Russell Brand says 'question the information you're presented with' in latest video

Russell Brand has issued his first video since a number of women came forward to accuse him of rape and sexual assault.

The former comedian largely ignored the claims, having denied them before they aired last weekend, to concentrate on how the establishment was trying to shut him down.

He said only it had been ‘an extraordinary and distressing week’ for him and urged supporters to ‘question the information that you've been presented with’.

He also said the British government were trying to censor him – a reference to Dame Caroline Dinenage, the Tory chair of the House of Commons media committee, who wrote to the Rumble platform  to say she was ‘concerned’ that he could profit from his content.

 But Rumble said that was ‘an extremely disturbing letter’ and that the company – favoured by right-wing American commentators –  would not ‘join a cancel culture mob’.

YouTube stopped Brand from monetising his content for ‘violating [its] creator responsibility policy’. There have been no suggestions until now that this was at the request of any official or MP. 

Brand spoke against the Trusted News Initiative set up by media companies including the BBC, The Washington Post, the Associated Press and Google to combat misinformation saying it showed how the establishment was ‘target control, choke and shut down independent media organisations like this one’ 

His statement in full:

Hello 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 that 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, and that 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, which is a piece of UK legislation that grants sweeping surveillance and censorship powers, and it's a law that has already been passed.

 I also don't imagine you've heard of the Trusted News Initiative. Now, as is often 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 control, choke and shut down independent media organisations like this one. 

We'll be talking about that on our show on Monday on Rumble, but just to give you an idea of what the TNI is, this is a quote from one of their spokespeople, ‘because the actual real rivalry now is not between the BBC and CNN globally, it's actually between all trusted news providers and digital platforms’. 

It's clear that these organisations collaborate in constructing narratives, whether that's around the war or the pandemic. And of course, there are other examples. And it's very clear to me that we have to be very, very cautious indeed. 

‘That's why I'm asking you to follow me on Rumble, Rumble have made a clear commitment to free speech, and Rumble is the primary platform that we will be streaming from. We'll be back this Monday. And as usual, we'll be talking about Deep State and corporate collusion, and how ordinary democracy is anathema now, how it's shut down, ignored and avoided. 

‘We'll be talking about a military-industrial complex that is able to facilitate and start wars, that seems sometimes to be little more than money laundering operations. And that's with all respect to the hundreds of  thousands of victims of the numerous ongoing wars in the world. At the moment

‘We'll be talking about the role of Big Pharma and how Big Pharma have been able to influence government policy around the world and how they've been able to evade, do liability, unnecessary scrutiny, how they've been able to avoid media investigation.

‘And of course, we'll be talking about media corruption and censorship. So please follow me on Rumble, because that's the only way that we can keep our voice. 

‘You can go to rb.rumble.com to support me directly, and keep me and our channel independent. And I need your support now, more than ever, and more than I ever imagined I would

‘So follow me. Support our channel if you can, if it's within your means, but more important than any of that is that you please if you can stay free.’

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="und" dir="ltr">So... <a href="https://t.co/UXxQqQukDb">pic.twitter.com/UXxQqQukDb</a></p>&mdash; Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) <a href="https://twitter.com/rustyrockets/status/1705325563936747847?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 22, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Published: 22 Sep 2023