lot about you know, bands
29:00
Speaker 3: and strikes and everything like that. I think what we
29:03
Speaker 3: have to remember, in addition to the bands and the strikes,
29:05
Speaker 3: there are other things that are quite insidious, like the
29:07
Speaker 3: shadow bands. I really want to, you know, pop the
29:11
Speaker 3: lid on the shadow bands and see what's happening there,
29:13
Speaker 3: because we've seen with the Twitter files. I mentioned this
29:15
Speaker 3: at You're a Fantastic Event. The Twitter files show that
29:18
Speaker 3: governments are getting involved in order to censor content behind
29:22
Speaker 3: the scenes, so without any you know, official state power
29:26
Speaker 3: being used, they say, oh, do you know what, it
29:28
Speaker 3: would be very useful if you did this. It would
29:30
Speaker 3: be a great favor to us if you did that,
29:32
Speaker 3: And so they're complying. I want to see what is
29:35
Speaker 3: the level of compliance. Let's, you know, bring this to daylight,
29:38
Speaker 3: pour some sunlight on it. And I think if there
29:42
Speaker 3: are any you know, other journalists out there who are
29:45
Speaker 3: maybe a little bit worried, but they're not super concerned
29:47
Speaker 3: because they haven't been hitden to me, strike share or
29:49
Speaker 3: anything like that, What about the shadow bands? What about
29:52
Speaker 3: the shadow bands? You know, have you noticed your views
29:56
Speaker 3: start to drop off? Have you noticed that there was
29:58
Speaker 3: a period after which suddenly not as many people are
30:01
Speaker 3: engaging you've got people who aren't getting notifications from YouTube,
30:05
Speaker 3: You've got people who are being unsubscribed, and that's that's
30:09
Speaker 3: just one platform. And like you know, Mike said, okay,
30:12
Speaker 3: and Brian said, there are plenty of platforms, so really
30:16
Speaker 3: we need to be putting pressure on all of them,
30:18
Speaker 3: and we need it as many different news outlets come
30:21
Speaker 3: on board as possible, because the more the merrit and
30:24
Speaker 3: left hand right.
30:26
Speaker 1: Yeah.
30:27
Speaker 5: Again, I just add to that, will Zie, that we've
30:31
Speaker 5: got this. You know, we've got a double opportunity. There's
30:35
Speaker 5: to get in amongst the system and fight it from
30:38
Speaker 5: within in a reasonable professional manner. And we were already
30:43
Speaker 5: seen that that has power. And then we've got a
30:47
Speaker 5: we've got a whole parallel system of censorship, which you've
30:52
Speaker 5: called shadow banning, which needs bringing to the surface. I mean,
30:56
Speaker 5: I well remember the morning that Mike and I were
30:59
Speaker 5: here in the column and we watched for a very
31:02
Speaker 5: short period of time the viewing numbers on our YouTube
31:07
Speaker 5: channel drop, so people had unviewed apparently, and that was
31:14
Speaker 5: just fascinating to watch. And then I could go the
31:17
Speaker 5: other way and say we've got the BBC, which is
31:20
Speaker 5: top list in the law itself, that we've seen on
31:25
Speaker 5: screen at the start of today's discussion operating a department
31:31
Speaker 5: called BBC Verify, and when somebody asks a perfectly legitimate
31:37
Speaker 5: freedom of information question as to how many people work
31:40
Speaker 5: in that department, how much money obviously of license fee
31:46
Speaker 5: payers money does it suck up, and other questions about
31:50
Speaker 5: how it came into being, the BBC arrogantly says we
31:54
Speaker 5: don't need to tell you because we've got exemption from
31:58
Speaker 5: replying to freedom of information requests which are asking about
32:03
Speaker 5: our creative our creative business. This is outrageous and the
32:10
Speaker 5: big wei, not just the UK column but all of
32:13
Speaker 5: the smaller free and pendent media should be ripping the
32:19
Speaker 5: BBC to pieces over this because it's outrageous. So again
32:23
Speaker 5: I think there's two areas, but certainly anything to do
32:26
Speaker 5: with shadow banning. What are the activities of seventy seven
32:30
Speaker 5: Brigade these days? They declared their hand during lockdown, their
32:37
Speaker 5: department or their brigade system in the British Army hasn't
32:41
Speaker 5: gone away. It's actually swallowing more money even though it
32:45
Speaker 5: has a tiny number of people. But the public need
32:48
Speaker 5: to know what they're doing and why and who's controlling them.
32:52
Speaker 5: So I think that with some really measured questions and
32:57
Speaker 5: some standing ground by the free and independent small media,
33:05
Speaker 5: we can really start to throw some very big rocks
33:07
Speaker 5: into this censorship bond.
33:10
Speaker 2: Just exactly just add to that, because although everybody talks
33:14
Speaker 2: about seventy seven Brigade, we should remember that that's only
33:19
Speaker 2: one agency of the UK government which is doing this
33:24
Speaker 2: kind of thing. There are at least two or three
33:26
Speaker 2: other departments within the Cabinet Office. There's a department within
33:29
Speaker 2: the Department for Digital Culture, Media, Media and Sport. So
33:33
Speaker 2: there are actually quite a number of departments of the
33:35
Speaker 2: of the British government that are actively watching what people
33:39
Speaker 2: are saying and doing on social media. And of course
33:42
Speaker 2: at this point we have no oversight or no way
33:48
Speaker 2: of discovering exactly what they're what they are doing, and
33:51
Speaker 2: how many requests are going into And I mean, how
33:54
Speaker 2: would you even generate a free information request because because
33:58
Speaker 2: we don't know the department, you don't know terms involved.
34:01
Speaker 2: You know, I have a massive fight going on with
34:05
Speaker 2: the Ministry Defense at the moment because Ben Wallace had
34:10
Speaker 2: made a statement about the activity of seventy seven Brigade
34:13
Speaker 2: in the House of Commons and he used a particular term,
34:19
Speaker 2: and in order to avoid answering the freedom information request
34:22
Speaker 2: I put in, they said they had no records using
34:24
Speaker 2: this particular term. Now that's their response is clearly not
34:29
Speaker 2: in the spirit of the Act, because I was quoting
34:32
Speaker 2: directly from Hansard what ben Wallace had said that day,
34:36
Speaker 2: So you know, so they were absolutely splitting hairs in
34:39
Speaker 2: order to avoid.
34:42
Speaker 1: Answering that question.
34:43
Speaker 2: And that's now subject to an Information Commissioner's Office investigation.
34:49
Speaker 2: But the point is, you know, unless you know the
34:52
Speaker 2: precise terms, it's going to be practically impossible to find
34:55
Speaker 2: out exactly from through freedom information what they're doing in
34:59
Speaker 2: terms of banning. So so if anybody's got any other ideas,
35:03
Speaker 2: then we're very keen to hear those.
35:05
Speaker 1: Sorry, Willsie, I interrupted there.
35:08
Speaker 3: I just want to say how toxic shadow banning is
35:10
Speaker 3: because you don't even know yourself the degree to which
35:14
Speaker 3: you're being shadow banned, and you can sit there and
35:16
Speaker 3: you go, well, is this me? Have I made an
35:18
Speaker 3: unpopular video? Is it I'm now? Is it a title?
35:21
Speaker 3: Should I be interviewing someone else? You know? What am
35:24
Speaker 3: I doing wrong? And I think a lot of people
35:27
Speaker 3: who do get shadow banded will become demoralized and give
35:30
Speaker 3: up because they might they might not know this shadow band.
35:32
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it, but you can see when they
35:34
Speaker 3: do it sometimes, I mean the most clear example for us,
35:37
Speaker 3: And obviously we believe we're shadow banned across quite a
35:40
Speaker 3: lot of platforms, but Instagram. Every single day we're putting
35:45
Speaker 3: up just little stills from our videos of people holding
35:48
Speaker 3: signs of this that from the protests, and we were
35:51
Speaker 3: gaining over one hundred a day, over one hundred a day,
35:53
Speaker 3: hundreds and hundreds of likes and everything. And suddenly one
35:56
Speaker 3: day it's over one hundred, over hundred, over hundred two
36:00
Speaker 3: three one two three, and that's it, overnight, overnight. And
36:07
Speaker 3: I know someone else who was growing exponentially on Instagram
36:12
Speaker 3: and then they got to about seven eight thousands and
36:16
Speaker 3: breaks immediately on and they're stuck. And I mean, Instagram
36:22
Speaker 3: seems to be the most overt, but are they doing
36:25
Speaker 3: it on YouTube? Are they making sure stuff doesn't go
36:27
Speaker 3: out beyond the people subscribed to you? So you sort
36:29
Speaker 3: of trapped in your own little bubble talking to yourself.
36:32
Speaker 3: You can't actually reach out and speak to other people.
36:34
Speaker 3: Was people of the mainstream opinion. Yes, you'll constantly be
36:37
Speaker 3: barraged with their opinions to try and bring you around
36:40
Speaker 3: to their point of view. It's it's just insidious the
36:45
Speaker 3: way that they do it, and it's like a slow
36:47
Speaker 3: suffocation because you can't say, oh, i've got a strike here.
36:49
Speaker 3: Look they've done this, They've done that. People go, you say,
36:52
Speaker 3: I'm being shadow band I think and being shaped and
36:54
Speaker 3: they go prove it and it's really hard to prove.
36:58
Speaker 3: But I mean, if it did come to court or
37:03
Speaker 3: something like that, or at least lawyers being involved, I
37:06
Speaker 3: think there's an opportunity to say, well, you need to
37:09
Speaker 3: disclose this. You need to disclose whether you're shadowed banning.
37:12
Speaker 3: If you lie to us and say you're not shadow banning,
37:15
Speaker 3: well then you know that you are breaking the statue.
37:21
Speaker 2: Sorry, I was just going to say, Brian, this idea
37:24
Speaker 2: of shadow banning, of course, is an expression of a
37:26
Speaker 2: principle that was all the way through the online Harms
37:31
Speaker 2: online safety discussion from twenty seventeen right up to the
37:34
Speaker 2: present day, and that is this notion that the Online
37:37
Speaker 2: Safety Act is going to protect freedom of speech.
37:39
Speaker 1: Don't worry about that.
37:40
Speaker 2: You can say what you want to say, but of
37:43
Speaker 2: course you have no right to be heard, and so
37:46
Speaker 2: so you know, you can post your video, but you
37:49
Speaker 2: have no right for that video to be distributed anywhere.
37:52
Speaker 1: And that is one thing that you know.
37:55
Speaker 2: There is no protection against shadow banning in any legislation
37:59
Speaker 2: that exists, and for as far as the government is
38:02
Speaker 2: concerned a good reason, they would be certainly viewing that
38:06
Speaker 2: in a positive light.
38:07
Speaker 4: I would say, yeah, well, this was expressly stated by
38:12
Speaker 4: the chief executive of Twitter. I mean, why people persist
38:16
Speaker 4: in celebrating Elon Musk's ownership of that platform. I cannot
38:20
Speaker 4: understand because as soon as the chief executive, who I
38:24
Speaker 4: think is called Linda Yakarino, was hired, she referred, I mean, here,
38:30
Speaker 4: whilst it was still the Online Safety Bill, we had
38:34
Speaker 4: the phrase legal but harmful, harmful but legal, and she
38:41
Speaker 4: describes it her phrase is lawful but awful. And she
38:45
Speaker 4: specifically said that content exactly like you say, content just
38:49
Speaker 4: would not go anywhere. And the phrase she used was
38:52
Speaker 4: that yes, we you know, we will sustain freedom of speech,
38:56
Speaker 4: but not freedom of reach. So I mean, she may
39:00
Speaker 4: it absolutely perfectly clear what they do and if Twitter
39:04
Speaker 4: are doing it, then I mean, of course everybody's doing it,
39:06
Speaker 4: so they are explicit in that regard, and just like
39:10
Speaker 4: you say, will see you know, how on earth, how
39:13
Speaker 4: do you know? How do you actually sort of prove that?
39:18
Speaker 3: Can? I also mention, I've just got section seventeen here
39:21
Speaker 3: from the Act, part eight of section seventeen or article seventeen.
39:27
Speaker 3: In this section, the reference to taking action against the
39:30
Speaker 3: user is to giving a warning to user, or suspending
39:35
Speaker 3: or banning a user from a service, or in any
39:38
Speaker 3: way restricting a user's ability to use a service. So
39:42
Speaker 3: I think that's actually quite broad. So this is one
39:45
Speaker 3: of the most beautiful things I think about this Act
39:49
Speaker 3: here it actually says in any way, so that I
39:52
Speaker 3: believe is the silver bullet against shadow banning.
39:57
Speaker 2: If we can demonstrate that there's had a banning taking
40:00
Speaker 2: place and can challenge them in that way.
40:03
Speaker 1: Yes, I'll be right. You were going to say something, Well.
40:07
Speaker 5: I was just going to mention my experience of being
40:10
Speaker 5: retrained or reframed by YouTube. So I had one video
40:16
Speaker 5: in my Walking the Dog series on YouTube taken down
40:20
Speaker 5: because in it I had inserted a little audio clip
40:26
Speaker 5: where I was speaking to Piers Corbyn and Peers Corbyn
40:31
Speaker 5: talked about jabs and as a result, that video was
40:37
Speaker 5: taken down and I had to attend a YouTube retraining
40:42
Speaker 5: online retraining session, which was truly appalling, because what it
40:48
Speaker 5: really meant is you were ticking boxes to agree with
40:53
Speaker 5: opinions of YouTube that were clearly incorrect, wrong, biased, and misleading,
41:00
Speaker 5: but you had no way of engaging with that. You
41:02
Speaker 5: had to be retrained with that incestuous mess that Google
41:07
Speaker 5: had decided was their opinion on jobs. So this is
41:12
Speaker 5: something else which I think should be brought into the
41:15
Speaker 5: public arena. Otherwise we can have these huge corporations simply
41:21
Speaker 5: making up the rules themselves in the in the shadows so.
41:27
Speaker 3: Well exactly, and I mean if you, if you, if you,
41:31
Speaker 3: if you look at this mandatory retrained retraining. I mean
41:34
Speaker 3: Jordan Peterson point blank refused to do the retraining when
41:39
Speaker 3: it came to Twitter, or he refused to click through
41:42
Speaker 3: because he had to, you had to admit, and he
41:44
Speaker 3: just refused to go through with it. So I think
41:47
Speaker 3: this is another form of you know, suspending a user
41:50
Speaker 3: or essentially banning a user by getting people to do
41:53
Speaker 3: this sort of re education camp, of course, and I
41:57
Speaker 3: think we need to be questioning those as well.
42:00
Speaker 1: And just to clarify, you did it because you wanted
42:02
Speaker 1: to know what the process was.
42:03
Speaker 5: Oh indeed, Yeah, and I did it, and I captured
42:07
Speaker 5: the questions and responses and I included those in the
42:11
Speaker 5: news so that I could do my job as a
42:14
Speaker 5: journalist and inform the public of what YouTube was doing
42:18
Speaker 5: in the background. But I found it appalling because it
42:23
Speaker 5: was so I could say childish, but that I'd be
42:27
Speaker 5: doing it disservice because the actual implications are very serious.
42:31
Speaker 5: But I found it very.
42:36
Speaker 1: Underhand.
42:37
Speaker 5: It was reframing me to make it to make me
42:42
Speaker 5: believe something which I couldn't believe, because you know, what
42:46
Speaker 5: they were talking about was misleading and untrue. And I'm
42:50
Speaker 5: very happy to say that so. But of course, a
42:53
Speaker 5: lot of the public, if you're somebody who watches YouTube,
42:56
Speaker 5: but you never post videos yourself, you would never come
43:00
Speaker 5: into this subterranean world of YouTube's rules and regulations.
43:09
Speaker 2: Somedly, the child boxer are saying it sounds like Chinese
43:12
Speaker 2: style re education.
43:13
Speaker 1: I think it's very unfair to China.
43:14
Speaker 2: I mean, frankly, we are doing China in every way
43:17
Speaker 2: at this point in time, it seems to me. And
43:21
Speaker 2: so yeah, I understand the sentiment, but I think we've
43:24
Speaker 2: got to recognize the regime that we are all operating under,
43:29
Speaker 2: and on that I.
43:30
Speaker 4: Mean, I think again, I've said this before, and I'm
43:32
Speaker 4: not just wanting to continually poor cold water. But I
43:36
Speaker 4: think another thing we have to be very mindful of
43:38
Speaker 4: is that now that the primary legislation exists, and let's say,
43:43
Speaker 4: for the sake of argument, that there is a ground
43:45
Speaker 4: swell of a response to effectively the appeal to have
43:50
Speaker 4: a multi denominational advance in the area of recognized news publishers,
43:56
Speaker 4: and that there are many more small people who stand
43:59
Speaker 4: up and they are therefore counted as such, and it
44:04
Speaker 4: makes it, as it stands, much more difficult therefore to
44:09
Speaker 4: censor the small but risky organizations. But of course, once
44:14
Speaker 4: that's the case, a statutory instrument, any piece of secondary legislation,
44:21
Speaker 4: potentially could be wielded to direct those recognized news publishers
44:28
Speaker 4: to do a certain thing. And I think that's something
44:32
Speaker 4: that we need to be mindful of. And the example
44:34
Speaker 4: I gave, which I think is an obvious one, is
44:37
Speaker 4: let's say, you know, public health, which of course we've
44:41
Speaker 4: all had more than enough of over the last few years.
44:44
Speaker 4: But were we to be cast into a situation that
44:49
Speaker 4: we found ourselves in in twenty twenty, it's easy to
44:52
Speaker 4: see how the government could put out a notice to
44:57
Speaker 4: instruct recognize news publishers to broadcast a particular thing pertaining
45:04
Speaker 4: to what they're calling public health, for example, And I
45:07
Speaker 4: think I just think that's one of the things that
45:09
Speaker 4: we need to be aware of.
45:11
Speaker 1: I think that's absolutely right.
45:13
Speaker 2: But what I would say there is that that in
45:16
Speaker 2: itself is why it is important that we encourage every
45:22
Speaker 2: possible independent news organization to get involved with this, because
45:25
Speaker 2: we you know, no matter what we think about any
45:28
Speaker 2: particular issue of the day, we are all going to
45:31
Speaker 2: be subject to this type of regime. Now there's two
45:33
Speaker 2: things would happen there, Charles. In that event, of course,
45:37
Speaker 2: in taking an action like that, government exposes Excel itself
45:42
Speaker 2: for being the totalitarian censer that it is. And of course,
45:47
Speaker 2: once they themselves in that way, there's no real way
45:51
Speaker 2: to go back from that, they're then added for being that.
45:55
Speaker 1: But you know, as well, as.
45:59
Speaker 2: He said the first time we spoke together on this issue,
46:01
Speaker 2: and I think you mentioned that on Saturday as well
46:04
Speaker 2: at the UK column event, it's practically impossible for them
46:09
Speaker 2: to put a definition on the type of media that
46:15
Speaker 2: they want to protect. That can't that doesn't include smaller
46:19
Speaker 2: organizations unless they put some kind of definition on which
46:22
Speaker 2: which is related to size, in which case, no problem.
46:27
Speaker 2: We've just we've got to We've got to then get
46:29
Speaker 2: together with others and build a bigger organization. Uh, you
46:34
Speaker 2: know what, there will find some creative way to get
46:36
Speaker 2: randy or to get round us and to challenge these
46:40
Speaker 2: types of efforts. I don't see how they actually don't
46:44
Speaker 2: see how they can win in the long term, because
46:46
Speaker 2: the more they try to shut down people that are
46:51
Speaker 2: getting themselves organized, the harder it is to do, and
46:55
Speaker 2: the more obvious it is to the general public that
46:58
Speaker 2: that's what they are doing, and so it it. And
47:02
Speaker 2: of course, if we've got a significant number of independent
47:06
Speaker 2: news organizations on side, all looking out for each other
47:09
Speaker 2: and all publicizing what's happening to each other, then it
47:13
Speaker 2: becomes very hard. It's it's you know, you're it becomes
47:16
Speaker 2: very very hard to keep that the lid on that
47:18
Speaker 2: kind of information. So so I'm not quite as I'm
47:22
Speaker 2: somewhat more optimistic about about the end goal here. Absolutely
47:26
Speaker 2: take your point they can bring secondary legislation. This got
47:29
Speaker 2: this Starmar regime has already said that they don't think
47:33
Speaker 2: that the Online Safety Act goes far enough.
47:35
Speaker 1: So I have no doubt whatsoever that is absolutely on
47:38
Speaker 1: the radar.
47:40
Speaker 2: But you know, we've got to keep in mind what
47:43
Speaker 2: they're up against, and that is us and people like us,
47:46
Speaker 2: and we are we are determined willsie are we.
47:50
Speaker 1: Yep?
47:50
Speaker 3: And we've got a window right now. So if they
47:53
Speaker 3: are going to try and make it even once, we've
47:54
Speaker 3: got a window and we have to exploit it as
47:56
Speaker 3: soon as possible. So the more organizations that come inside,
47:59
Speaker 3: the better, and the sooner it's challenge. As soon as
48:01
Speaker 3: we push back the better because we know they have
48:06
Speaker 3: malevolent intentions. So at the end of the day, if
48:08
Speaker 3: we do have a success with this, then they'll probably
48:12
Speaker 3: try shutting it down in two three years because it
48:14
Speaker 3: takes time to draft things committees to go through parliament. Regardless,
48:19
Speaker 3: they'll probably end up doing something towards the end of
48:21
Speaker 3: the parliament to try and stop all of the you know,
48:24
Speaker 3: so called far right who exists to with criticizing them,
48:27
Speaker 3: you know, anyone who believes that we should have borders basically,
48:31
Speaker 3: but for the moment, this window, we can use this
48:36
Speaker 3: to pull them apart, and we can we can their
48:39
Speaker 3: support base, and like I said the other day, a
48:41
Speaker 3: wonderful bet we can actually build a huge critical mass
48:45
Speaker 3: on the mainstream platforms and try and bring them off
48:48
Speaker 3: of their onto alternative platforms. You know, we're talking you know, Odyssey,
48:53
Speaker 3: We're talking whether it's Rumble, whether it's Twitter, whether it's
48:56
Speaker 3: another platform, or whether it's you know, and a new
49:00
Speaker 3: platform that starts up. We need to get people for
49:02
Speaker 3: the mainstream. So we've got an avenue here, We've got
49:05
Speaker 3: an opportunity, We've got a loophole, and I don't believe
49:08
Speaker 3: it's gonna last for ever. We've got to take it.
49:12
Speaker 3: We've got to stick together, and I mean, if they
49:14
Speaker 3: go for you, I am.
49:15
Speaker 5: Spartacus, your spot on there. We also need to remember that,
49:24
Speaker 5: you know, we're talking YouTube and platforms, but the press,
49:29
Speaker 5: the existing press in this country, is also in bed
49:34
Speaker 5: with the government in helping to produce this legislation. And
49:38
Speaker 5: the big named newspapers also need challenging because they are
49:44
Speaker 5: certainly not standing up for free speech in any way.
49:48
Speaker 5: I mean, Guardian comes into my mind, but Times and
49:52
Speaker 5: the Telegraph and even the Red Tops are also helping
49:58
Speaker 5: the government by you know, their articles screaming that the
50:03
Speaker 5: public of this and that and and we mustn't you know,
50:06
Speaker 5: whatever it's going to be, we mustn't have race hate
50:09
Speaker 5: speech all this. So we shouldn't let the existing press
50:14
Speaker 5: get away. They're clearly struggling, because they say so on
50:18
Speaker 5: their own websites that they've got a huge fall off
50:22
Speaker 5: in the people buying the newspapers, and if we can
50:25
Speaker 5: help that process then that would be a really good
50:28
Speaker 5: thing to do. But I think we also need to
50:31
Speaker 5: challenge the press themselves and obviously will see we can
50:35
Speaker 5: think back to when the Times did that appalling article
50:38
Speaker 5: where it attempted to say that well it didn't attempt.
50:42
Speaker 5: It made the outrageous claim that we the UK column
50:46
Speaker 5: were in business with resistance GB and we challenge that
50:52
Speaker 5: behind the scenes, and okay, we've got recognition of our challenge.
50:58
Speaker 5: But my next point from that is that when we've
51:00
Speaker 5: got viewers who say, well, yes, get stuck in, there
51:07
Speaker 5: are going to be more and more occasions where to
51:09
Speaker 5: get in. Where to get stuck in against the really
51:13
Speaker 5: big players means that it's going to be a court
51:17
Speaker 5: process and if we as an individual organizations or even
51:24
Speaker 5: a group of organizations are going to really take the
51:28
Speaker 5: battle on in that way. And I believe that if
51:31
Speaker 5: the opportunity presents itself, we should do that. It is
51:36
Speaker 5: going to cost money, and this is one of the
51:38
Speaker 5: things that we have to say to not only UK
51:42
Speaker 5: column viewers, but viewers of any of the independent media channels.
51:47
Speaker 5: If you support those channels and you want to protect
51:50
Speaker 5: them from this censorship, at some point, it's going to
51:54
Speaker 5: cost money to go through the legal system. And before
51:58
Speaker 5: somebody says, ah, yes, but the legal system is completely
52:02
Speaker 5: biased and you can't win, I don't actually believe that yet,
52:07
Speaker 5: and so I'll echo back to you. We'll see that
52:10
Speaker 5: there's a window here and we've really got to get
52:12
Speaker 5: stuck in. But I can see the time coming where
52:16
Speaker 5: we are going to be saying to the broadest audience
52:19
Speaker 5: you value what we're doing. We need to fight this
52:23
Speaker 5: battle in court, and it's going to cost whatever it does,
52:26
Speaker 5: one hundred thousand, two hundred thousand pounds and to me,
52:31
Speaker 5: to fight that battle would be money well spent.
52:35
Speaker 1: Well, I think it would be money well spent.
52:37
Speaker 2: But it's also a great opportunity to actually public expand
52:41
Speaker 2: our reach in terms of the number of people we're
52:43
Speaker 2: communicating with, because you know, two hundred thousand pounds sounds
52:47
Speaker 2: like a lot of money, but it's only a pound
52:50
Speaker 2: across two hundred thousand people, and really we should that
52:53
Speaker 2: that shouldn't be beyond the ability of an a wide
52:57
Speaker 2: organization or a group of independent me your organizations to
53:01
Speaker 2: do so. So you know, this is all absolutely durable
53:04
Speaker 2: and possible, and we seem to be getting an indication
53:08
Speaker 2: that we should be heading in this direction.
53:12
Speaker 3: And I can I just say, obviously, you know, there
53:15
Speaker 3: are all the criticisms of Eton Musk, but if Elon
53:18
Speaker 3: Musk spent forty two billion I believe it was or
53:20
Speaker 3: something like that, or forty r billion trying to buy Twitter,
53:25
Speaker 3: then two hundred grand to try and return free speech
53:28
Speaker 3: to most platforms in this country for people in this
53:31
Speaker 3: country at least seems like an absolute steal. So yeah,
53:36
Speaker 3: I would I would recommend everyone to donate to UK
53:39
Speaker 3: cable them if you can, because these guys, obviously you
53:41
Speaker 3: guys are fantastic and you need support with this. So
53:44
Speaker 3: the more money that comes in, the more of this
53:46
Speaker 3: stuff you can do while just struggling along.
53:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would, I just I just say, yes, we
53:51
Speaker 2: do need support, and of course we we absolutely would
53:54
Speaker 2: encourage anybody to make a contribution to UK column if
53:57
Speaker 2: you if you can, But I think it for this
54:00
Speaker 2: this needs to be.
54:01
Speaker 1: Treated somewhat separately, so we need to build a team first.
54:04
Speaker 2: So the first thing to do, as you said on Saturday, Willsie,
54:07
Speaker 2: is for everybody that's watching this program to contact any
54:11
Speaker 2: other independent media that they watch and get them to
54:15
Speaker 2: watch this discussion and let's get together and have a
54:19
Speaker 2: chat about what we what are our next steps are.
54:22
Speaker 3: Absolutely do reach out, whether that's the Lotus eaters, whether
54:25
Speaker 3: it's unn, whether it's anybody else who you think actually
54:31
Speaker 3: classifies as a journalist who can meet these requirements. Then
54:35
Speaker 3: email them, email them on YouTube. Usually there's a public email,
54:39
Speaker 3: if not on the website, often there's an email. Go
54:43
Speaker 3: bring those people on board and let's work together. And
54:46
Speaker 3: I think it's the viewers who are really going to
54:49
Speaker 3: bring people over. I mean we can go and try
54:50
Speaker 3: and speak to people, we can try and pitch it
54:52
Speaker 3: to them if their own viewers are coming to them
54:54
Speaker 3: and saying, look, you need to do this. I'm your viewer,
54:57
Speaker 3: and this will help you. This is what we want
55:00
Speaker 3: to see you do, and we want to see you
55:01
Speaker 3: standing up for this. I think that's going to spur
55:03
Speaker 3: people forward.
55:04
Speaker 1: Charles.
55:06
Speaker 4: I think the only part I was going to make
55:07
Speaker 4: is just really to extend what Wilsey and indeed Brian
55:11
Speaker 4: have said. First of all, the trend towards accessing content
55:18
Speaker 4: online regardless of generation, but obviously very much in the
55:22
Speaker 4: younger audience. And then, of course the other is the
55:26
Speaker 4: declining audiences of legacy mainstream media. And I think this
55:31
Speaker 4: just reinforces the timing aspect of it, but also the strength,
55:35
Speaker 4: the relative strength of our position, and we see this
55:38
Speaker 4: in the mainstream to an increasing degree now, the lashing
55:43
Speaker 4: out against organizations like art and the sort of besmirching
55:50
Speaker 4: that's going on continually as a sort of desperate plea
55:55
Speaker 4: to the audience is to stick with them, but of
55:58
Speaker 4: course we know that the reality is that in actual
56:00
Speaker 4: that they are all losing ground and therefore they are
56:02
Speaker 4: forced to turn to the very platforms that we have
56:05
Speaker 4: had so much trouble staying on. So that of course
56:08
Speaker 4: is to our advantage, because if we do get this right,
56:11
Speaker 4: we are in fact all in the same boat, and
56:14
Speaker 4: they don't have any primacy through their own channels because
56:18
Speaker 4: people are not going to those channels. People are going
56:20
Speaker 4: primarily to the platforms that we've been talking about. So
56:23
Speaker 4: I think that's that's a point really, you know, worth
56:25
Speaker 4: bearing in mind.
56:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Well, look, we'll see. Have
56:33
Speaker 2: you got any other comments on this before we go?
56:37
Speaker 3: I'd just like to say people reach out, try and
56:40
Speaker 3: bring as many people over as possible to this campaign,
56:42
Speaker 3: and we'll try and make it happen. I mean, we're
56:44
Speaker 3: straight behind you guys, and you guys are doing fantastic work,
56:47
Speaker 3: so they ain't to UK parliaments.
56:50
Speaker 1: And how do people see your work?
56:53
Speaker 3: People can find us on Resistance gb dot org. Obviously
56:57
Speaker 3: we're our major platforms on YouTube. We could do with
57:00
Speaker 3: a lot more people on Twitter now that Twitter's become
57:02
Speaker 3: the sort of center of the Internet. So anyone who
57:04
Speaker 3: wants to share out our clips on Twitter or on
57:06
Speaker 3: Telegram as well. And we've got a live avon coming
57:09
Speaker 3: up at the end of this month with Tacha Arney.
57:13
Speaker 3: If I can actually get one of the leaf lists
57:15
Speaker 3: of packet, which I can, so please do come down
57:19
Speaker 3: to our live events because we use these to support
57:21
Speaker 3: our journalism. That's on Halloween, So anyone who wants to
57:25
Speaker 3: listen to a spooky podcast and hear Whom by Fire
57:28
Speaker 3: Fantastic Freedom Band, Hey, then please do come down thin
57:32
Speaker 3: to part night our five p thirty doors open.
57:35
Speaker 1: Okay, and details will be in the show notes.
57:38
Speaker 5: Just to emphasize that all media outlets can work together.
57:42
Speaker 5: You'll understand the UK column has been quite dog orientated,
57:46
Speaker 5: you know, Vanessa's keen on our dogs. I've been doing
57:49
Speaker 5: Walking the Dog. But you, of course have got a
57:52
Speaker 5: cat in the studio and we're still very happy to
57:56
Speaker 5: do business with you.
57:58
Speaker 3: Well, that's that's, that's lovely to to be fair, I've
58:00
Speaker 3: actually got two of them, so I'm not sure what
58:02
Speaker 3: for a second one, but you are and my housemakers
58:06
Speaker 3: feeding the fox, so it might gay even worse.
58:10
Speaker 2: Good, excellent, Okay, we'll look charge any final comments.
58:15
Speaker 1: Yes, just one.
58:16
Speaker 5: Now.
58:17
Speaker 4: We've spent an entire hour talking about things that are
58:20
Speaker 4: completely valid and completely legitimate, and our focus has been
58:23
Speaker 4: on smaller news organizations. But of course actually the focus
58:28
Speaker 4: is on you, the individual that is watching this, because
58:31
Speaker 4: if this doesn't work out, you are the one that suffers.
58:35
Speaker 4: You don't get access to the content to which you
58:38
Speaker 4: should have access. So that, I think is how this
58:41
Speaker 4: must be looked at. These attempts to censor are denying
58:46
Speaker 4: the end consumer, the person who should have unrestricted access
58:51
Speaker 4: to all journalistic content. And I think that is the
58:54
Speaker 4: message that needs to be spread.
58:56
Speaker 1: Perfect, perfect way to end the program.
58:58
Speaker 2: Thank you very much and Charles Wilsei uh and well
59:02
Speaker 2: we'll be back at one pm tomorrow for another normal
59:06
Speaker 2: UK column news channel if any of them are normal,
59:08
Speaker 2: but join us then bye bye bye bye bye.
59:17
Speaker 3: M