It's a good thing we don't have an elite who run child sex rings and then mysteriously commit suicide while on suicide watch, because if we did The Times would look pretty retarded for carrying an entire article on Mark Collett's YouTube channel.
Oh wait, they did...
I don't have much to say on this but because The Times is behind a paywall and fewer people can access their material I thought I'd post it here.
YouTube has paid a neo-Nazi thousands of pounds and taken a cut of the money in a new revenue-generating scheme, it can be revealed.
Mark Collett, a former British National Party (BNP) official who has praised Adolf Hitler, called refugees “cockroaches” and been arrested for inciting racial hatred, is one of several far-right internet figures to profit from a service called Super Chat.
According to the Google-owned website, Super Chat lets fans pay for their comments to appear prominently in the “live chat” next to popular bloggers’ videos. Most of the money goes to the blogger, but YouTube takes an estimated 30%.
Collett, 37, rose to prominence as the chairman of Young BNP when he was filmed in an undercover documentary saying: “Hitler will live on forever and maybe I will.” He was arrested with the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, for comments about Asian men and asylum seekers in 2006. He has since established himself as a far-right online activist, generating 95,000 subscribers and 10m views for his YouTube channel. His videos include “White Genocide Explained”, “The Jewish Question Explained in 4 Minutes” and “The Death of White America”.
As always fair debate or earnestly investigating these issues is a complete non-starter. The Times is adopting the Anti-Fa tactic of simply quoting somebody and expecting the public to be so outraged that no further discussion is needed.
Analysis by Storyful reveals Collett has earned £7,265.93 from 36 videos, including live discussions with David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, who led the Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Those who paid to post comments next to the videos include a user in England who gave £10 to write: “I wouldn’t hesitate for a second in fighting for the 4th Reich”, an American who paid $20 [£16.50] to say: “The beautiful white race are God’s chosen people” and another who paid $5 to write: “Hollywood is run by Jews” and “Jews hate Jesus”.
The payments frequently referenced neo-Nazi symbols, with dozens donating £88 or an amount followed by 88 pence. In Nazi literature, 88 stands for HH (because H is the eighth letter of the alphabet) or Heil Hitler.
Others gave £14.88 or $14.88, denoting the 14-word phrase: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
Last night, anti-racist groups condemned the tech giant for failing to take action against white supremacists.
Joe Mulhall, of Hope Not Hate, said: “Some tech companies have made major strides towards dealing with far-right extremism on their platforms, yet YouTube is lagging behind and remains a major hub for far-right propaganda.” He added: “It is unacceptable that YouTube remains a source of funding for so many far-right activists around the world.”
Who, then, gave Joe Mulhall this moral authority to dictate what is and what is not acceptable in discourse? Presumably the wealthy donors and NGO's who keep Hope Not Hate's lights on, but how then can we question their power if they're simply going to demand that dissenters are silenced?
Are these the much vaunted ''Liberal Values'' we hear so much about?
It is impossible to calculate how much YouTube has made from Collett’s videos as some have been removed for violating hate speech rules. It is estimated to have made £2,179.80 on the videos analysed.
The research also reveals how international the “anti-globalist” movement has become, with Collett reliant on supporters in the US, Canada and Scandinavia.
Of 1,100 Super Chat comments on his videos, a majority (659) were paid in dollars, 56 in euros, 50 in Nordic currencies and 38 in Canadian dollars. Fewer than a third (301) were in sterling.
YouTube has said that it is committed to tackling racism. Last month, it wrote: “Channels that repeatedly brush up against our hate speech policies will be suspended . . . meaning they can’t run ads on their channel or use other monetisation features like Super Chat.”
Collett appears to have prepared for that possibility. Last month, he hosted a discussion with the founders of Entropy, a niche platform that says it opposes “mass censorship” and allows those suspended from YouTube to continue to make money through live streaming,
In 2018, Collett was named by Data & Society, a US think tank, as a top online influencer for the “reactionary right”. He was tried over race-hate claims in 2006. He had reportedly said Asian men “are trying to destroy us” and had pledged to “show these ethnics the door”. The jury failed to reach a verdict.
Collett was later arrested for threatening to kill Griffin as part of a “failed coup” in 2010, but again walked free.
He entered the public eye campaigning for Brexit in 2016 with his former girlfriend Eva Van Housen in the run-up to the EU referendum. After it emerged that he was running a Vote Leave stall in Leeds, the campaign denied links to him.
Last month, Collett declared: “Jews have been thrown out of countries so many times for the things they’ve done.”
Google said: “Any revenue YouTube receives from Super Chats of content that we learn is abusive will be donated to charity.” It said Collett’s channel could no longer receive revenue via ads or Super Chat. Asked why it had not removed the account, it did not respond.
I do find it interesting that Hope Not Hate went running to The Times with this non-story. The ''Anti-Racist'' wing of Global Finance seem to have burned through the credibility of their usual platforms like The Guardian and Independent, perhaps outlets which are deemed to be ''respectable'' are akin to the vampire searching for new blood elsewhere....