September 25, 2025 • 24 mins
YouTube just made a bombshell admission about the Biden administration pressuring it to censor Americans' free speech. I break it down in this episode of the Brad vs Everyone podcast. Plus, is the liberal media finally waking up to the threat of far-Left violence?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Google announcing it's going to reinstate YouTube channels that were
permanently banned for political speech, saying it was pressured by
the Biden administration.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
YouTube just admitted to a massive censorship scandal and suddenly
the Democrats, very concerned about free speech, have gone quiet.
We're gonna break this down and so much more in
today's episode of the Brad Versus Everyone Podcast, my daily
(00:29):
show where we cover the craziest things from across the Internet,
our media, and our politics, all from an independent perspective. Guys,
I am on the road right now, back at my
house in Michigan, visiting family and doing some other stuff,
so not in my usual setup, but of course I
still wanted to bring you an episode and chat with
you guys, and I did want you to miss out
(00:51):
on hearing my lovely voice or seeing my wonderful face
because I appreciate you guys so much who make this
amazing life possible for me. But we are going to
talk about a big story that just came out from YouTube.
Because the House Oversight in the Congressional Republicans right they
have the majority, they have finally gotten YouTube ak, Google,
(01:13):
which owns YouTube, to admit to some pretty sweeping censorship
that they engaged in over the last couple of years,
particularly during the pandemic and after the twenty twenty election.
But and this won't shock anybody who's been paying attention,
this censorship was not really of their own accord. They
were under tremendous pressure a dress from the Biden administration.
(01:38):
Let's take a listen to some Fox Business reporting on
this breaking development.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Well, there's this Google announcing it's going to reinstate YouTube
channels that were permanently banned for political speech, saying it
was pressured by the Biden administration to remove content that
did not violate YouTube's policies. And a letter to the
House Judiciary Committee, a lawyer for Google said, quote, it
is unacceptable and wrong when any government, including the Biden administration,
(02:07):
attempts to dictate how the company moderates content, and the
company has consistently fought against those efforts on First Amendment grounds. Now,
the company also told House Judiciary Committee, this is Jim Jordan,
and this is a litter. They wrote to him that
public debate should never come at the expense of relying authorities,
and that the company get this, will never use third
(02:28):
party fact checkers. You know, a year ago Mark Zuckerberg
testified he was pressured by the Biden administration. Now Google's
admitting it. And you know, by the way, he got banned,
Dan Bongino, Yeah, he got based right banned.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Trump got banned. And by the way, we know that
this happened when it was happening, Mark Zuckerberg admitted it,
and he said, and the Twitter files. What about Elon
Musk and the Twitter files? Brett Stevens, in a piece
in The New York Times, lays it out. He's got
a whole list, a laundry list of times when the
Biden administration censored people. No mention about it. Now now
(03:04):
they're all worried about free speech with Jimmy Kimmel.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
So this is a really big deal on a couple levels.
One is that I think YouTube, and I give them
credit for this, has been great to me recently, not long,
not forever, And it's become more of an open platform
over time, and now they really are, I think, a
very robust ecosystem where people can have different perspectives. You've
(03:27):
got the big liberal YouTube accounts blowing up, You've got
the big Maga accounts, and it really is back to
what it should always have been and kind of got
big being, which is a wonderful place where you can
find all sorts of ideas and arguments and expression. But
there was a time, okay, there was a time where
(03:47):
they were very very heavy handed. They were deleting people's
channels left and right, and there were basically entire genres
of commentary and questioning that you just weren't really allowed
to do on YouTube, and that's not how it was
supposed to be. And I remember being very frustrated with
YouTube at the time over the years because of what
(04:09):
seemed like a bias that cut in one direction in
terms of who they censored. And now we know there
was more happening though, though I will just say, actually
the most egregious example that I can remember is Senator
Ran Paul, the libertarian leaning Republican from Kentucky. He posted
a video of him on the Senate floor speaking about
(04:31):
questioning the efficacy of masks I believe during the pandemic,
and they took it down. They it struggle. You can't
really think of something that more perfectly typifies like newsworthy
content that whether it's true, whether it's false, whether it's dumb,
whether it's you know, great and brilliant. People should be
able to see and decide for themselves more so than like,
(04:54):
literally what's happening in our government, speeches being made on
the Senate floor, white House address, other things. They deleted
Trump's YouTube channel. I believe as well after the twenty
twenty election. All of it was crazy. It's like, that's
the exact kind of thing. People should be able to
see with their own eyes and decide for themselves what
they think. But we now know that they were doing
this the under the duress of the Biden administration. So
(05:17):
I've got to be honest YouTube. I mean, I don't
view them as like perfect, they did nothing wrong, but
to some extent they're also victims here. They were subjected
to extensive government pressure from the Biden administration to censor
and take down americans lawful speech, even speech that didn't
even violate YouTube's guidelines. The Biden administration was harassing them. Now,
(05:39):
Democrats and liberals will often try to reframe this as oh, no,
it was just they were just politely requesting. But no,
it's kind of like the sword of Damocles or whatever
was hanging over their neck because they have The federal
government has massive, massive, massive anti trust powers looming over
Google as a threat, and regulatory powers with things like
(06:03):
Section two thirty. So when they're requesting stuff in very
aggressive fashion, they're really shaking you down. They're really bullying
you into doing what they say and what they want.
And so a lot of the YouTube censorship that we
bristled at during COVID for very understandable and valid reasons,
I think we really should have been mad at the
(06:23):
Biden administration. But I do think it's fair to question why, why,
why why didn't YouTube fight back harder? Because the Biden
administration engaged in this kind of jaw boning where if
they had just tried to use the power of the
federal government to center people directly, obviously that's illegal, nonconstitutional.
Instead they would go and work around. They would harass Facebook,
(06:45):
harass Twitter to try to get them to censor people instead,
and that is called jaw boning, and it is a
form of unconstitutional behavior. It's kind of a workaround in
the First Amendment. However, it was hard to legally challenge,
and ultimately the Supreme Court case about it. They ruled
that the people who Sue didn't have standing. Well, you
(07:06):
know who would have had standing based on what they
just told us YouTube if they'd kind of dug their
flag in the ground and said, no, President Biden, we
will not be taking down this stuff. It doesn't even
violate our policies, and you have no business telling us
to take down American speech. And they could have partnered
with my friends over at FIRE, the non partisan foundation
(07:27):
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, where a disclaimer I
do a little bit of work, and they could have
fought this, but instead they went along I think largely
with it, and I do think that is a disgrace
and something they should not have done. But if they
had dug in, they could have fought back against it
more effectively. So I will just reado this statement here
(07:48):
from Fire. Google should not have waited to acknowledge it
was pressured by the Biden administration to block content on
its platforms. Google contempt condemns job owning now, but it
failed to stand up for the rights of its users
when it mattered. Fire will continue to call on private
institutions to stand up for their rights no matter who
is in office. Guys, again, lets you forget how bad
(08:10):
it was let me play you a clip of former
YouTube CEO Susan was Shickey. Sorry I probably butchered that name. Anyway,
he or she is bragging about how many posts and
videos they censored about COVID. Take a listen to this.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
When it comes to vaccines, vaccine hesitancy, videos.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
That cause a public health risk.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Where do you want to see YouTube do better?
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Well, first of all, we've taken the We've taken responsibility
very seriously. I've it's been one of my top priorities
and with regard to COVID and with regard to vaccines,
that has been a top priority for us, and we
have we have a number of different ways that we
address that. So, first of all, we want to make
sure that if there's information that violates our policies. We
(08:56):
came up with ten different policies around COVID, then if
that violation of policy is then that's something that will remove.
We removed over a million videos associated with COVID.
Speaker 5 (09:06):
Have you talked to the Biden administration at all about
vaccine hesitancy or vaccine misinformation?
Speaker 4 (09:12):
Well, we did an event actually with the Biden administration,
including President Biden himself, with a number of Creators fauci
as well.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Now again I don't I'm not just mad at Google.
I don't think they're evil. I think they were put
in a terrible place by the Biden administration acting illegally
and unconstitutionally and trying to crack down on American speech,
and then they cave to it, and I think they
shouldn't have. But I do understand that, like, it's not
exactly easy to step up and stand up against the
(09:44):
full force of the federal government. So I have some
I don't know, nuance at which I can look at
the actions they took. I don't think they're just irredeemably
cowards and bad, but they did kind of wait till
it was safe to come out and admit and that
is unfortunate. So you guys, let me know what you
think about that. But I am very bothered by all
(10:07):
of this. And then the layer to this that is
so funny is the total free speech hypocrisy of all
these people. Because listen, I was calling this stuff up
out under Biden, I was railing against the Twitter files,
the Facebook files, all this stuff. They did try to
clamp down on free speech. However, Democrats at the time,
(10:27):
Democratic elected officials and mainstream media types were cheering for it.
But now that Trump has come into office and engaged
in some of the same kind of things like jawboning.
We talked about this with Jimmy Kimmel with the FCC
chair threatening Disney and ABC to get Jimmy Kimmel. I
think that's a similar type of thing as the Biden
(10:47):
White House threatening Facebook and YouTube take down all these
COVID misinformation posts. By the way, some of it turned
out to not be misinformation at all, and that's part
of why it should have been allowed to stay up
all along. So funny is now all these Democratic leaders
are free speech warriors and are like, yes, the First Amendment,
the government should never be telling private companies what they
(11:10):
can say or what they can do. And it's like
y'all literally shilled for this under Biden. And I'm over
here one of the only people who consistently team read
Team Blue. I'm a free speech guy, Okay, I don't
want the government pressuring private companies to silence people. Let
me play you a clip of Congressman Jim Clyburn, a
(11:31):
prominent Democrat, saying, well, of course, this is different from
what happened to Kimmel, this was important and good because
something something COVID nineteen. Listen to this.
Speaker 6 (11:40):
I don't think they're the same, simply because Biden, if
this took place, these weren't jokes, This wasn't a TV show.
This was a pandemic, and we didn't need to have
misinformation going out about this pandemic. There was enough coming
(12:01):
from the president at the time.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
This is the kind of gaslighting and inconsistency in politics
that threatens to turn me into a supervillain, Like I
literally might become the joker because these people drive me insane. Well,
that misinformation was different than this misinformation, which we think
should be allowed and is fine because when Jimmy Kimmel
falsely implies that the shooter of Charlie Kirk was Mega,
(12:25):
well that's just a joke, that's just TV. But when
Ran Paul questions masks, of course that has to be
censored because something pandemic. It's like, you cannot do this.
You cannot have two entirely different sets of rules, Like
that's not how this works. You either have free speech
or you don't. You either empower the government to coerce
(12:47):
private platforms into taking down what they deem as misinformation,
which of course assumes the government always knows the truth
and knows what's really going on, when in fact, the
biggest purveyor of misinformation during the pandemic, well not maybe
not the biggest, but a big purveyor was public health
experts themselves, CDC, doctor Fauci. They said so many things
(13:07):
that they ended up doing a one ad on or
realizing weren't true. And so the idea that they are
in any kind of place to be deciding what's misinformation
don't I don't really believe so. So regardless, I just
think the hypocrisy hypocrisy here is astounding. Though that does
go in both directions. I mean, in the same way
that the Democrats who cheered Biden are now decrying everything
(13:32):
Trump does to try to punish the press or coerce companies. Well, now,
a lot of Republicans who are outraged about that don't
really care. And it's not just the Jimmie Kimbell situation,
because I understand you can you can look at it
and try to see how, well, maybe the FCC didn't
caused this, maybe it's just a private business decision, but
you look at the other things Trump has done, like
retaliating against the Associated Press and other media outlets and
(13:57):
arresting and deporting people for their op aid's just like
opinions criticizing the Israel. He definitely has gone against free
speech in some meaningful ways that some people see who
were big free speech warriors suddenly don't care about or
actively cheer. And I also find that inconsistent. But you guys,
(14:17):
let me know what you think. I have to be
honest with you. Nothing YouTube has revealed here is remotely
surprising to me. It's kind of like, yeah, we knew,
but I guess better late than never, And I'm glad
they're speaking out about it now, even though it's like
a little bit too little, too late. What do you
guys think? Let me know in the comments. Make sure
subscribed if you aren't yet, hit the like button, YadA YadA. Yeah.
(14:40):
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(15:02):
Up next, we're going to talk about what I honestly
have to say is a positive development. The mainstream media
seems to be waking up to the thread of and
acknowledging the existence of left wing violence, political violence, and terrorism,
which we've covered on this show for some time now,
(15:23):
especially with the Internet and the cult of people supporting
an alleged murderer in Luigi Minngioni, the huge swass of
democrat just everyday respondents who are suddenly okay with or
think it's partially justified to assassinate Trump or Elon Musk,
the viral memes about somebody just do it, referring to
killing the president of the United States. I've been telling
(15:46):
y'all that, of course there's extremism across the board, but
there is a rising tide of violent left wing extremism,
particularly with young people. And now finally some of the
mainstream media is starting to acknowled So a big bombshell
article was just published in the Atlantic, which is a
liberal magazine that's kind of honestly like the elite discourse
(16:11):
centers around the Atlantic, like very you know, smart and
posh democrat elites looked to the Atlantic for guidance, so
the fact that it's published there is kind of a
big deal. We're going to take a look at that article,
left Wing terrorism is on the rise. The headline reads,
for the first time in more than thirty years, attacks
by the far left outnumber those on the far right.
This was posted on x and they tag the authors
(16:34):
and say that they report on their newly compiled data
set of seven hundred and fifty terror attacks and plots
in the United States from January nineteen ninety four to
July twenty twenty five. And what did they find. Well,
we found that left wing terrorism has increased since President
Donald Trump's rise to political prominence in twenty sixteen. Indeed,
twenty twenty five marks the first time in more than
(16:56):
thirty years that left wing attacks outnumber those from the
far right. Despite its recent increase, however, left wing terrorism
is not nearly as common today as it was in
the nineteen sixties and early seventies. That's an interesting statistic,
And note that I hadn't actually thought about. But I
think that's like generally true as bleak as we think
things are in American politics. And trust me, I'm constantly
(17:17):
thinking how bleak it is when you zoom out a
little and you look at American history. Things have been
rougher before, and we've come out the other side. Okay,
So a little bit of hope core for you there. Anyway.
Following that trend, according to our analysis, violence on the
left accounted for four plots and attacks from nineteen ninety
four to two thousand, compared with one hundred and forty
(17:40):
four on the right. That difference narrowed in the following decade,
but the right continued to account for significantly more attacks
and killings than did the left. However, the year of
twenty sixteen was a turning point for left wing terrorism.
Even as right wing incidents remained much more common, Trump's
political assent and the expansion of the Meca movement seems
to have re energized left wing violent extremism, which accounted
(18:03):
for thirty seven incidents from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty four,
most of them motivated by either anti government or partisan sentiment.
By July four of this year, our left extremists had
already been responsible for five terroristic attacks and plots, putting
twenty twenty five on pace to be the left's most
violent year in more than three decades. So this is
(18:27):
a really important realization and data point for mainstream center
left kind of commentariat or establishment to be acknowledging, because
they have been insisting, especially since Charlie Kirk's killing, and
they there are a couple of data sets, although they're
highly suspect that they can cite to make this point. Well,
political violence in America is mostly a right wing problem,
(18:49):
and like that just doesn't pass the sniff test in
terms of recent stuff. I can't speak to all of
American history fifty years ago. It just never passed the
sniff test for the life decade, for example, And now
we know that that's because it's not the case. And
this is an interesting one because it also counts plots,
(19:09):
so like foiled attacks or things where the law enforcement
stops it before it happens. And I think that's important
to gauge the sentiment and the frequency, because otherwise your
data would be skewed kind of just by the chance
of which ones are stopped and which ones aren't. But
I'm glad they're kind of waking up and acknowledging that
because if they just insist that, well, this isn't a
(19:31):
left wing problem, then it's not going to stop right
or they're not going to have to reckon with it
or call it out or condemn it, because they can
just say, well, really, oh, it's mostly just maga that
does that anyway. It's kind of a denial strategy, and
the fact that even mainstream liberal publications are now reckoning
with this means maybe it's breaking through. It often happens
like this, right like conservatives or Republicans or conservative media
(19:55):
will say something and at first Libs are in denial
about it, or mainstre stream presses and denial about it,
and then it kind of breaks through at some point
and then they started admitting it. And this is what
happened with, for example, Biden's obvious, obvious cognitive decline. People
in right wing media were saying this a year into
(20:15):
his presidency. Heck, some of us were saying in the
twenty twenty presidential primary that he was cooked in the brain.
It was obvious to us then, and we were like
dismissed as misinformation people and fake news and all this stuff.
And then like after a couple of years it became
so undeniable that CNN started admitting it, and once that happens,
then it breaks through to their side and change actually happens,
(20:38):
and he had to drop out. And I'm hoping we're
witnessing something similar now with this threat of far leftist
violence that I do believe is very real in American politics,
that now maybe the center left or mainstream Democratic Party
will acknowledge it because it's starting to break through. I
want to play you a clip that aired on NBC
(20:59):
News highlighting a lot of the points I have made
to y'all and have been highlighting for you guys for
years now, finally breaking through the mainstream.
Speaker 7 (21:08):
Watch this we turn out of the rise of political
violence in this country.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Among young people who spend a lot of time online,
support for violent acts is now growing.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Stephanie Gosk with our in Death Look.
Speaker 7 (21:21):
Soon after Luigi Mangioni was accused of killing United Healthcare
CEO Brian Thompson, the meme started celebrating the cold blood
and murder. Treating the alleged killer like a hero.
Speaker 5 (21:31):
Seems become a symbol for this really enormous and radical
and maybe unprecedented change in American culture.
Speaker 7 (21:39):
Anthropologist Max Horder works with the network Contagion Research Institute
studying online threats.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
We no longer so shamed of this violence, but actually
there's a large percentage of people that actually applaud it.
Speaker 7 (21:53):
In a survey of about twelve hundred people conducted with
Rutgers University, Horder found growing support for political violence among
the younger, highly online, and ideologically left aligned. According to
their results, fifty six percent of people who identify as
left of center believe there could be some justification for
killing President Donald Trump. Hauntingly, a few months before he
(22:15):
was assassinated, Charlie Kirk posted about the survey results on x.
Speaker 5 (22:20):
Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the left only
which is supporting increased forms of political violence. It seems
to be more that they're sort of catching up that
we're seeing a broader change in America where both sides
are now radicalized.
Speaker 7 (22:35):
Online networks across the political spectrum, fueling the growth of
what he calls an assassination culture.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
So there's a couple of ways you can respond to this.
When your side of an issue starts to win, some
people get better and are like I told you so,
and you attacked me, Or where were you years ago
when I was saying this, and I absolutely understand the
emotional temptation there. I feel that way sometimes with like
the fact that I stuck my neck out there years
ago against kids medically transitioning, and I was attacked for it,
(23:05):
kicked off a freaking gay men soccer league for making
trans people unsafe and all that, and now everyone agrees
with me about that. It's like welcome to the club.
I can understand the desire or the feeling somewhat of
resentment about that, but you got to get over it,
and you have to just welcome people aboard. Right, That's
that's how you win. And I think maybe with this
(23:27):
very real issue of fringe left violence in America, the
general population, even the center left, is started to wake
up and we should applaud them for it, not shame
them for being late to the party. At least that's
my take. You guys, let me know what you think
in the comments below. Make sure subscribe if you aren't.
Ye hit the leg button yet yet. Yeah, And with that, guys,
(23:48):
that'll be it for this episode of the Bread Versus
Everyone podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in, and we'll
talk again real soon.
Google announcing it's going to reinstate YouTube channels that were
permanently banned for political speech, saying it was pressured by
the Biden administration.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
YouTube just admitted to a massive censorship scandal and suddenly
the Democrats, very concerned about free speech, have gone quiet.
We're gonna break this down and so much more in
today's episode of the Brad Versus Everyone Podcast, my daily
(00:29):
show where we cover the craziest things from across the Internet,
our media, and our politics, all from an independent perspective. Guys,
I am on the road right now, back at my
house in Michigan, visiting family and doing some other stuff,
so not in my usual setup, but of course I
still wanted to bring you an episode and chat with
you guys, and I did want you to miss out
(00:51):
on hearing my lovely voice or seeing my wonderful face
because I appreciate you guys so much who make this
amazing life possible for me. But we are going to
talk about a big story that just came out from YouTube.
Because the House Oversight in the Congressional Republicans right they
have the majority, they have finally gotten YouTube ak, Google,
(01:13):
which owns YouTube, to admit to some pretty sweeping censorship
that they engaged in over the last couple of years,
particularly during the pandemic and after the twenty twenty election.
But and this won't shock anybody who's been paying attention,
this censorship was not really of their own accord. They
were under tremendous pressure a dress from the Biden administration.
(01:38):
Let's take a listen to some Fox Business reporting on
this breaking development.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Well, there's this Google announcing it's going to reinstate YouTube
channels that were permanently banned for political speech, saying it
was pressured by the Biden administration to remove content that
did not violate YouTube's policies. And a letter to the
House Judiciary Committee, a lawyer for Google said, quote, it
is unacceptable and wrong when any government, including the Biden administration,
(02:07):
attempts to dictate how the company moderates content, and the
company has consistently fought against those efforts on First Amendment grounds. Now,
the company also told House Judiciary Committee, this is Jim Jordan,
and this is a litter. They wrote to him that
public debate should never come at the expense of relying authorities,
and that the company get this, will never use third
(02:28):
party fact checkers. You know, a year ago Mark Zuckerberg
testified he was pressured by the Biden administration. Now Google's
admitting it. And you know, by the way, he got banned,
Dan Bongino, Yeah, he got based right banned.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Trump got banned. And by the way, we know that
this happened when it was happening, Mark Zuckerberg admitted it,
and he said, and the Twitter files. What about Elon
Musk and the Twitter files? Brett Stevens, in a piece
in The New York Times, lays it out. He's got
a whole list, a laundry list of times when the
Biden administration censored people. No mention about it. Now now
(03:04):
they're all worried about free speech with Jimmy Kimmel.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
So this is a really big deal on a couple levels.
One is that I think YouTube, and I give them
credit for this, has been great to me recently, not long,
not forever, And it's become more of an open platform
over time, and now they really are, I think, a
very robust ecosystem where people can have different perspectives. You've
(03:27):
got the big liberal YouTube accounts blowing up, You've got
the big Maga accounts, and it really is back to
what it should always have been and kind of got
big being, which is a wonderful place where you can
find all sorts of ideas and arguments and expression. But
there was a time, okay, there was a time where
(03:47):
they were very very heavy handed. They were deleting people's
channels left and right, and there were basically entire genres
of commentary and questioning that you just weren't really allowed
to do on YouTube, and that's not how it was
supposed to be. And I remember being very frustrated with
YouTube at the time over the years because of what
(04:09):
seemed like a bias that cut in one direction in
terms of who they censored. And now we know there
was more happening though, though I will just say, actually
the most egregious example that I can remember is Senator
Ran Paul, the libertarian leaning Republican from Kentucky. He posted
a video of him on the Senate floor speaking about
(04:31):
questioning the efficacy of masks I believe during the pandemic,
and they took it down. They it struggle. You can't
really think of something that more perfectly typifies like newsworthy
content that whether it's true, whether it's false, whether it's dumb,
whether it's you know, great and brilliant. People should be
able to see and decide for themselves more so than like,
(04:54):
literally what's happening in our government, speeches being made on
the Senate floor, white House address, other things. They deleted
Trump's YouTube channel. I believe as well after the twenty
twenty election. All of it was crazy. It's like, that's
the exact kind of thing. People should be able to
see with their own eyes and decide for themselves what
they think. But we now know that they were doing
this the under the duress of the Biden administration. So
(05:17):
I've got to be honest YouTube. I mean, I don't
view them as like perfect, they did nothing wrong, but
to some extent they're also victims here. They were subjected
to extensive government pressure from the Biden administration to censor
and take down americans lawful speech, even speech that didn't
even violate YouTube's guidelines. The Biden administration was harassing them. Now,
(05:39):
Democrats and liberals will often try to reframe this as oh, no,
it was just they were just politely requesting. But no,
it's kind of like the sword of Damocles or whatever
was hanging over their neck because they have The federal
government has massive, massive, massive anti trust powers looming over
Google as a threat, and regulatory powers with things like
(06:03):
Section two thirty. So when they're requesting stuff in very
aggressive fashion, they're really shaking you down. They're really bullying
you into doing what they say and what they want.
And so a lot of the YouTube censorship that we
bristled at during COVID for very understandable and valid reasons,
I think we really should have been mad at the
(06:23):
Biden administration. But I do think it's fair to question why, why,
why why didn't YouTube fight back harder? Because the Biden
administration engaged in this kind of jaw boning where if
they had just tried to use the power of the
federal government to center people directly, obviously that's illegal, nonconstitutional.
Instead they would go and work around. They would harass Facebook,
(06:45):
harass Twitter to try to get them to censor people instead,
and that is called jaw boning, and it is a
form of unconstitutional behavior. It's kind of a workaround in
the First Amendment. However, it was hard to legally challenge,
and ultimately the Supreme Court case about it. They ruled
that the people who Sue didn't have standing. Well, you
(07:06):
know who would have had standing based on what they
just told us YouTube if they'd kind of dug their
flag in the ground and said, no, President Biden, we
will not be taking down this stuff. It doesn't even
violate our policies, and you have no business telling us
to take down American speech. And they could have partnered
with my friends over at FIRE, the non partisan foundation
(07:27):
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, where a disclaimer I
do a little bit of work, and they could have
fought this, but instead they went along I think largely
with it, and I do think that is a disgrace
and something they should not have done. But if they
had dug in, they could have fought back against it
more effectively. So I will just reado this statement here
(07:48):
from Fire. Google should not have waited to acknowledge it
was pressured by the Biden administration to block content on
its platforms. Google contempt condemns job owning now, but it
failed to stand up for the rights of its users
when it mattered. Fire will continue to call on private
institutions to stand up for their rights no matter who
is in office. Guys, again, lets you forget how bad
(08:10):
it was let me play you a clip of former
YouTube CEO Susan was Shickey. Sorry I probably butchered that name. Anyway,
he or she is bragging about how many posts and
videos they censored about COVID. Take a listen to this.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
When it comes to vaccines, vaccine hesitancy, videos.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
That cause a public health risk.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Where do you want to see YouTube do better?
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Well, first of all, we've taken the We've taken responsibility
very seriously. I've it's been one of my top priorities
and with regard to COVID and with regard to vaccines,
that has been a top priority for us, and we
have we have a number of different ways that we
address that. So, first of all, we want to make
sure that if there's information that violates our policies. We
(08:56):
came up with ten different policies around COVID, then if
that violation of policy is then that's something that will remove.
We removed over a million videos associated with COVID.
Speaker 5 (09:06):
Have you talked to the Biden administration at all about
vaccine hesitancy or vaccine misinformation?
Speaker 4 (09:12):
Well, we did an event actually with the Biden administration,
including President Biden himself, with a number of Creators fauci
as well.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Now again I don't I'm not just mad at Google.
I don't think they're evil. I think they were put
in a terrible place by the Biden administration acting illegally
and unconstitutionally and trying to crack down on American speech,
and then they cave to it, and I think they
shouldn't have. But I do understand that, like, it's not
exactly easy to step up and stand up against the
(09:44):
full force of the federal government. So I have some
I don't know, nuance at which I can look at
the actions they took. I don't think they're just irredeemably
cowards and bad, but they did kind of wait till
it was safe to come out and admit and that
is unfortunate. So you guys, let me know what you
think about that. But I am very bothered by all
(10:07):
of this. And then the layer to this that is
so funny is the total free speech hypocrisy of all
these people. Because listen, I was calling this stuff up
out under Biden, I was railing against the Twitter files,
the Facebook files, all this stuff. They did try to
clamp down on free speech. However, Democrats at the time,
(10:27):
Democratic elected officials and mainstream media types were cheering for it.
But now that Trump has come into office and engaged
in some of the same kind of things like jawboning.
We talked about this with Jimmy Kimmel with the FCC
chair threatening Disney and ABC to get Jimmy Kimmel. I
think that's a similar type of thing as the Biden
(10:47):
White House threatening Facebook and YouTube take down all these
COVID misinformation posts. By the way, some of it turned
out to not be misinformation at all, and that's part
of why it should have been allowed to stay up
all along. So funny is now all these Democratic leaders
are free speech warriors and are like, yes, the First Amendment,
the government should never be telling private companies what they
(11:10):
can say or what they can do. And it's like
y'all literally shilled for this under Biden. And I'm over
here one of the only people who consistently team read
Team Blue. I'm a free speech guy, Okay, I don't
want the government pressuring private companies to silence people. Let
me play you a clip of Congressman Jim Clyburn, a
(11:31):
prominent Democrat, saying, well, of course, this is different from
what happened to Kimmel, this was important and good because
something something COVID nineteen. Listen to this.
Speaker 6 (11:40):
I don't think they're the same, simply because Biden, if
this took place, these weren't jokes, This wasn't a TV show.
This was a pandemic, and we didn't need to have
misinformation going out about this pandemic. There was enough coming
(12:01):
from the president at the time.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
This is the kind of gaslighting and inconsistency in politics
that threatens to turn me into a supervillain, Like I
literally might become the joker because these people drive me insane. Well,
that misinformation was different than this misinformation, which we think
should be allowed and is fine because when Jimmy Kimmel
falsely implies that the shooter of Charlie Kirk was Mega,
(12:25):
well that's just a joke, that's just TV. But when
Ran Paul questions masks, of course that has to be
censored because something pandemic. It's like, you cannot do this.
You cannot have two entirely different sets of rules, Like
that's not how this works. You either have free speech
or you don't. You either empower the government to coerce
(12:47):
private platforms into taking down what they deem as misinformation,
which of course assumes the government always knows the truth
and knows what's really going on, when in fact, the
biggest purveyor of misinformation during the pandemic, well not maybe
not the biggest, but a big purveyor was public health
experts themselves, CDC, doctor Fauci. They said so many things
(13:07):
that they ended up doing a one ad on or
realizing weren't true. And so the idea that they are
in any kind of place to be deciding what's misinformation
don't I don't really believe so. So regardless, I just
think the hypocrisy hypocrisy here is astounding. Though that does
go in both directions. I mean, in the same way
that the Democrats who cheered Biden are now decrying everything
(13:32):
Trump does to try to punish the press or coerce companies. Well, now,
a lot of Republicans who are outraged about that don't
really care. And it's not just the Jimmie Kimbell situation,
because I understand you can you can look at it
and try to see how, well, maybe the FCC didn't
caused this, maybe it's just a private business decision, but
you look at the other things Trump has done, like
retaliating against the Associated Press and other media outlets and
(13:57):
arresting and deporting people for their op aid's just like
opinions criticizing the Israel. He definitely has gone against free
speech in some meaningful ways that some people see who
were big free speech warriors suddenly don't care about or
actively cheer. And I also find that inconsistent. But you guys,
(14:17):
let me know what you think. I have to be
honest with you. Nothing YouTube has revealed here is remotely
surprising to me. It's kind of like, yeah, we knew,
but I guess better late than never, And I'm glad
they're speaking out about it now, even though it's like
a little bit too little, too late. What do you
guys think? Let me know in the comments. Make sure
subscribed if you aren't yet, hit the like button, YadA YadA. Yeah.
(14:40):
If you're listening on audio podcasts, I remember you can
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do consider rating or reviewing the show and whatever podcast
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a friend who might enjoy the show and enjoy losing
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(15:02):
Up next, we're going to talk about what I honestly
have to say is a positive development. The mainstream media
seems to be waking up to the thread of and
acknowledging the existence of left wing violence, political violence, and terrorism,
which we've covered on this show for some time now,
(15:23):
especially with the Internet and the cult of people supporting
an alleged murderer in Luigi Minngioni, the huge swass of
democrat just everyday respondents who are suddenly okay with or
think it's partially justified to assassinate Trump or Elon Musk,
the viral memes about somebody just do it, referring to
killing the president of the United States. I've been telling
(15:46):
y'all that, of course there's extremism across the board, but
there is a rising tide of violent left wing extremism,
particularly with young people. And now finally some of the
mainstream media is starting to acknowled So a big bombshell
article was just published in the Atlantic, which is a
liberal magazine that's kind of honestly like the elite discourse
(16:11):
centers around the Atlantic, like very you know, smart and
posh democrat elites looked to the Atlantic for guidance, so
the fact that it's published there is kind of a
big deal. We're going to take a look at that article,
left Wing terrorism is on the rise. The headline reads,
for the first time in more than thirty years, attacks
by the far left outnumber those on the far right.
This was posted on x and they tag the authors
(16:34):
and say that they report on their newly compiled data
set of seven hundred and fifty terror attacks and plots
in the United States from January nineteen ninety four to
July twenty twenty five. And what did they find. Well,
we found that left wing terrorism has increased since President
Donald Trump's rise to political prominence in twenty sixteen. Indeed,
twenty twenty five marks the first time in more than
(16:56):
thirty years that left wing attacks outnumber those from the
far right. Despite its recent increase, however, left wing terrorism
is not nearly as common today as it was in
the nineteen sixties and early seventies. That's an interesting statistic,
And note that I hadn't actually thought about. But I
think that's like generally true as bleak as we think
things are in American politics. And trust me, I'm constantly
(17:17):
thinking how bleak it is when you zoom out a
little and you look at American history. Things have been
rougher before, and we've come out the other side. Okay,
So a little bit of hope core for you there. Anyway.
Following that trend, according to our analysis, violence on the
left accounted for four plots and attacks from nineteen ninety
four to two thousand, compared with one hundred and forty
(17:40):
four on the right. That difference narrowed in the following decade,
but the right continued to account for significantly more attacks
and killings than did the left. However, the year of
twenty sixteen was a turning point for left wing terrorism.
Even as right wing incidents remained much more common, Trump's
political assent and the expansion of the Meca movement seems
to have re energized left wing violent extremism, which accounted
(18:03):
for thirty seven incidents from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty four,
most of them motivated by either anti government or partisan sentiment.
By July four of this year, our left extremists had
already been responsible for five terroristic attacks and plots, putting
twenty twenty five on pace to be the left's most
violent year in more than three decades. So this is
(18:27):
a really important realization and data point for mainstream center
left kind of commentariat or establishment to be acknowledging, because
they have been insisting, especially since Charlie Kirk's killing, and
they there are a couple of data sets, although they're
highly suspect that they can cite to make this point. Well,
political violence in America is mostly a right wing problem,
(18:49):
and like that just doesn't pass the sniff test in
terms of recent stuff. I can't speak to all of
American history fifty years ago. It just never passed the
sniff test for the life decade, for example, And now
we know that that's because it's not the case. And
this is an interesting one because it also counts plots,
(19:09):
so like foiled attacks or things where the law enforcement
stops it before it happens. And I think that's important
to gauge the sentiment and the frequency, because otherwise your
data would be skewed kind of just by the chance
of which ones are stopped and which ones aren't. But
I'm glad they're kind of waking up and acknowledging that
because if they just insist that, well, this isn't a
(19:31):
left wing problem, then it's not going to stop right
or they're not going to have to reckon with it
or call it out or condemn it, because they can
just say, well, really, oh, it's mostly just maga that
does that anyway. It's kind of a denial strategy, and
the fact that even mainstream liberal publications are now reckoning
with this means maybe it's breaking through. It often happens
like this, right like conservatives or Republicans or conservative media
(19:55):
will say something and at first Libs are in denial
about it, or mainstre stream presses and denial about it,
and then it kind of breaks through at some point
and then they started admitting it. And this is what
happened with, for example, Biden's obvious, obvious cognitive decline. People
in right wing media were saying this a year into
(20:15):
his presidency. Heck, some of us were saying in the
twenty twenty presidential primary that he was cooked in the brain.
It was obvious to us then, and we were like
dismissed as misinformation people and fake news and all this stuff.
And then like after a couple of years it became
so undeniable that CNN started admitting it, and once that happens,
then it breaks through to their side and change actually happens,
(20:38):
and he had to drop out. And I'm hoping we're
witnessing something similar now with this threat of far leftist
violence that I do believe is very real in American politics,
that now maybe the center left or mainstream Democratic Party
will acknowledge it because it's starting to break through. I
want to play you a clip that aired on NBC
(20:59):
News highlighting a lot of the points I have made
to y'all and have been highlighting for you guys for
years now, finally breaking through the mainstream.
Speaker 7 (21:08):
Watch this we turn out of the rise of political
violence in this country.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Among young people who spend a lot of time online,
support for violent acts is now growing.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Stephanie Gosk with our in Death Look.
Speaker 7 (21:21):
Soon after Luigi Mangioni was accused of killing United Healthcare
CEO Brian Thompson, the meme started celebrating the cold blood
and murder. Treating the alleged killer like a hero.
Speaker 5 (21:31):
Seems become a symbol for this really enormous and radical
and maybe unprecedented change in American culture.
Speaker 7 (21:39):
Anthropologist Max Horder works with the network Contagion Research Institute
studying online threats.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
We no longer so shamed of this violence, but actually
there's a large percentage of people that actually applaud it.
Speaker 7 (21:53):
In a survey of about twelve hundred people conducted with
Rutgers University, Horder found growing support for political violence among
the younger, highly online, and ideologically left aligned. According to
their results, fifty six percent of people who identify as
left of center believe there could be some justification for
killing President Donald Trump. Hauntingly, a few months before he
(22:15):
was assassinated, Charlie Kirk posted about the survey results on x.
Speaker 5 (22:20):
Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the left only
which is supporting increased forms of political violence. It seems
to be more that they're sort of catching up that
we're seeing a broader change in America where both sides
are now radicalized.
Speaker 7 (22:35):
Online networks across the political spectrum, fueling the growth of
what he calls an assassination culture.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
So there's a couple of ways you can respond to this.
When your side of an issue starts to win, some
people get better and are like I told you so,
and you attacked me, Or where were you years ago
when I was saying this, and I absolutely understand the
emotional temptation there. I feel that way sometimes with like
the fact that I stuck my neck out there years
ago against kids medically transitioning, and I was attacked for it,
(23:05):
kicked off a freaking gay men soccer league for making
trans people unsafe and all that, and now everyone agrees
with me about that. It's like welcome to the club.
I can understand the desire or the feeling somewhat of
resentment about that, but you got to get over it,
and you have to just welcome people aboard. Right, That's
that's how you win. And I think maybe with this
(23:27):
very real issue of fringe left violence in America, the
general population, even the center left, is started to wake
up and we should applaud them for it, not shame
them for being late to the party. At least that's
my take. You guys, let me know what you think
in the comments below. Make sure subscribe if you aren't.
Ye hit the leg button yet yet. Yeah, And with that, guys,
(23:48):
that'll be it for this episode of the Bread Versus
Everyone podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in, and we'll
talk again real soon.
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