Interview 1949 - UK Censorship and the Future of BitChute with Ray Vahey

People may be thinking, well, that's terrible, but that affects just the UK. No, it doesn't, because of the nature of this implementation. The users outside the UK will also be swept up in this information gathering and will also be subjected to censorship. You're listening to The Corbett Report.

Welcome back, friends. Welcome back to The Corbett Report. I'm James Corbett of CorbettReport.com, coming to you in, well, it's April of 2025, as I'm recording this, probably me at the point at which you're watching it. And today we're going to be talking to a guest that you will know by now, Ray Vahey of BitChute.

will know him not only from his previous appearances on the Corbett Report, of course, but also from bitshoot.com, which I trust my audience will be well familiar with by now. If not, why have you not checked out Bitshoot? And why are you still watching things on... What, YouTube? Certainly not. Obviously, as people in my audience hopefully know, BitChute was started, I want to say, a decade ago.

but I guess we'll confirm that with Ray, to specifically provide an alternative to the Google monstrosity behemoth that... I've been talking about and warning about for many, many years and saying they're going to censor me. They're going to censor me. They're going to censor me. They're going to. And guess what? They censored me. But I'm still on BitChute. And I'm very grateful to Ray Vahee for...

being one of the few people to step up to the plate way back when and actually create an alternative platform. So Ray, thank you very much for coming back on the program. And do I have that right? It was 2015? Bitch, it started or 2016? Close, yeah. So it's eight years from February. But I think you were one of the very early users on a prototype, even before it was Live Live.

That was through 2016. So, yeah, it's coming up to eight years. Sorry, over eight years. It's coming up to a decade. Unbelievable, right? Unbelievable, but maybe not so unbelievable. We are getting a bit gray around the temples. But let's talk about things that are happening in BitChute World.

today in 2025 and i am sure that some of my audience will already have heard about this but if not i hope they will go to bitshoot.com UK regulation, where there is a notice right now to our valued users in the United Kingdom after careful review and ongoing evaluation of the regulatory landscape in the United Kingdom. We regret to inform you that BitChute will be discontinuing its video sharing service.

for UK residents. The introduction of the UK Online Safety Act of 2023 has brought about significant changes in the regulatory framework governing online content and community interactions. Notably, the act contains and onerous corrective measures with respect to content moderation and enforcement.

In particular, the broad enforcement powers granted to the regulator of communication services, Ofcom, have raised concerns regarding the open-ended and unpredictable nature of regulatory compliance for our platform. In other words, there is some new censorship legislation that has just been well, it's been around for a while, but I guess it's just being introduced and enforced.

now, and this is affecting sites like bitshoot.com, which I would imagine is probably part of the point. But let's get some background, some information.

orient people who may or may not be in the UK, in the corporate report audience, what is the UK Online Safety Act and how does it affect platforms like BitChute? So this act has actually been in the works for five years now. but it's only recently that the powers have actually started to come into effect and platforms have started to get their first duties.

So I would call this not an online safety act because it doesn't make people safer, it doesn't make you safe. It actually is a surveillance and censorship act. And it requires companies, platforms like BitChute or any platform operating. You don't have to be... physically inside the uk you don't have to have a corporation inside the uk which is something quite new but if you're reachable with inside the uk they consider you under their regulation

And they will require companies to surveil their users to unprecedented scales and also to censor content. And, you know, this is going to start off. slowly but then ramp up. We can see that it's already ramping up. There's new parts of it coming in in July and they've got many more plans to just increase this. But interestingly also, people may be thinking, well, that's terrible, but that affects just the UK. No, it doesn't. So because of the nature of the...

the technical nature of this implementation, the users outside the UK will also be swept up in this information gathering and will also be subjected to censorship. So if you're in the US... Don't think if you're logging onto a platform that is active in the UK that you're safe from it. You're really not. And that... was really the main reason that we felt that we had to pull out. Because looking through this act, we realised that engaging with Ofcom, cooperating with Ofcom is enabling it.

And it's not only damaging the UK, it is changing the nature of the internet around the world and making it worse and oppressing people. And BitChute, you know, is a company. that stands up for the opposite of that. We want to empower people's free speech. We want to empower their privacy. And so for us, it was really a clear choice. We had to.

leave this behind and come back with other ways to combat it rather than being part of this regime. I think any company, any platform that remains in the UK is going to be enabling this very oppressive regulation. So I would advise every platform that values free speech, that values privacy, to do the same as we've done and walk out. And another company, I should give them credit, Gab has already walked out. I completely understand and respect that decision, because as you say, collaboration.

collaborationism with statist entities like ofcom that are actively involved in this censorship regime any sort of negotiation or collaboration with them in any way is to some extent well is giving them power to do this, and in not only empowering Ofcom, but all of the Ofcoms around the world, all of their cronies around the world who are looking at this example that is being set right now. So I wish actually more.

platforms were boycotting the UK so that, well, at least Ofcom would get the message that this will not stand. At any rate, I have a number of questions. Firstly, what... Specifically, what type of content moderation, what type of censorship are we talking about here? Or is it that sort of vague, nebulous, undefined, we'll decide later sort of regulation?

Well, one thing I will say about this Act in general is very vague when it comes to defining terms all over the place. It's very vague. And, you know, that seems like it might be deliberately so, so that they can selectively enforce it. But to give you that they're starting off with terrorist content, terrorist content and child protection related content, because those are always the best things for government to come in with heavy handed overreach because, you know. you can say to platforms

don't you like children if you don't want to protect the children? But actually, so the type of surveillance that they want to be brought in is to be able to detect. if someone using the platform is a child but of course in order to detect if someone is a child you have to detect um well you have to surveil everybody using the platform so really they want platforms to treat adults as children. And, you know, this approach doesn't work. I just want to make that very clear.

probably know it doesn't work there are approaches that do work you know parents can install filters on children's clients that is a very good way to prevent your child from reaching certain content and it's also a way that isn't invading their privacy but you know the government doesn't want that they want to be able to scoop up all of this information about everyone. So they've not gone with sensible existing solutions like that. Instead they want every platform on the internet.

to be involved in this. And when I say every platform, I don't just mean platforms like Betshoot. I mean, if you've got a comment section, if you've got a forum on your community, then... you're also considered under the Online Safety Act no matter where you are in the world. So this is really, really draconian law that they're trying to enforce on the entire world. That is a stunning, stunning example of overreach. But obviously, as you say, I think they're trying to...

set a precedent here and see how far they can go with this. Well, the Corbett Report has a comment section, and I'm sure some of my users are in the UK, so I guess I fall under the loving arms of Ofcom, right? Well... Hell no. I'm certainly not going to be collaborating with them, but it will be interesting to see the ways that they try to enforce their content moderation and regulatory compliance on platforms around the world. All right, so let's...

Let's talk specifically about what BitChute is doing in the UK. Discontinuing its video sharing service for UK residents seems like a carefully formulated phrase. What does that actually mean? If you are in the UK, you cannot... watch videos on BitChute, but you can upload to BitChute? Right, so we've examined this carefully and we determined that... For them to say that we would fall under this set of this legislation, it requires us to make the content visible to UK users, but it doesn't...

mean that we have to prevent people in the UK from continuing to upload. So we wanted to... We wanted to make sure that we're not complying at all with this regulation, but we allow people to continue to reach their communities in the rest of the world. and if if people in the uk decide to you know that this is a really unfair law and decide to get around it in in some way that possibly they can then they can also see that content

Get around it. I can't imagine how anyone could possibly use a VPN or any other service. Oh, wait. Of course, that is lauded and applauded and praised when it's some Chinese dissident getting around the Great Chinese Firewall. Then every Western institution will applaud that person. But you think of doing that if you're, say, in the UK.

Oh, my God. Well, anyway, I will not get you on the record about what people should or shouldn't be doing to get around those types of IP blocks and what have you. But having said that, what... What then is the way forward for platforms like BitChute and others? Obviously, non-compliance with Ofcom is a pretty good start, but is there a way to have a more thoroughgoing response to things like the UK Online Safety Act? Well, I would say...

about VPNs in general. They are tremendous safety tools for being online because they protect your privacy not only from overreaching governments but from other malicious actors.

so people who might try to snoop on your details on public wi-fi it protects you from that or you know just in general you might not want to share your IP address with every platform on the internet so I've been a long time supporter of those and I would say you know we we shouldn't all wait for someone to come and save us there's things that each of us as sovereign individuals can do right now, today.

and one of those things is get a vpn and that doesn't matter if you're in the uk or if you're elsewhere in the world i think in 2025 this is a necessity it's no longer just something that you might consider So I would say to everyone, to all of your viewers, get a VPN. What are you doing if you don't have a VPN in 2025? And not only that, I would say, hey, maybe you've got friends and family who've got birthdays coming up. Bye.

all of them a VPN subscription. If every viewer here bought five subscriptions for their friends and family, laws like this would soon not even be possible. The type of surveillance that they depend on would just, you know, evaporate overnight. So that is one real thing that we could do. But it does require people taking some personal responsibility for themselves.

To be fair, okay, one is that we should stress that you're just moving the trust factor, as it were, to the VPN itself. So you better... know the VPN company you're using and trust them with all of your data that they will be getting third party as a middleman. So there are privacy respecting VPNs in the world. There are...

privacy disrespecting VPNs in the world. And so that's just something to keep in mind. But secondly, won't, I mean, even if people do circumvent, for example, the UK Online Safety Act with VPNs, Won't that just entice the regulators to come after the VPNs? And won't that create sort of a second level of the problem?

Well, I'd say on this, VPNs have got many uses. So if they went after VPNs, then they would be disrupting an entire industry and businesses. But maybe they still will. But there's one thing I'm confident of. You know, we can innovate faster than governments can regulate. Governments are slow. It took them five years to get this through Parliament and to get it to even start to come into power. So if...

People take personal responsibility. There will be other solutions. If government shuts down VPN, there's already Tor. If they shut down that, there will be new solutions coming out all the time. We just have to educate ourselves.

use the solutions as they are presented to us and that that's the big hurdle actually getting people to adopt these things and you know I can understand sometimes grandma doesn't know she's not very technical she just barely used the internet well that's probably even more reason for to have for her to have one of these tools because she needs protection online so you know go around to grandma's house install it for her tell her now all you need to do is click that button and that's that's

making you safe. Send her this video. And, you know, content creators can do a lot, I think, to help with this. I know you've made videos about VPNs in the past, but I would call on all content creators who like the way that the internet is to... educate their users, keep them up to date on what are the best tools, what are not so good tools to use to stay safe and if we work together like this we can really defeat something.

like the Online Safety Act, and caused the British government to reverse course. Now, Ray, I know you're not in the UK anymore, but... You are from the UK and presumably have contacts and roots there and know something about the environment. What is your sense of the public reaction to this Online Safety Act and what they're seeing going on right now with regards to this type of regulatory compliance?

It's very mixed. So the people who know, the people who are aware are appalled by it. But it's being sold on the legacy media as... hey, there's huge problems online and this will protect the children. So I think people are falling for that propaganda, even though it won't. It's not a solution. People are still falling for it. yeah we have to educate people.

There's so many problems with this regulation. We're making the internet so dangerous, in fact. If you've got every platform scooping up massive amounts of data... then you're making an incredible, tempting hoddy park for criminals. And, you know, the people in the UK are largely, if they're only watching legacy media, hearing one side of the story, which is very unfortunate. I think people who have crossed over to the alternative media.

largely know that this is just outrageous and that it's a complete violation of our privacy, our free speech and our human dignity. And it's not just... People watching the legacy media for news specifically. I don't know the details of this because I'm... happily detached from a lot of the legacy entertainment media. But I understand there's some sort of new show, Netflix or whatever, that has recently...

been garnering a lot of public concern about the problem of knife crime and misinformation on the internet or something along those lines. I haven't seen this. I don't even remember the name of this program, but I understand it's even come up in parliamentary debates. on the issue of internet censorship and other such things. Do you know of this show that people are talking about? Yes, it's called Adolescence. And let's be clear, this is fiction.

But multiple times MPs, including the Prime Minister of the UK, have described this as a documentary and they are pushing it. extremely hard onto the uk public and they want to show it in schools i'm not sure if that's already happening or not i think it might be so this is fiction this is a complete out of someone's mind what they think is happening online. And it's been pushed extremely hard by the establishment to try and bring about.

some sort of consensus on this massive government overreach. Well you know it occurs to me that Unfortunately, I certainly know a lot of the British people fell under the programming of the COVID-1984 regime and the stay home and all of that type of, you know, support the NHS, don't kill grandma.

you know, wear your mask, be obedient. Unfortunately, I know a lot of people did fall for that programming. And the social engineers who were working on that psychological campaign... quite specifically like at spy b for people who don't know about that spib look it up they literally talked about how they were trying to instill fear in the public maximize the the fear in order to get them compliant well

Do you think they might have learned a thing or two and might be applying it towards the next agenda item that they're trying to check off, like online censorship? Well, that seems to be what is happening right now. And again... I would imagine most of the people listening to this conversation would be well aware of those types of techniques, but probably your neighbor isn't. So while you're buying your neighbor...

their VPN subscription and sending them this video, you can also inform them about the types of psychological operations that are underway to make them scared and obedient when it comes to issues like this. Having said that, maybe the best place to send them would be bitshoot.com so they can start seeing what a platform looks like when they do not bow down to the Ofcom regulators. Of course.

they would require that VPN to see it if they're in the UK. But anyway, I think we have covered a lot of ground here today, Ray, but is there anything else you'd like to tell the audience about? Just to repeat, buy a VPN. buy a VPN for all your family and actually there's one thing I would like to say as well there's Elon Musk has been

making a lot of noise about how big of a supporter he is for free speech and privacy. So is Mark Zuckerberg. They've both been recently saying how much of the good guys they are. So I would say, you know... Hold them to their words. If you're on those platforms, under every message that they post, put a reply saying, hey, when are you pulling out of the UK? Why are you enabling this?

this awful regime by cooperating with it. And I will say to everyone, be aware that if you are using those platforms, your data is going to be... sucked up in an increasing amount. So, you know, be aware of that and consider using other platforms as they walk away as alternatives.

This is it. I think we all have a part to play in this, if only by our cooperation or non-cooperation, whether we will comply and obediently continue to use the services that we know are being sicked against us, or whether we will seek out the alternatives. Like Bitshoot. Bitshoot.com. All right, Vrei Vahi, very important conversation here. I hope people will follow the links back to Bitshoot and to your post about this and to...

As you say, start at least taking a look at the VPN universe and starting to position ourselves to be non-compliant in all of this. Let me salute you for what you've been doing for... eight, nine, ten years now, whatever it is, and what I have no doubt you will continue to do. So thank you for your time today. Thank you so much, James. Thank you for all you do as well. I've been a long term subscriber of the corporate report and not many people know, but where I first learned about.

censorship coming into the alternative media and particularly into the libertarian space was from the Corbett report so thank you for that all the way back in maybe I want to say 2014, 2015. Excellent. Very gratified to hear that. Well, thank you, Ray, for doing what you do. And we'll talk to you again soon. Thank you. The Deep State. False Flags. 9-11 Truth. The Federal Reserve. Secret wars and hidden histories. Fake news. Medical martial law. Ceaseless propaganda. James Corbett.

Repertage. Essays on the New World Order. Available where books are sold. Until they're not. Bye. Bye.