Russell Brand reappears, criticizes the censorship of Big Tech and responds to the British Government: "I'm going back"

The UK Parliament recently asked the Rumble platform to demonetize the content of Russell Brand, accused in a documentary of sexual abuse. After the company's refusal, the 48-year-old actor published a video in which he responded directly to the British government. He spoke of "censorship" and attacked local politics.

The allegations against the Australian were made by a documentary created by Channel 4 Dispatch, in collaboration with The Sunday Times and The Times of London. As a consequence, the actor and presenter saw how YouTube demonetized his content.

Chris Pavlovski, CEO of Rumble, the platform on which Brand's show is broadcast, announced on his social media that he received a letter from the British government, precisely asking him to demonetize his content. The businessman quickly published a negative response and days later Brand replied.

Brand added some context to the request and indicated that the British government has the authority by law to monitor and censor content.

"By now you’re probably aware that the British Government have asked big tech platforms to censor our online content and that some online platforms have complied with that request. What you may not know is that this happens in the context of the Online Safety Bill, which is a piece of UK legislation that grants sweeping surveillance and censorship powers, and it’s a law that has already been passed," Brand began.

"I also don’t imagine you’ve heard of the Trusted News Initiative. Now, as is often the case when a word like trusted is used as part of an acronym to describe an unelected body, trust is the last thing you should be offering," he continued.

Finally, he added that large technology companies in this group would seek to control the content published on social media.

"The Trusted News Initiative is a collaboration between big tech and legacy media organisations to target, control, choke and shut down independent media organisations like this one," he concluded.

The British government asked Rumble to demonetize Russell Brand

The letter signed by Dame Caroline Dinenage, chair of Parliament's Culture, Media and Sport committee, invited Rumble to follow the steps YouTube took with Brand: demonetize its content. Although he first described the actor's situation, he invited the CEO to take action in this regard.

Pavlovsky did not like the request very much, Therefore, he published a response letter and accompanied it with a text in

"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. We emphatically reject the U.K. Parliament’s demands" the official response letter stated.