Are accusations enough to destroy someone’s life and remove his ability to make money?
That certainly seems the case with actor and podcaster Russell Brand and the feverish push to make sure he is demonetized on every online platform.
Brand has been accused of serious sexual offenses.
He might be a terrible person, we really don’t know.
He has not been charged with anything, and an accusation does not make it acceptable to take away his job.
I get it: We live in a bifurcated world. We take sides. We make snap decisions. We read a headline and form an opinion.
Or maybe we don’t need to read anything. I never liked that guy anyway. I love him. I hate him. He’s innocent. He’s guilty.
We get caught up in a frenzy. The MeToo era was a hallmark of that hysteria.
It started with serious allegations of sexual misconduct and ended with actors accused of offering the wrong wine to a date and comedian Norm Macdonald disinvited from late-night television for talking about forgiveness for the canceled.
It seems we’ve learned very little from that time.
The point should not be whether we believe Brand or believe his accusers.
It’s about a process we should have in our public life. An accusation should not automatically end a person’s career.
YouTube has suspended Brand’s ability to make money on the platform.
Some people shrug and say, “YouTube is a private company, and it can do what it wants.”
Sure, but that should not preclude us from criticizing that private company and saying, “This is deeply wrong.”
It’s easy not to care because most people aren’t celebrities like Brand and don’t rely on platforms like YouTube to make a living.
What else can private companies do to you just because of an accusation?
Take the story of Brandon Jackson, highlighted by the Tablet website.
Russell Brand sexual assault allegations
Brand was accused of raping, sexually assaulting and abusing four women over the course of seven years from 2006 to 2013.
- One woman, identified as “Nadia,” alleged the “Get Him to the Greek” star raped her against the wall of his Los Angeles home in 2012 and that she was treated at a rape crisis center the same day, according to medical records cited by news outlets.
- Another accuser, who was 16 at the time and is known only by the pseudonym “Alice,” alleged the then-31-year-old called her “the child” and assaulted her during their “emotionally abusive and controlling” three-month relationship, according to the report.
- A woman identified as “Phoebe” claimed he sexually assaulted her at his property in West Hollywood after they met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, according to the Times of London. Brand allegedly trapped her in a bedroom and chased her around before pinning her down and assaulting her.
- The star’s ex-girlfriend Jordan Martin made similar accusations in her self-published 2014 book “kNot: Entanglement with a Celebrity.” She claims he sexually assaulted her at the Lowry Hotel in Manchester, England, after becoming angry that she had spoken to an ex-boyfriend in 2007.
- Pop star Dannii Minogue angrily labeled Brand a “vile predator” as far back as 2006 — accusing him of creeping her out by perving over her “fabulous breasts” and refusing to “take no for an answer.”
Brand denied the allegations in a video on YouTube and X, formerly Twitter, alerting fans to “serious criminal” allegations that he said would be made against him.
“Amidst this litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks, are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute,” Branded shared. “The relationships I had were absolutely, always consensual.”
While the investigation proceeds, YouTube has suspended Brand from making money on the video streaming site, his pub “Crown Inn,” located in Pishill, Britain, has been temporarily shut down and BBC has formally launched a review into the comedian’s time at the network.
An Amazon delivery driver accused Jackson of making a racist comment.
Amazon retaliated by shutting down his account.
This meant Jackson couldn’t get packages, sure, but it also meant he couldn’t use all the automated features of his home he had set up using Alexa.
The twist is that Jackson is black and no one was home when the employee claims to have heard the comments.
But the accusation was enough, and hey, Amazon is a private company that can do whatever it wants, right?
Jackson is lucky the story didn’t get to his employer, which also might have felt the pressure to fire him based solely on one person’s word.
Back to Brand, it’s somehow not enough that YouTube has demonetized him.
There’s pressure for every other platform to do the same.
The British government sent YouTube competitor Rumble, which is committed to actual free speech, a letter this week urging it to “demonetise” (they spell it with an “s” there) Brand, too.
The company responded, “While Rumble obviously deplores sexual assault, rape, and all serious crimes, and believes that both the alleged victims and the accused are entitled to a full and serious investigation, it is vital to note that recent allegations against Russell Brand have nothing to do with content on Rumble’s platform.”
It should chill every freedom-loving person that a supposedly free country like Britain would lean on a private company to punish someone it doesn’t like.
And we should worry America is not far behind.
We saw the FBI pressure Twitter to suppress the New York Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
So much for being a “private company” that can do what it wants.
In its statement Rumble added, “Although it may be politically and socially easier for Rumble to join a cancel culture mob, doing so would be a violation of our company’s values and mission.”
It is easier to join the mob, and the last few years have certainly shown many mobs require membership.
But we have to get back to a place where we do the right thing as a society.
The right thing today is to wait for the accusations against Brand to play out and put down your pitchforks.
Twitter: @Karol