Consept

I'd disagree somewhat here. From what I've seen Brands charisma and presentation style can attract a lot of people and then can serve as a pipeline to views that they may nor have previously held. For example someone might just be vaccine hesitant, then start watching a few of his videos which then builds up trust as they tend to agree with him as his takes are well argued but heavily biased. He makes a video on why Putin might be right and because of the trust built up the person goes along with this view, they no longer disagree with any of his views, as you can see from the comments. It's hard to change people with self-help because you have to do the hard things and get out of your comfort zone. Brand in this case, provides a comfort zone where people don't really need to think for themselves, they just put their trust in him. Even so, I still wouldn't ban him for his politics, just making the point that he is definitely converting people to his side of the fence.

Imo i think if youve committed a crime, done your time, genuinely have remorse and are not producing videos that encourage anything along the likes of rape then i dont see a problem. In criminal and youth services there are tons of people that have committed crimes and work in that field to help others who might be on that same path, so i would say its almost essential for people to be able to seek redemption. However, youtube is funded by advertising this means brands can withdraw their adverts for whatever reason they see fit and this is completely acceptable as you may not want your brand associated with certain people. This is essentially whats happened with Brand, youtube hasnt banned him theyve just demonitised him, but if they hadnt the brands wouldve withdrawn anyway because thats what they did on Rumble. On top of that youtube can completely ban anyone they see fit as a private company but i think this should be reserved for only the most extreme cases, not just because you dont like someones views. For example i think Brands views and presentation are terrible but i dont think he should be banned on that basis. Short answer is yes mostly anyone should be allowed to publish but whether thats monetised is down to advertisers discretion.

@Scholar I'm not necessarily speaking in a moral judgement way. What im saying is quite basic, if you are a high status man and have a lot to lose then it has to be on you not to cross the line of legality, because you will be the one to suffer social and possible criminal consequences. In Brands case I feel empathy for him because he was celebrated for his behavior and he had obvious addiction issue, he's obviously changed that behavior, so it's unfortunate for him that he may have let his chimp mind take hold to the point where potential crimes were committed. In general my issue would be with predators because there has to be a society that can protect the vulnerable from them whilst also not over correcting to the point that if someone has a bad sexual experience they dont label the man as a predator. Although they are few and far between they usually have a lot of victims, at their worst they could even encourage others to live a similar life such as Tate who taught other men how to be pimps. This is distinct from a man who just enjoys the game of attracting women and having sex with them, which I agree does lead a man to devalue women. Brand finds himself in a grey area where he obviously loved the game but then this slipped into alleged criminal incidents. His best course of action would be to admit exactly what happened and maybe try and dialogue and apologise to the women if that's the case. If it really didn't happen then he needs to fight it and throw all his resources at it.

@Scholar I agree with you in that there is always that power dynamic with men and women and agree with mostly what you say. I think if society is hedonistic and casual dating exists that is fine as in if a guy wants to have sex with a girl and not talk to her again, hes free to do that and vice versa. But what we're talking about is not just a high status guy having sex with a lot of girls and then blocking them, we're talking about a line of criminality being crossed in regards of rape or sexual assault. Its like if Im buying a car and i pay over the odds from a dodgy car dealer, maybe he exaggerates how good the car is, my naivety might lead me to making the mistake of doing the deal, i might feel a bit shit after I realise but I can take it as a lesson learnt but i wouldnt go to the police. However if the car dealer over charged my card on purpose and basically stole money from me then that is crossing the line of legality and i can take that further. So in my view, its on the car dealer or in Brands case, powerful man, to not cross the line of legality. Hes free to be arguably scummy if he wishes, but of course if you rape thats a whole different game. Also if you do so called scummy behavior you also you also have to accept that it could be talked about if not in public, in social circles which is what happened in he comedy circuit in the UK. Also note that predators, not necessarily Brand, look specifically for young naiive girls that need something from them, there are probably a lot of women that will have nothing to do with them. In the case of Saville he literally bought a wing in a hospital and had free run to just go around molesting girls who couldnt fight back. Which is extreme but im just making the point that predators look specifically for the vulnerable.

@Tanz It's a tricky situation because you need protection/justice for victims but you also need protection for victims of false accusations. Your standard of things being filmed is a bit much as the chances it's not going to be filmed. The whole reason why the media put out the documentary is because justice wasn't served in the first place despite at least one of the women reporting the rape at the time. The women in this type of situation are usually fearful of coming forward, this was the original idea with metoo and weinsteins accusers for example. (Although metoo did go a bit off the rails) So what happens is you have a society where powerful can essentially rape as they please without any kind of repercussions. The media are literally the only ones that are able to make a difference in this regard by reporting the women's story. If the women just said it on youtube no one would listen. Can they media go too far? Of course which is why there are strong defamation laws in the UK, to give that protection. Also Brand has basically been banned from every mainstream platform because of his behavior before these revelations. Hollywood, UK TV no one wanted him because of the potential issues he causes. Its not like he's shunned the mainstream, he's happy to go on US TV. So this I just the public knowing what most likely got him banned from these other outlets. The mainstream does stoke up fear of course but Brand is actually worse, his audience live in constant fear due to his youtube videos, so he's definitely not better in that regard. He's learnt that fear sells and run with it.

In that post I didn't say he necessarily committed a crime I was just making the point his reputation didn't suffer that much despite things like that video or saying he grabs women by the pussy or whatever, it's just interesting how bulletproof he is. Evidence of him committing a crime is him having to 5 pay mill in a civil suit earlier this year for assaulting and then defaming someone. His ex-wife also wrote in her book that he raped her. BTW even if I did extrapolate that he was guilty from that epstein video that's far less than what Brand does on his channel when tarnishing others.

Trump did go to a civil court and was found guilty and had to pay 5 mil in damages just this year - https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/show/breaking-down-the-verdict-as-jury-finds-trump-liable-for-sexual-assault-and-defamation But my point was its crazy how he just bypasses the knocks against his reputation and is still a contender to be president again. But therein lies the issue, most women that go to the police, file a report etc as was the case with one of Brands alleged victims do not see their attacker convicted of anything, simply because its notoriously difficult to have sufficient evidence to convict anyone. The media has incredibly high standards for factual evidence backed information in the UK, this is because the law is on the side of the person being named. So if they are baseless allegations the person named is almost guaranteed to win. Russell Brand does in fact put a lot of baseless allegations on his own channel but that's another story. Also it wasn't the media trying to get Brand banned it was actually the government, which I do kinda of agree that's an over reach, however he would've been demonitised anyway because companies don't want ads on his videos. But still you haven't really presented a solution because it maybe the case they never get found guilty in court however they still did the crime. If we go by this method in theory Cosby, Saville etc could all go about their business and never face repercussions because they weren't found guilty. This also sets a precedent that if you have power you can get away with this type of stuff.

nice it is crazy that Trump skirted all the rape accusations, he was literally on camera checking out girls with Epstein. I think his strategy of just hardcore deny at least for now seems to work

@Raze So whats your solution for if someone gets raped by a powerful man but theres not sufficient evidence to convict them? (either they hid evidence or the victim was scared to report it or something along those lines)

Not the BBC necessarily but youtube and the British government that requested his content be taken down, i think that is a bit excessive, im not sure its really their place to do that. Having said that the advertisers are more than free to not want their brands associated with (excuse the pun) Brand. So the result would most likely be the same as thats what happened with Rumble where brands wanted their advertising taken off his videos. I would say it is on him to either justify what happened and tell his story or completely deny them, then at least he has made a stand and he can go on and sue those that reported on these false claims. Im not even saying justify it from a moral standpoint im saying if he wants to redeem his reputation this would seem like the obvious course of action. By not really addressing it directly it would lead people to believe that there is truth to it. Like imagine someone accused you of rape and you just started talking about how everyone is out to get you and you never flat out deny or tell your story about it. At the very least people would think youre hiding something. Also he brings people down constantly without any evidence on his youtube channel and states they need to answer questions, so it is somewhat rich that he is not answering questions himself.

This doesnt really work, his anti-mainstream/conspiracy stuff only really started coming out during the pandemic. Channel 4 started their investigation at least 4 years ago if not more, at the time he was more critical of the right and had previously been more aligned to the Labour Party (equivalent to the Democrats). Also apparently everyone knew about his bad behavior, there were stories written about this in the media but he couldn't be named because of the defamation laws which is why they had to get significant evidence before naming him.

Do you guys also not see the hypocrisy that Russell Brands whole YouTube channel is going at people like Fauci, Gates, Trudeux, Obama etc accusing them of lying, being criminals, tarnishing their names, are they not innocent til proven guilty? Isn't this basically the same thing he does to them daily, have you seen some of the thumbnails he posts Also Brand is not powerful at all, that the establishment would spend this long trying to bring him down. No serious academics care about what he says, he's got no political power, he's basically harmless, he was never going to bring down the government, he just makes money off people that love conspiracies, they're not out here protesting and rioting, there's no threat from 6 million followers that watch Russell complain about rich people not having their best interests at heart. That's basically the truth they're supposedly worried about him exposing.

@Danioover9000 Thanks for your comment. This will never be a perfect system you have to accept that some people may be treated unfairly, the question is what can they do about (the alleged rapist) if it is an unfair allegation that has baseless evidence? What Brand can do is sue the Times and Channel 4 for libel and defamation, this will clear his name. Suing the media is pretty common place in the UK, a media outlet 'news of the world' literally got shut down fairly recently for egregious stories about celebrities that they obtained through phone tapping. But in general you can not put out false information and not get sued in the mainstream media, look at what happened with fox and the stolen election fiasco. The problem is Brand most likely won't sue because of the evidence that is there. If it was me and I knew I didn't do anything I'd definitely be suing as do many celebrities. So as I see it 1 of 2 options are what happened, one is that he didn't do anything wrong but the media for whatever reason want to bring him down so they make up stories, encourage women he's slept with in his past to lie or exaggerate and put together a mostly false report, risking being sued for millions for defamation. Or he did get into some horrible situations where he took advantage of women and potentially raped a couple whilst living a life of addiction. This was reported at the time by one woman and was also written about in a book by another, media outlets get wind of these stories and put together a report after 4 years of investigating. If the first scenario is true then he's got grounds to sue if the second is true then he probably won't sue but will blame the media for attacking him and deny or he could come clean and just apologise. Please note I'm not even judging Brand, I'm just explaining that it's not a simple situation of innocent till proven guilty for this type of situation. @Leo Gura I don't think there will be any criminal charges, the 16 year old technically was legal and I'm not sure the woman who got raped is going to press charges. So essentially it would be just reputational damage.

Not exactly so what i was quoting, which i probably didnt explain properly, is that only 1% of reported rapes lead to a conviction - https://www.city.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2022/04/new-scorecards-show-under-1-of-reported-rapes-lead-to-conviction-criminologist-explains-why-englands-justice-system-continues-to-fail what you posted is that the conviction rate of the cases that go to court is 75%. False claims potentially account for 2-10% of rape cases although this is a hard number to pin down - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45565684 So bottom line there are a lot of people committing rape and getting away with it despite the rapes being reported, which means a lot more that we dont even know of occur as they go unreported. Witness testimony would be considered evidence, as well as text messages. One of the women reported and did a documented rape kit after the incident 10 years ago. These are all credible evidences, but he still may not get convicted as most dont. It is significantly more difficult for the victims to report if the perpetrator is more powerful. How would a 16 year old girl go against someone like Brand? She wouldnt even know where to start. We've seen it over and over again with Weinstein, Epstein, Cosby, Saville etc the reason why they can operate as they do is the power they wield. Yes he did stop as far as we know but ultimately there are people in the world who youve done damage to who will want to get back at you no matter how long it takes. You can leave the mafia but your enemies might still want your head. As i say it might not go to court but he still couldve done it, so how do we square that circle? @danioover9000 Im just making the point that its more nuanced than innocent til proven guilty. Chill no ones attacking anyone

As i said in the previous post, media cannot just accuse anyone at least in the UK there has to be solid evidence, a random accusation wouldnt cut it, which is partly why he got away with it for so long until solid evidence was available. Of course parents need to protect their kids but people that groom have specific strategies to isolate them from their parents so the parents dont even know whats going on. In the doc they talked about how when Brand was seeing the 16 year old he would get her to lie to her parents about staying at a friends house when he would have her picked up. Someone like Brand who is vey powerful and charismatic is more than able to manipulate to get what he wants.

Yeah definitely the evidence should be shown which was what happened in this case and then its up to the public to decide whether they still want to give money and support Brand. Also I agree false allegations should not be allowed, in the UK the current law comes down extremely hard on false allegations, if you take a look at this case - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49576940 where basically well known celebrity has his name put out there in terms of him committing some kind of sexual assault which he believed there was absolutely no substance to, he sued the BBC and got a few million in damages and legal fees. Point being media outlets can not post just print allegations without substantial evidence otherwise they will get sued and suffer reputational damage. So the media is very careful with naming names. As i said if Brand really feels there is no truth here he should sue, even if he doesnt care about the money it would save his reputation as it did with Cliff Richard. Of course he wont which is not a good indication of innocence. Yes those people shouldve been reported to the police but this was the same with Brand, he had at least a 10 year plus period where he was operating like this. The trouble with celebrities, is that they have a lot of power, that is why its hard to report them, not only that they have lawyers, this is how all these people operated in the way they did, Weinstein, Epstein etc. I would agree that Brand most likely doesnt operate this way any more and it would be nice to say 'ah well slap on the wrist, at least youve cleaned yourself up', but how would you feel if someone raped your sister and didnt get any justice and then even denied it 10 years later? Unfortunately for him karma has caught up

Its not a case of 'guilty until proven innocent', the fact is people can do messed up things and get off on a technicality or because witnesses dont come forward or whatever the reason. In the case of rape and sexual assault the conviction rate in the UK is extremely low, something like less than 5% because its usually one persons word against another. When someone is in the public eye it would be very important for the evidence to be presented to the public, if it isnt true then that person can fight it. Now in the UK liable laws are so tight that no one can just accuse anyone in the mainstream because if it isnt true they could be severely hit. Do you not think it was worthwhile for someone like Epstein to be named? Or should he have just been allowed to keep doing what he was doing until enough evidence was gathered to prosecute. In the UK we had a 'celebrity' DJ called Jimmy Saville (who Brand offered his assistant to sexually on air btw) who for decades went around and raped any young girl he could get his hands, including disabled people in hospital, he died before everything came out and was never prosecuted but dont you think it would be in the public interest for him to have been exposed as early as possible in his career? So this is more nuanced than innocent until proven guilty, to take it to a micro level, if you heard that one of your neighbors was pedophile although never convicted of any crime, would you be happy them to be around your daughter? Would you not be pissed off if you didnt know and then found out later?

If she said no and he continued then it's rape, regardless of whether it was a condom or sex in general. There's no way around that. Unless it was a game which it wasn't according to the texts from Brand

Potentially that could be the case but he was making videos for a few years without having anywhere near the following he has now, things only really kicked off for him during covid, where he got a lot conspiracy theorists and further right people following, which is why he ponders to that crowd now, he's basically audience captured completely. But I think there's been growth in that he's no longer taking drugs and living the lifestyle that he did previously, he's married with kids now I believe. But yeah he's either consciously or unconsciously grifting at this point in terms of his content.

I agree with you, ultimately this is not a criminal case 'yet'. So if Brand is as loving and awakened as he claims he would at least accept the possibility that he could've acted in a way that hurt others during his drug and sex addicted days, especially something like the 16 year old who, just her very age is extremely suspect. If he was truly awakened he would come out with something like 'although my actions weren't technically illegal I know I hurt these women etc'. The fact that he is just blaming people out to get him is actually more in line with narcissism and actions of a cult leader because he's only speaking to his die hard followers. It's a shame because he has shown growth since the days these actions happened but he obviously still has some deeper need for fame and adulation that is still active.

I grew up in the UK and I did kinda like Brand for his comedy and his edgy persona in the late 90s and 2000s , I just wanted to share a few points that I think might give a bit more context to the discussion 1. Around the time that the allegations took place Brand was hugely celebrated in the mainstream for being a highly sexual guy. This is because we had 'lad culture', best way I can describe it to Americans is a kinda frat-boy culture. In which glamour modelling was a big thing (women with their tits out in newspapers and magazines). Scandalous sex stories where women well known men had had sex with sold their stories, binge drinking etc. Brand was given the title of 'shagger of the year' by the Sun newspaper (itself deep into lad culture) for multiple years. Point being here that Brands roguish sexual behavior was completely celebrated in the mainstream, in fact the only time he was admonished that i can remember was when he called an actor (waiter from fawlty towers) to harass him about the fact that he fucked his grand daughter. So I could see how no one pulled him up on this. 2. A few years ago a well known, older celebrity Cliff Richard had his house raided because someone made sexual allegations against him. His name was dragged through the media and he was up to be the next 'rape guy'. However the allegations were completely unfounded and Cliff Richard fought and won his case in court, suing everyone involved. This meant that newspapers and media going forward could not print anything unsubstantiated. Meaning in Brands case the Times and Channel 4 would not publicise anything without having significant proof because if they did Brand could sue the shit out of them. This also speaks to why it took them so long to bring the required evidence together. It's also important to note that if this wasn't true Brand could definitely sue and definitely win significant damages, however it doesn't seem like he is going to sue which would lead us to believe that he knows there's truth in it. 3. It should also be noted that, apparently Brands behavior was an open secret in the comedy circuit in the UK and many comedians have come out to say that his behavior has at least been highly inappropriate. Katherine Ryan a well know comedian, recently said she repeatedly accused Brand of being a sexual predator from the time she worked on a show with him a few years ago. However she never named him, she spoke about what happened but left his name out. This could be because Brand had taken out what's known as a super injunction, meaning that if any media named Brand in regard to whatever he was trying to protect that media outlet would face legal ramifications. I think the point of super injunctions is to protect those that maybe haven't done anything illegal but something that the media might want to report for example on affair. Its kinda like an nda. 4. Rape charges don't really stick in the UK, its something like only 1% of charges end up in prosecution. This is because a lot of the time it's one person's word against another, evidence is very hard to gather. In Brands case the power dynamic was huge, remember that he was loved by the mainstream for his sexual behavior so you can see how women might be reluctant to come forward, especially as we've also seen Brand was not afraid to take legal measures to protect himself. A 16 year old or even an average person is not going to be able to go up against someone like Brand legally. 5. A lot of people are saying his name shouldn't be put out there if it hasn't gone to court etc but he is of course free to sue if he is aggrieved. Also as i said 99% of rape cases don't make it to trial, but that doesn't mean 99% of women are lying. So if someone is in the public eye and there is evidence against them of this nature you could argue that it is in the public interest for people to know and again if he's not happy he can sue and clear his name. 6. Final overall point, I don't think Brand is/was a predator in the same way Tate or Epstein were, I think it was a terrible cocktail of fame, lad culture, celebrating bad behavior, narcissism, addiction and probably other things that led to the situation. It's highly likely that he pushed what he could get away with, with women and its not surprising if that crossed over into assault.

Your response was really good btw, i think it gave a good overview of the root of these issues. The thing is the victimhood, identity politics is the same on all sides with all sides attacking each other and laying blame. But if people could actually just talk and let go of these mindsets sooo many problems could be sorted out. I think our misuse of technology must be the cause of so many mental health issues. Dr K is great as well I watched his conversation with an incel and you could see how this mindset developed from real things that happened, was eating away at this guy.

I agree that in a good relationship both of you will care about the others emotional well-being, this is very important. Sometimes this is not possible, some people are not able to do this because of their issues or whatever the reason might be. There is no judgement against them but obviously you might not want to have deep relationships with people like this as you will be doing the heavy lifting. But the issue with a lot of lonely men is not that they're making lots of friends that are not good at looking after them emotionally, it's that they're just not talking to anyone at all in real life. Whilst simultaneously blaming others for their situation online. So in this case they do need to put themselves out there and work on themselves in terms of being able to look after someone emotionally, so that when someone does come along who can do the same they will be able to receive them. I've worked with teenagers who have problems meeting people and socialising and a lot of the time if not all, it's fear of putting themselves out there. That fear can be so strong that they look for online where they can find some external thing to blame. Redpill has gotten so popular because it does just this. But this dynamic is not unique to lonely men, there are some incredibly toxic female spaces as well. The solution we found is to encourage the teenagers to come together, setup groups activities etc and the change was incredible to say the least

When you make friends you dont straight away have a deep relationship where people are going to take responsibility for your emotional well being. Youre not going to connect with everyone, but obviously the pathway to having deep connections is to start off with acquentances or shallow friends if you like and then develop the ones that are compatible with you into deeper relationships. Any friend you make is not going to be deep straight away it just doesnt work like that and never has. You build trust, connection, love etc its not a given. Any friend ive ever made started off shallow and then built on that. Its not even a given that you have close relationships with your family that has to be worked on and built as well. If you go into relationships with expectations that someone should look after your emotional well-being of course you will be lonely.

The guy in video is not necessarily looking for a girlfriend, this can be done by approaching men as well or just approaching to make friends. Either way you can see that the guy become more positive by the end of the video. As I said your approach is shaming male invalidation out of existence then men will not feel lonely, my approach as shown in the video is get out and talk to people which not only in that video but that guys whole channel of 100s of videos where lonely men develop skills to become less lonely. That is hard-core proof that what I'm saying actually works, where is the real life proof of what you're saying working? Can you not at the very least concede that what I'm saying works given the evidence?