{"id":273566,"date":"2023-09-22T05:45:29","date_gmt":"2023-09-22T05:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=273566"},"modified":"2023-09-23T05:56:27","modified_gmt":"2023-09-23T05:56:27","slug":"british-mps-are-trying-to-cancel-russell-brandbut-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=273566","title":{"rendered":"British MPs are trying to \u201ccancel\u201d Russell Brand\u2026but why?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Undermining the presumption of innocence and feeding cancel culture are run of the mill these days, but the timing is very strange.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kit Knightly \u2013 Off-Guardian Sept 21, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n

his Russell Brand story gets stranger and stranger by the day. Last night it was revealed the a senior MP had written letters to multiple social media companies requesting information on Russell Brand\u2019s income and covertly pressuring them into either demonetizing or removing his accounts.<\/p>\n

[NOTE: Before we continue you may want to read our recent pieces on the Russell Brand case <\/a>and the UK\u2019s new Online Safety Bill<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

The news broke when video-hosting platform Rumble posted a screenshot of their letter, along with their official response, on Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the letter, Dame Caroline Dinenage MP \u2013 chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee \u2013 requests to know \u201cwhether Mr Brand is able monetize his content\u201d<\/em>, \u201cwhether Rumble intends to join YouTube [in suspending monetization]\u201d<\/em> and what steps they are taking to \u201censure that creators are not able to use the platform to undermine the welfare of victims\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It was later revealed that near-identical letters had been sent to the offices of X(Twitter)<\/a> and TikTok<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is, obviously, wrong. At the very least it\u2019s massive government overreach and potential ministerial misconduct. It is certainly a breach of privacy, and a flagrant display of disregard for the rule of law.<\/p>\n

Forget Russell Brand, whether or not you like him and what he did or didn\u2019t do, this is a point of principle.<\/p>\n

Right now Brand is nothing but the subject of media-based mudslinging \u2013 there has been no trial, no arrest, and no charge.\u00a0He is entirely innocent in the eyes of the law and remains that way until convicted, this is a vital right enshrined in British law since Magna Carta<\/a> [emphasis added]:<\/p>\n

No free man is to be arrested<\/strong>, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any other way ruined<\/strong>, nor will we go against him or send against him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers<\/strong> or by the law of the land.<\/p>\n

What would prompt the government to overstep like this?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s really only one answer to that: The overstep was the whole point<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Either Russell Brand is being genuinely persecuted to establish this precedent, or it\u2019s a manufactured drama being used to establish the precedent. Either way, the precedent<\/em> is the aim of the game, and the precedent<\/em> is what should concern everyone much more than the details of the case.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s just the run-of-the-mill tyranny which, in these days of de-banking and censorship, is becoming rather monotonous.<\/p>\n

The really odd thing about this is the timing.<\/p>\n

The Online Safety Bill<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The day before yesterday the House of Lords passed the Online Safety Bill into law, when it\u2019s given Royal assent it will grant sweeping new powers to Britain\u2019s media regulator OfCom.<\/p>\n

Among those powers is the authority to serve \u201cinformation notices\u201d. Meaning OfCom will be empowered to request and collect any and all information they desire from internet services, under penalty of fines or even prison time if the company fails to comply.<\/p>\n

So you see, there was no need for Dinenage to send those letters out. In the very near future the government would have been able to file information notices with Rumble\/TikTok\/X, and there would be no question of a) publicly embarrassing an MP or b) companies refusing to co-operate.<\/p>\n

There was no time pressure on Dinenage to act, the news only broke a few days ago. And she can\u2019t claim to not know the contents of the bill, because as Digital Minister from 2020-2021<\/a> she helped write it.<\/em><\/p>\n

To sum up: There was no reason at all to send those letters now. So why were they sent?<\/p>\n

It could be that by asking for information and being denied it, they are trying to demonstrate why we \u201cneed\u201d the Online Safety Bill. \u201cRumble is protecting sexual predators, but the new law will stop that!\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It could be that social media companies are keen to perform \u201cstanding up the government\u201d to excuse or distract from their inevitable co-operation down the line. \u201cLook, we said no when they asked, but now they\u2019re forcing us under a new law! It\u2019s not our fault!\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

It could be some totally illogical self-serving move from an ambitious MP who wants to be seen to be \u201ctough on sexual assault\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It could be that they are quite deliberately providing both sides with talking points to support their opinion in order to entrench positions and sustain division (they do this a lot lately).<\/p>\n

\u2026or it could be something else entirely. There\u2019s a certain feeling of chaos for chaos sake right now, maybe when the waters calm the overall agenda will reveal itself.<\/p>\n

On a final note I just want to point out that Dame Caroline Dinenage\u2019s husband<\/a> is Major General John Mark Lancaster, Baron Lancaster of Kimbolton<\/a>, former deputy commander of the British Army\u2019s 77th Brigade<\/a>, responsible for \u201cnon-lethal warfare and behavioural influence\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Make of that what you will.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, if you\u2019d like to contact Dame<\/em> Caroline to let her know what you think of her attempt to undermine human rights law, you can do so here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There seems to be a concerted effort underway to discredit Russell Brand. However, as Kit Knightly explains, there may be more to this than meets the eye<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":273567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Commentary","category-The_Media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=273566"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":273584,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273566\/revisions\/273584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/273567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=273566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=273566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=273566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}