Russell Brand’s new podcast asking if free speech is being challenged
Russell Brand has asked fans to subscribe to his Rumble channel and support the platform at an additional cost of $60 (£48) a year.
The comedian has been broadcasting live on Rumble after YouTube suspended him from earning money on his channel, where he was estimated to have made £4,000 per video.
Their decision came after four women made rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse allegations against Brand in a joint investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches and The Sunday Times, all of which he denies.
On Monday night, Russell, 48, shared a new video on Rumble, titled: “This is important.”
Within the broadcast, which was streamed to 70,000 viewers, he discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Covid-19 and the Online Safety Bill.
Brand also claimed there’s an effort to silence him as he accused the government of trying to “bypass” the judicial system
Additionally, he urged fans to sign up and donate to Rumble, which prides itself as a “neutral” and “independent” platform opposing censorship.
At one point in the video, he said: “The global media war against free speech is in full swing, how do I know? Take a guess.
“Today, of course, we’re talking about events of the last week but, in particular, the collusion between big tech and government and an apparent concerted effort by legacy media and now the state and big tech to silence independent media voices.
“Obviously, it’s difficult for me to be entirely objective given the events of the past week but that’s what we’ll try to do.”
Russell took to social media last weekend to announce he was moving to Rumble.
Addressing fans at the time, he said as part of a lengthy speech: “Hello there you awakening wonders, obviously, it’s been an extraordinary and distressing week and I thank you very much for your support and for questioning the information you’ve been presented with.
“By now, you’re probably aware that the British government have asked big tech platforms to censor our online content.
“Some online platforms have complied with that request. What you may not know is that this happens in the context of the Online Safety Bill – this is UK legislation that grants sweeping surveillance and censorship powers and is a law that has already been passed.
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“I also don’t imagine that you’ve heard of the trusted news initiative and now, as often is the case when a word like trusted is used as part of an acronym to describe an unelected body, trust is the last thing you should be offering.
“The trusted news initiative is a collaboration between big tech and legacy media organisations to target, patrol, choke and shut down independent media organisations like this one.”
YouTube announced they had “suspended monetisation” on Brand’s channel “for violating our Creator Responsibility policy” on September 19.
“If a creator’s off-platform behaviour harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community,” a statement from the video-sharing platform added.
Brand’s latest speech came on the same day the Metropolitan Police said it had received a “number of allegations of sexual offences in London” as well as from elsewhere in the country.
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