Consept

So just to confirm that's no sexual relationships with women? Have you had any relationships with women?

@mr_engineer It's inauthentic to call yourself a nice guy yes. Thanks for tips though, have you had a lot of sexual relationships with women?

Self proclaimed 'Nice guys' are by definition inauthentic because they deny their darker side. No one is completely nice or completely bad, it's all about claiming all parts of you to be authentic. Women would rather have authenticity which will include not being nice to her sometimes, than a guy putting her up on a pedalstool and trying to be perfect all the time. Anyway let's laugh at nice guys some more

Do guys actually say to girls that theyre nice, is that an actual thing? 'Im so nice that if you dont go out with me it means you dont like nice guys'

They wouldnt sue the girl, they would sue the publication, anyone can go to the media and sell a story but its the outlet that would be liable if the story turns out to be false. Remember when Fox news ran with Trumps story that the election was rigged? Trump didnt get sued for that but Fox did for 100s of millions, it would be the same in these assault cases. The girl could post on youtube but not many would probably watch it, she could still get a cease and desist order or a strike from youtube if the accused reports. If a media outlet did pick it up from youtube then they would be liable. The solution obviously wouldnt work so we still have the same problem. Keep in mind as well Epstein, Prince Andrew, Cosby, Saville etc were never found guilty, if we go by your method, none of these peoples crimes wouldve come to light.

It is really difficult tbh, the best way is to try and look at things from all perspectives. People tend to get stuck in one perspective if they like the person. For example with Brand people are consuming his content but not acknowledging his bias and are not steel-manning the other side so they just take what he says as truth. The shit hits the fan with this assault issue because the fact is no one apart from Brand and the girls know exactly what happened yet people are still defending and will disregard any evidence so they are definitely not agnostic. Its even more extreme with someone like Tate in which there is tons of evidence and even him on camera admitting it but people still support him. So our aim as individuals should be to have as clear a perspective as possible and recognise our own bias', it is difficult given all the info but i think its possible. It would be good if everyone was taught critical thinking as well.

Yes of course, it makes national or even international press because of his fame and how many people are interested in him, its the equivalent to the influence he has on the world. But also if it was a local story the press would cover that as well. Catholic priests and teachers get caught all the time, there was a whole film called Spotlight based on the media exposing the catholic church and its protection of pedophiles. Epstein got away with what he was doing for years its only when the media started reporting on it that it came into the public consciousness. People and institutions with power are very much able to silence victims, this is the whole point of where the media can fulfil an important service. Not anyone can just attack powerful people because its so difficult thats the whole point, how many powerful abusers who actually did what they were accused of, got away with it for decades. As well you cant just defame people without legal ramifications so people can not run around just accusing without any foundation. I agree that women probably should get charged for false accusations but again its as hard proving that as it is to prove the rape actually occurred, its one word against another, but if they can prove it they should get charged. The media shouldnt be involved in every case obviously, just the ones where there wasnt justice and where there is strong evidence.

@Tanz yes ideally that would be how it works, but in reality it rarely works like that. First off the woman could be scared to go to the police or manipulated someway to not go or just not think it's worth it given the low conviction rate. Second is that she could go to the police and Brand could be called in for interview but he just denies what happened and its his word against hers. Further Brand, as has been rumoured, could've taken a super-injuction out, which basically bans anyone from naming him around certain incidents, basically it's like an nda. Keep in mind in all these scenarios he could've still done it without any repercussions. So what we're saying is that when the system fails what option is open to the alleged victim? Its really just the media. This isn't a wild idea, for example if you got ripped off by your electric company and they refused to pay you back, you might go to the media or post it on social media if you feel the police wouldn't do anything about it. Both to warn others and get a sense of justice.

The point is that the police might do that, they might interview him straight away but then he denies and says its consensual, it comes down to his word against hers and because theres at least reasonable doubt the police cant go any further if theres no evidence (this is partly why the conviction rate is so low). So in this case the woman, or womens story if theres multiple, dont get heard. So no one will investigate the story because the police have already closed it and so one of the only ways to investigate it, is through the media. This is commonplace in all different fields, for example Coffeezilla on youtube has actually exposed a lot of fraud in the financial world through investigating that possibly wouldnt have come to light otherwise and was absolutely necessary for the public to know as these people were ripping off thousand's. The media always reaches out to the accused for comment before the investigation is released to the public, so there is opportunity for them to reply, however a lot of the time they dont take it up or just comment saying they deny all charges. Im not sure but i think if you were 100% innocent you most likely would take that chance to speak. Actually a similar case in the UK was Philip Schofield allegedly grooming a young boy, in which he did do an interview with the BBC where he explained the situation, he did essentially lose his career anyway but he still did the interview. But generally i think the media is important in this role of bringing things to light that are in the public interest, it is almost a duty for them to do so, however there is also the potential that they can exaggerate or even manufacture a story that will be of interest to the public, this is why they need certain restrictions and tough defamation and liable laws.

@Tanz Good points, i was thinking about this though in terms of, if the media doesnt bring something like this to the light who will? Of course I'm not saying the media are some altruistic, looking out for the little guy entity, they want people to read and view their content so they can make more money. But there isn't really a strong enough incentive from other bodies to expose this type of thing, at least no one with the type of power the media has. The government and police are limited as we're seeing from the low conviction rate, maybe you'll get an independent youtube journalist or blogger reporting it but they're limited in budget and potentially their status. So putting yourself in the shoes of one of these women that got raped, what are your options, if your police report basically didnt get anywhere? You can only go to the media or agree to talk to them if the get in contact or you can let it go, that's pretty much it. The other point is that if the media doesn't report on it and it comes out that it's even worse they will get destroyed by public opinion and the public will lose trust in them. This I what happened with Jimmy Saville, the police never brought any formal charges to him and the media didn't do an expose while he was alive, the evidence available wouldn't have been far off Brands situation, in that it was allegations without any police reports as far as I know. The media was destroyed for protecting him as some would see it as the their duty to report this type of thing. Brands alleged crimes are nothing compared to Saville, but the point is the media is in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, if they don't report, they're the bad guys and if they do report they're the bad guys.

I wouldn't go as far to say he's a cult leader, but it is definitely a feature of modern times where there are 'leaders' who put themselves out there as a mouthpiece for a certain group of people. Even if they don't do it intentionally the leader naturally takes that role for their followers. So they have to be extra careful to avoid people following them in that manner and ideally show them how to think for themselves even if it means disagreement. Leo has talked about this before how he has to be so conscious of not turning this into a cult. Unfortunately because its fairly easy to do and because you can get a lot of fame, clout, validation and money from it a lot of leaders fall into the trap of stepping into cult territory. Because everything they say is celebrated by their audience, they can come to believe that they are always right. But it's not always a situation of the leader knowingly taking advantage of the followers, its almost a symbiotic relationship, in that the leader needs to give content that is going to please the followers and get more views. Brand didn't actually have a strong stand against vaccines initially but I believe he came to realise that a large part of his audience did. So his views evolved to become more and more anti-vaxx. So he has changed his audience but his audience has also changed him. Because of the Internet, youtube and social media, this dynamic is on steroids

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.