The Jubilee of the YouTube channel, which is known for its debate style videos, faces a violent online reaction after a participant in a recent self -identified program as a fascist. The incident has traveled Internet, inspiring online discussion for days, and has also had important consequences. The man, who identified himself as Connor in the video, says he was later fired from his work.
The episode, which was published on Sunday, presented the British American journalist Medhi Hasan, whom he had the task of discussing 20 “conservatives of the extreme right.” Hasan organized a MSNBC program from February 2021 to January 2024.
Hasan had affirmed that President Donald Trump is “challenging the Constitution” as one of the issues of conversation. In a debate of approximately seven minutes with Hasan, Connor spoke about his desire for an autocracy in the United States and praised the ideas of Carl Schmitt, a political philosopher of the Nazi party, while there was “a little persecution” of the Jews during the Holocaust.
“Are you a fan of the Nazis?” Hasan asked the participant.
“Frankly, I don’t care if they call me Nazi at all,” said Connor.
Later, Hasan said: “We may have to change the name of this program, because you are a little more than a Republican of the extreme right.”
“What can I say?” Connor responded.
“I think you say: ‘I am a fascist.'”
“Yes, I am,” Connor said with a smile while several others in the circle applauded.
In just two days, the YouTube video has obtained 4 million visits. Clips quickly began to spread online, causing criticism that the channel and YouTube were pro-fascist content platforms.
“Jubilee, this is no longer a debate. It’s just a pure hatred that these people have in their hearts. Giving these people a platform is crazy for me,” said a comment that I received more than a thousand like in the YouTube video.
A creator known for the username @mattxiv on X published a comment that was seen more than 500,000 times: “I do not think that a channel that provides a platform of millions to people who identify as ‘fascists’ should be able to monetize their videos. YouTube did not respond to a request for comments.
Google data showed that “Jubilee” searches jumped significantly on Tuesday after Connor announced that he had been fired from his work.
Since then, Hasan has said online that the scope of the opinions of the guests was not communicated thoroughly before going to the program.
“To be clear, I didn’t know they would be real open fascists!” Hasan said in X.
In another answer, responding to someone who had asked about why Hasan would agree to go to the program if “Jubilee invited a lot of Nazis,” he said that “this is not how the debate was sold. You can see my shock when they begin to express their points of view openly.”
Connor later said he was fired for his participation in the video. In an interview with the social media brand online, Connor said that being fired made him feel “destroyed.” Therifttv began a fundraising to help him, since he looks for new jobs that have already received more than $ 30,000. Connor did not respond to a request for comments.
“Unfortunately, expressing the political opinions of the traditional rightly legal right results in real consequences,” reads the description of the campaign in Givendgo, a Christian crowdfunding site that has become a reference platform for the controversial crowdfunding campaigns. “This is to cancel culture and political discrimination in full exhibition.”
In what seems to be Connor’s telegram channel, many recovered behind him in his debate, writing that Hasan “had nothing to say because you were right”, among other comments of hate about Hasan.
The YouTube video was part of the Jubilee “Rodeed” web series, in which a guest sits in the middle of a circle, “surrounded” by about 20 people with opposite points of view. The web series has presented political influencers known as the main debaters, including Candance Owens, Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro.
The program works by making the main guest begin a debate by making a claim and causing those who wish to discuss it to a chair in front of the person in the middle. Who touches the chair can first participate.
Whoever sitting in the chair can participate in the debate until those around the president decide to vote for the participant. People who want the person in the middle to be voted can lift a red flag, and if enough people raise their flags, the person is expelled from the debate and replaced by another person in the circle.
This is not the only video that has become viral for its controversial participants. The clips of several other “surrounded” videos have caused controversy in the past, and users claim that the channel was giving a platform to intolerant views. One of the most watched videos on the channel, a debate in which Kirk is surrounded by “25 liberal university students,” accumulated 30 million visits.
In an interview this year, the CEO of Jubilee Media, Jason Lee, addressed those concerns, saying that the channel houses people with controversial points of view to give its audience the “ability to listen to a nuanced perspective[s]. “He added that the program tries to limit erroneous information by incorporating the verification of facts throughout the videos.
“It is a question about which we have been asked: ‘Is it dangerous platform or does it have certain voices or points of view?’ And the way I would respond to that is that I feel that we live in a more dangerous world if two people cannot sit in the same room and have a conversation, ”said Lee. “It does not necessarily mean that the conversation will be productive or that anyone will necessarily change their point of view, but I think that is very missing.”
The video with Hasan’s debate with Connor presents only one verification of facts, for a claim that Connor made about the number of people killed by the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.
Jubilee videos cover a variety of thematic areas. Currently, the channel is recruiting people for its “surrounded” series, including “conspiracy theorists”, “conservative Christians” and “anti capitalist[s]”And they are part of a broader trend of internet content in the style of debate.
