Never Is Now 2019 | ADL International Leadership Award Presented to Sacha Baron Cohen

thank you very much, thank you to everyone who stood up unnecessary but very flattering. Thank you Jonathan for your kind words, thank you to the anti-defamation league for this recognition and your work in the fight against racism, hatred and intolerance and for being clear when I say racism, hatred and intolerance I am not referring to the names of labradoodles by Stephen Miller, I now realize that some of you may be thinking what the hell is a comedian doing speaking at a conference like this. Certainly, I've spent the better part of the last two decades in In fact, this is the first time I've stood up and given a speech as my least popular character, Sacha Baron Cohen, and I must confess, he's terrifying.

I realized that my presence here can also be unexpected for another reason sometimes. Some critics have said that my comedy risks reinforcing old stereotypes, the truth is that I have been passionate about challenging bigotry and bigotry throughout my life as a teenager in England. I marched against the fascist National Front and to abolish apartheid when I was a student. I traveled around the United States and wrote my thesis on the civil rights movement with the help of the ADL archives and as a comedian I have tried to use my characters to get people to let their guard down and reveal what they really believe, including their own prejudices.

I'm not going to claim that everything I've done has been for a higher purpose, yes, some of my comedy, okay, probably half of my comedy has been absolutely juvenile and the other half completely childish, but I admit that there was nothing particularly enlightening on me as Borat from Kazakhstan, the first fake news journalist who attended a mortgage brokers conference while I was completely naked, but when Bora got an entire bar in Arizona to sing through Jill in the well, he revealed the people's indifference towards anti-Semitism when, like Bruno. gay fashion reporter from Austria started kissing a man at a cage fight in Arkansas, almost starting a riot, showed the violent potential of homophobia and when in disguise, there was an ultra woke developer, I proposed building a mosque in a rural community, prompting one resident to proudly say I admit I'm racist against Muslims, this demonstrated the growing acceptance of Islamophobia, which is why I really appreciate the opportunity to be here with you today around the world.

Demagogues appeal to our worst instincts. Conspiracy theories that were once confined to the margins are going mainstream. It is as if the age of reason, the age of evidentiary argument, is ending and now knowledge is increasingly legitimized and scientific consensus is discarded, democracy that depends on shared truths is in retreat and autocracy that depends on shared lies is in March hate crimes are emerging as murderous attacks and religious and ethnic minorities now, what do all these dangerous trends have in common? I'm just a comedian and an actor. I'm no scholar, but one thing is pretty clear to me: all of this hate and violence is being facilitated by a handful on the Internet. companies that constitute the largest propaganda machine in history the largest propaganda machine in history, think about it Facebook YouTube and Google Twitter and others reach billions of people the algorithms on which these platforms depend deliberately amplify the type of content that keeps users engaged stories that appeal to our most basic instincts and that triggers outrage and fear that's why YouTube recommended videos of conspirator Alex Jones billions of times that's why fake news outperforms real news because studies show that lies spread faster than the truth and it is no surprise that the greatest propaganda machine in history has spread the oldest conspiracy theory in history the lie that Jews are somehow dangerous as it says a headline just think about what the whispers could have done with Facebook on the Internet everything can seem equally legitimate Breitbart looks like the BBC the fictional protocols of the Elders of Zion seem as valid as an ADL report and the rantings of a lunatic seem as credible as the findings of a Nobel Prize winner we've lost, it seems like a shared sense of basic facts on which democracy depends when I, as a wannabe led gangsta, asked astronaut Buzz.

Aldrin, would you like to walk on the sun? The joke worked because we, the audience, shared the same facts. If you think the moon landing was a hoax, the joke doesn't work when Borat got that bar in Arizona to agree that Jews control everyone's money. and they

never

give it back, the joke worked because the audience shared the fact that the depiction of Jews as greedy is a conspiracy theory originating in the Middle Ages, but when, thanks to social media, conspiracies take hold, it is easier for hate groups to recruit more easily. Foreign intelligence agencies interfere in our elections and it is easier for a country like Myanmar to commit genocide against the Ringa.

It is now quite shocking how easy it is to turn conspiratorial thinking into violence. On my last show, Who is America, I found a normal, educated guy who had done a good job but who on social media repeated many of the conspiracy theories that his president Trump used Twitter has spread more than 1,700 times at 67 million followers on Twitter, the president even tweeted that he was considering designating Tifa and those who are anti-fascists who march against the far right as a terrorist organization in disguise and then as an Israeli counter-terrorism expert: hahaha, harmalard yalla let him go disguised as him.

I told my interviewee there at the Women's March in San Francisco and Tifa were conspiring to put hormones in babies' diapers to make them spin again there and this man believed it. I ordered him to place small devices on three innocent people at the March and explained that when he pressed a button he would set off an explosion that would kill them all. They're not real explosives, of course, but he thought they were. He wanted to see if he would really do it. The answer was yes. He pressed the button and thought that he had actually killed three human beings.

Voltaire was right when he said those that can make you believe absurd. they can make you commit atrocities and social media enables authoritarianism now in their defense these social media companies have taken some measures to reduce hate and conspiracies on their platforms these measures have been mostly superficial and I talk about this today because I believe that our Pluralistic democracies are on the brink and in the next 12 months the role of social networks could be decisive now British voters will go to the polls while online Spira claims to promote the despicable great replacement theory that white Christians are being deliberately replaced by Muslims.

American immigrants will vote for president as trolls and BOTS perpetuate the disgusting lie of a Hispanic invasion and after years of YouTube videos calling climate change a hoax, the United States is on track to formally withdraw within a year of the Paris Agreements. of intolerance and vile conspiracy theories that threaten our democracy to some extent on our planet. This cannot be what the creators of the Internet had in mind. I think it's time for a fundamental rethinking of social media and how it spreads hate conspiracies and lies now last month, however, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg gave an important speech that, unsurprisingly, warned against new laws and regulations for companies like yours.

Well, some of these arguments are just part of my French. Let's count the ways Zuckerberg first tried to portray this whole issue as choices around free speech that are ridiculous. It's not about limiting anyone's free speech, it's about giving people, including some of the most reprehensible people on the planet, the largest platform in history to reach a third of the planet, freedom of expression is not freedom of reach, unfortunately. There will always be anti-Semites, racist misogynists and child abusers, but I think we can all agree agree that we should not give bigots and pedophiles a free platform to amplify their views and attack their victims.

Secondly, Mark Zuckerberg claimed that new limits on what is posted on social media would be a brake on free speech, this is complete nonsense, the First Amendment says that and I quote that Congress shall make no law that limit free speech, however this does not apply to private companies like Facebook, we are not asking these companies to determine the limits of free speech across society, we just want them to be responsible on their platforms now, If a neo-Nazi goose-steps into a restaurant and starts threatening other customers and says he wants to kill Jews, would the restaurant owner be a private person?

Businesses will be required to serve you a fancy eight course meal, of course not, the restaurant owner has every legal right and in fact I would say there is a moral obligation to expel that Nazi, just like these Internet companies, now third parties. Mark Zuckerberg seemed to equate regulation of companies. like yours to the actions of the most repressive societies incredible this from one of the six people who decide what information much of the world sees Zuckerberg is at Facebook sundar pichai at Google at its parent company Alphabet Larry Page and the former sister of Sergey Brin Bryn -politician Susan Wojcicki on YouTube and Jack Dorsey on Twitter the silicon six all billionaires all Americans who care more about increasing their stock prices than protecting democracy this this is ideological imperialism six unelected individuals in Silicon Valley imposing their vision to the rest of the world is not accountable to any government and acts as if they were a bomb for the reach of the law, it is as if we lived in the Roman Empire and Mark Zuckerberg was Caesar, at least that would explain his haircut.

Now, here's an idea instead of letting the silicon. sects decide the fate of the world, let our elected representatives, voted for by the people of all the democracies of the world, have at least something to say. Fourth Zuckerberg talks about welcoming a diversity of ideas and last year he gave us an example, he said he found a position. Denying the Holocaust is deeply offensive, but he didn't think Facebook should remove them because I think there are things that different people are wrong about right now. There are still Holocaust deniers on Facebook and Google still takes you to the most repulsive Holocaust denial sites. sites with a simple click, one of the bosses at Google actually told me that these sites only show both sides of the issue.

This is crazy, to quote Edward R. Murrow. It cannot be accepted that in every story there are equal and logical sides to an argument. Unfortunately, we have millions of pieces of evidence from the Holocaust. It is a historical fact and denying it is not a random opinion. Those who deny the Holocaust seek to promote another. Still, Zugerberg says people should decide what's credible — not tech companies, but our times. When two-thirds of Millennials say they've

never

even heard of Auschwitz, how are they supposed to know what's credible? How are they supposed to know that the lie is a lie?

Is there something called objective truth? The facts exist and if these Internet companies really want to make a difference, they should hire enough monitors to closely monitor the work with groups like ADL and n-double-a-cp, insist on the facts and eliminate these lies and conspiracies from their platforms now, when the difficulty is discussed. from removing content Zuka berg mark zuckerberg asked where do you draw the line yes drawing the line may be difficult but this is what it really says removing more of these lies and conspiracies is too expensive these are the richest companies in the world and They have the best engineers in the world could solve these problems if they wanted to.

Twitter could implement an algorithm to remove more white supremacist hate speech, but apparently they haven't because it would kick some very prominent politicians off their platform, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing, the truth is these companies won't change fundamentally because their entire business model is based on generating more engagement and nothing generates more engagement than lies, fear and outrage, so it's time to finally call these companies what they really are the largest publishers in the world. history, so here is an idea to make them comply with basic standards and practices, just like newspapers, magazines and television news do every day, we have standards and practices in television and movies, there are certain things which we cannot say or do in England.

They told me that G alley could not curse when it appeared beforefrom 9 p.m. Here in the US, the Motion Picture Association of America regulates and rates what we watch. I have cut or reduced scenes from my films to meet those standards. Now, if there are standards and practices on what cinemas and television channels can show, then surely the companies. that publish material for billions of people should have to comply with basic standards and practices to take now let's take the issue of political ads about which Facebook has been decided fortunately Twitter finally banned them and today I read that Google is making changes but if they Facebook payers will run any political ad you want, even if it's a lie, and they'll even help you direct those lies to their users for maximum effect under this twisted logic.

If Facebook existed in the 1930s, it would have allowed Hitler to run 30-second ads. announcements about his solution to the Jewish problem, so here is a good standard and practice. Facebook begins fact-checking political ads before publishing them. Stop the microtargeted lies immediately and when the fake ads return the money and don't run them, here's another one. good practice to slow down each post it is not necessary to post immediately Oscar Wilde once said that we live in a time when unnecessary things are our only need, but let me ask you is to instantly post online every thought or video, even if it is racist or The criminal murder is really a necessity, of course, not the shooter who massacred Muslims in New Zealand live-streamed his atrocity on Facebook, where it then spread across the Internet and was viewed probably millions of times; was a snuff film brought to light through social media, why can't we delay further so that this trauma-inducing filth can be detected and stopped before it is released?

Finally, Zuckerberg said that social media companies should live up to their responsibilities, but he is completely silent on the matter. What should happen if they don't do it now? It is quite clear that they cannot be trusted to regulate themselves as with the Industrial Revolution it is time for regulation and legislation to curb the greed of these high tech robber

baron

s in every other industry where a company can. being held liable when your product is defective when engines explode or seat belts fail the car company recalls tens of thousands of vehicles at a cost of billions of dollars it only seems fair to tell Facebook, YouTube and Twitter that their product is defective and you are obligated to repair it.

No matter how much it costs and no matter how many moderators you need to employ at each entry in any other industry, you can be sued for the damage you caused. Publishers can be sued for defamation. People can be sued for defamation. I have been sued many times. Right now I'm being sued by someone whose name I won't mention because they might see me again, but social media companies are largely shielded from liability for content their users post, no matter how indecent, under Section 230. F get ready for the Communications Decency Act, it's absurd, fortunately internet companies can now be held responsible for pedophiles who use their site to prey on children, so I say let's also hold these companies responsible for those who They use their sites to defend the mass murder of children because of their race or religion and maybe the fines aren't enough maybe it's time to tell Mark Zuckerberg and the CEOs of these companies that you already allowed a foreign power to interfere in our elections, you already facilitated a genocide in the anime, do it again and go to jail in the end it all comes down to what kind of world we want in his speech Zuckerberg said that one of his main goals is to defend a definition of freedom of expression that broadest possible sounds good, yes, our freedoms are not just an end in themselves, they are also the means to another end, as you say here in the US, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but today these rights are threatened by conspiracies of hate and lies, so let me leave you with a suggestion. for a different goal for society the ultimate goal of society should be to ensure that people are not attacked, harassed or killed because of who they are, where they come from, who they love or how they pray, if we make that our goal, if prioritize truth over lies, tolerance over prejudice, empathy over indifference and experts over ignorance, then maybe we can stop the greatest propaganda machine in history, we can save democracy, we can still have a place to freedom of expression and, most importantly, my The jokes will still work thank you very much.