Dispatches channel 4 expose **Read Opening Post before posting**

Let’s put aside the fact that the overwhelming majority of rapes go completely unreported and unpunished.

As another poster above me says, the court process is neither here nor there for the moment. It is notoriously difficult to expose people like Brand. Harvey Weinstein would still be raping with impunity if it were not for the work of investigative journalism.

When you say I have “found him guilty”- what does that even mean? The man is still free, and incredibly wealthy. I have no power to punish him in any way. Unless you’re saying we should compel people to not believe women, like some kind of thought police experiment?

I simply believe the women. Do you think they are lying? Do you think a woman went to a rape crisis centre as part of an incredibly long game strategy to collude with multiple other women who are unknown to her, a decade later?

Ultimately a decent person in his position wouldn't take advantage of these women, but how many decent people get into these positions to begin with?

Yeah, very easy to turn them against their parents as they want to rebel.

Just imagine a 35 year old senior manager in an office targeting a 16 year old transition year student purely for sex. That's pretty much what Brand has done targeting the runner. Considered the entry level job that's usually done by kids for work experience. That alone is bad, even if it was entirely consenting it would be bad.

It's not odd- you just aren't engaging with the points multiple posters have made wrt "innocent until proven guilty".

"Innocent until proven guilty" relates to criminal charges in a court of law. It applies to statements of fact. It does not and never has applied to judgments of reputation or personal judgments as to what you think happened.

Multiple posters have cited the credibility of the media outlets breaking this story against Russell Brand as a factor in which version of events they find more credible. Also, the UK laws on libel and defamation are heavily weighted in the favour of Brand should he choose to vindicate his reputation in a court of law. Another factor in strengthening the credibility of the media outlets that they have published these allegations, opening themselves up to massive legal damages - if they cannot stand over them.

You continue to ignore the fact that multiple posters have cited these points.

So nope, essentially people are not doing that. That is just you tarnishing their motives.

I agree. I think in all cases people will form and voice their own opinions, but ultimately regardless of anyone's opinions, all such cases should go through the appropriate investigations and proceedings dependent on the amount/strength of the evidence.

Afterwards, people may still disagree with the result and still hold to their own opinion, but that tends to be what happens regardless.

Exactly, I'm sure we've all made some dumb decisions, probably with drink involved, when teenagers or in our 20's.

Doing dumb things is a bit of a rite of passage. That doesn't preclude somebody 10 years later saying WTF? What somebody did to me then was wrong or fecked up.

And of course, Brand is still out there doing the same thing over and over, for all we know. He doesn't have a great record of recovery, the definition of an addictive personality with narcissism.

Sean Locke had him well sussed.

I was also about to post about Winona Ryder being found guilty of shoplifting clothes years ago even though she could afford them.

Just because Brand was able to have lots of consensual sex, doesn't mean he didn't also then cross into non-consensual acts. He once held up filming on a movie for two hours because he refused to go on set until one of the women in the wardrobe department showed him her breasts, which she eventually did just to try keep the filming schedule on track.

Just because someone has ample opportunity for sex, doesn't mean they don't cross boundaries. If anything the argument could be made that regular sex becomes mundane and they seek greater thrills.

'I'd also note that Dispatches and The Times would not have published/aired all of this without substantial evidence to back it up, and focusing on only the things they have substantial evidence for, as otherwise they would leave themselves extremely liable.'

That is a circular argument imo: "People don't want to get sued for defamation therefore they must be telling the truth." Uh okay.

Except The Sunday Times has been sued for defamation before and lost after it was found they were fabricating stories. I've linked to it upthread.

In fact all these media outlets have defamation insurance and get hit with lawsuits from time to time. In the worst case scenario their insurance premiums go up but they aren't bankrupted.

Someone is probably getting sacked from GB News for not following the station line.

I can't stand Russell Brand and it wouldn't at all surprise me if this was all true but one thing that has caught my attention is the double standard at play by social media companies and their media cheerleaders no matter what side of the political divide they are on.

It seems innocent until proven guilty doesn't mean much anymore. Here is YouTube's rationale for discontinuing monetisation of Brand's videos.

“We have suspended monetisation on Russell Brand’s channel for violating our creator responsibility policy. If a creator’s off-platform behaviour harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community"

"To protect the community". Of course the Guardian or New York Times will say "Bravo" and not challenge an obvious problem here which is this...

Do social media companies have the right to actively punish individuals before they are found guilty of crimes?

As to why it's a double standard - when Musk takes an action with his company against organisations on the left and their freedom to say what they want to say or allow right wing mouth pieces have more say the same media outlets rightly condemn Twitter.

They aren't condemning YouTube for acting as judge, jury and executioner here.

Seems to me this is a very slippery slope that should get more attention.

Otherwise just the act of accusing someone can have immediate financial consequences by private companies, being industrious and hypocritical to say the least with the application of their terms and conditions, that can only be seen as punishment before a court has given it's verdict.

I'm not saying they published it and are therefore telling the truth, simply that they have carried out an extensive investigation and given the strict libel/defamation laws in Britain, as well as the reputational and financial damages they would incur if they weren't confident in their reporting, they proceeded with their reports.

At the very least it demonstrates they are willing to stand over their investigation and reporting and would likely have had it reviewed by legal departments in advance, rather than just working off unsubstantiated claims and hearsay.

Doesn't mean everything they've reported is true, or that Brand couldn't sue for defamation on some or all of it. But they're also not going to post their reports if they didn't believe there's a good chance they'd win if it went to court based on the evidence they've accumulated.

Kind of reminds me the the Vera Pau story in the Athletic published a few months back. The journalists were on Off the Ball and the presenter asked about the veracity of the allegations.

Her response was how many people alleging bad stuff does it take?

1.......7.........100?

Where's the line you have to start thinking, I'd prefer there was nothing to this and she's the Irish manager, but ............

Just because he had consensual sex 99% of the time, doesn’t allow him free rein over the 1% who said no.

The problem is, I’d say, that he was so used to everyone consenting that he didn’t know what to do when somebody said no and just went ahead like he normally did anyway.

Of course he’s still a free man in the eyes of the law but we’ll see how long that lasts. He could always go to court to clear his name and win damages for slander/libel, if he clearly believes these are false allegations. Doubt that he will though. Chances are he will say the courts are tools of the establishment and will be prejudiced against him.

As for him losing his livelihood if the allegations are untrue, he was already blacklisted by the mainstream media well before this documentary. However, I’m sure his supporters won’t see him go broke. Would be interesting though to see him actually become part of the proletariat and removed from his privileged lifestyle. Maybe then he could find some true empathy for the working class.