Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/05/02/youtube-bans-david-icke.html
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Twitter just banned conservative commentator Candace Owens (rightfully, IMO) for spouting nonsense about how people should defy legal orders for social distancing by the “socialist” governor of Michigan. If anything, Icke is way more inflammatory and disgusting than Owens—but he’s also a white male instead of a black woman, so…
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Who? Is this like the UK version of Alex Jones? Never heard of him.
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Less of the Angry Honey Badger impression, same old kooky shit, but more into Lizard People than Gay Frogs.
So, kinda. Both massive wankers.
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It can’t have, as her account is still up. She had the one tweet taken down and is probably unable to post until clicking the “i agree not to do this again”-type dealie twitter makes you go through when this occurs. The furore on Twitter about her getting banned seems to be a right-wing effort to get everyone to think that has happened.
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Well that sucks. I wonder if she was banned for five minutes and then reinstated when her fans made a fuss.
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Never heard of this guy.
Icke’s had an interesting journey, to say the least. A former professional footballer and BBC broadcaster, Icke announced his nuttiness to the world in a car-crash live TV chatshow interview back in 1991.
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Again. He regularly promotes the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a REAL DOCUMENT.
This is not some charming nutter, much like Alex Jones is not charming weirdo.
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Indeed, but I never said he was charming, did I? Clearly a nutter though.
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Everyone thought Donald Trump was a nutter too.
We have to take these people seriously, because they are having an impact on the world, right now. People have continuously assumed none of these guys are a danger, but they actually are.
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So many of my friends from long ago when I grew up in the south were like, “Oh, we don’t really believe these things, we just like a little rebellion down here. Keeps people fresh on their beliefs and makes you have to defend what you think you stand for” are now telling me that they were really white supremecists all along, that they’re glad they have a president who supports it, and that the trick all along was just telling people they were just supporting someone’s right to free speech / to have the wrong opinion /etc.
Now, at this point in my life, I act as though the “He’s just a nutball , ignore him” people are in on it.
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We are watching, in real time, the outcome of not taking these movements seriously, even people like Icke who just seem like harmless kooks. I hope it’s not too late, but it might be.
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Nobody in the UK takes Icke seriously. It’s hard to do so when you declare that the Queen is actually a lizard from Outer Space. He is a figure of mockery and ridicule, and rightly so. Worldwide? No idea. Although I doubt it somehow…his media reach is extremely limited.
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Again, some DO take him seriously. And no one took people like Alex Jones seriously either. Now we have a conspiracy theorist president.
And again, he promotes the Protocols of Zion as a REAL document. These things are always dangerous, no matter how they are dressed up.
The problem is not taking the threat he poses seriously enough.
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Icke’s brand of lunacy has definitely found fertile ground here in the states. Alex Jones definitely has more presence, but Icke is for the “smart thinking man’s” conspiracy theory nuts. Flat earth, ancient aliens, holocaust hoax, antivax, Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring out of a pizza shop… yeah, Icke has plenty of fans over here.
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He’s a bit less Alex Jones in that he doesn’t cover conspiracy theories he originates them.
He’s been a significant and highly visible part of the Secret UFO Government conspiracy theory and hokum scene for decades. Kinda like an Eric Von Daniken or Bob Lazar type.
His stock and trade are claims about a secret arrangement between the upper echelons of government and finance with an extra dimensional race of humanoid lizards called reptiloids or reptilians, if you’ve ever heard of that he’s the one who cooked it up. He’s most famous for claiming many prominent politicians and public figures are secretly lizards wearing human skin suits.
Much of his material is boiler plate Anti-Semitic conspiracy with Jews replaced by aliens, and subbing a lot of Majestic 12, Illuminati and UFOs in for other elements. He promotes a lot of anti-Semitic writings and has been caught plagiarizing the same as well.
More recently he hasn’t done particularly well making the jump from classic UFO convention crazy to the more lucrative culture war crazy of the Alex Jones set. Though he’s been trying for years. For a while he’s been more of a punchline even among other UFO conspiracy types.
Basically people are more willing to believe in secret pedophile rings than they are that the secret pedos are space lizards. And they’d rather just be racist than go down a rabbit hole of the Jews and Blacks not being the real problem it’s the space lizards people confuse for Jews and Blacks.
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I can only apologise for my fellow countryman. I have no issue with him being denied a voice as much as practicably possible. Frankly he’s dropped out of the UK consciousness to a very large degree, and it’s disappointing that he’s contaminating society over here now.
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I wouldn’t say he originates any conspiracy theories. He is more a collector and repacker of our scabby thoughts.
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Here’s some back story (from a couple of days ago, before YT banned him):
Antisemitic conspiracy theories circulated by former sports presenter David Icke - including a claim that Jewish cultists or “Sabbatian Frankists” are responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic - have been viewed over 30 million times on social media, a new report has revealed.
Millions have also watched Mr Icke explain how Bill Gates and “the Rothschilds” form part of that cult, and how 5G networks and vaccines have made people more vulnerable to the disease.
Research for the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) suggests the conspiracy theorist’s audience of over two million followers could be worth up to £20 million in annual revenue, primarily generated by advertisers.
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