Thank you very much. Thanks to everyone who stood up.
Unnecessary but very flattering.
Thank you, Jonathan, for your very kind words.
Thank you, the Anti-Defamation League,
for this recognition
and your work in fighting racism, hate and bigotry.
And to be clear,
when I say racism, hate, and bigotry
I'm not referring to the names of Stephen Miller's labradoodles.
[audience laughs]
Now, I realize that some of you may be thinking:
"What the hell is a comedian doing speaking at a conference like this?"
I certainly am.
[audience laughs]
I've spent most of the past two decades in character.
In fact, this is the first ever time that I've stood up and given a speech
as my least popular character: Sacha Baron Cohen.
[audience laughs]
[audience cheers]
And, I have to confess, it is terrifying.
I realize that my presence here may also be unexpected for another reason:
At times, some critics have said my comedy
risks reinforcing old stereotypes.
The truth is, I've been passionate about challenging bigotry and intolerance
throughout my life.
As a teenager in England,
I marched against the fascist National Front
and to abolish apartheid.
As an undergraduate, I traveled around America
and wrote my thesis about the Civil Rights Movement
with the help of the archives of the ADL;
and as a comedian, I've tried to use my characters
to get people to let down their guard
and reveal what they actually believe,
including their own prejudice.
Now, I'm not gonna claim everything I've done
has been for a higher purpose.
Yes, some of my comedy –
okay, probably half my comedy –
has been absolutely juvenile.
[audience laughs]
And the other half completely puerile.
But... [audience laughs]
I admit there was nothing particularly enlightening about me
as Borat from Kazakhstan,
the first 'fake news' journalist,
[audience laughs]
running through a conference of mortgage brokers
while I was completely naked.
[audience laughs]
But when Borat was able to get an entire bar in Arizona to sing
♪ throw the Jew down the well ♪
[audience laughs]
it did reveal people's indifference to anti-semitism.
When, as Bruno, the gay fashion reporter from Austria,
I started kissing a man in a cage fight in Arkansas,
nearly starting a riot,
it showed the violent potential of homophobia.
And, when disguised as an ultra-woke developer,
I proposed building a mosque in one rural community,
prompting a resident to proudly admit:
"I am racist against Muslims,"
it showed the growing acceptance of islamophobia.
That's why I really appreciate the opportunity to be here with you.
Today, around the world,
demagogues appeal to our worst instincts.
Conspiracy theories, once confined to the fringe,
are going mainstream.
It's as if the age of reason, the era of evidential argument
is ending,
and now knowledge is increasingly delegitimized
and scientific consensus is dismissed.
Democracy, which depends on shared truths,
is in retreat,
and autocracy, which depends on shared lies,
is on the march.
Hate crimes are surging,
as are murderous attacks on religious and ethnic minorities.
Now, what do all these dangerous trends have in common?
I'm just a comedian and an actor,
I'm not a scholar, but one thing is pretty clear to me:
All this hate and violence is being facilitated
by a handful of Internet companies
that amount to the greatest propaganda machine in history.
[audience applauds]
The greatest propaganda machine in history.
Let's think about it. Facebook, YouTube...
...Google, Twitter and others –
they reach billions of people.
The algorithms these platforms depend on
deliberately amplify
the type of content that keeps users engaged;
stories that appeal to our baser instincts,
and that trigger outrage and fear.
It's why YouTube recommended videos by the conspiracist Alex Jones
billions of times.
It's why fake news outperforms real news,
because studies show that lies spread faster than truth.
And it's 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 one headline put it:
"Just think what Goebbles could have done with Facebook."
[audience groans]
On the internet,
everything can appear equally legitimate.
Breitbart resembles the BBC,
the fictitious protocols of the Elders of Zion
look as valid as an ADL report,
and the rantings of a lunatic seem as credible
as the findings of a Nobel Prize winner.
We have lost, it seems, a shared sense of basic facts
upon which democracy depends.
When I, as the wanna-be-gansta Ali G,
asked the astronaut Buzz Aldrin:
"what woz it like to walk on de sun??"
[audience laughs]
the joke worked because we, the audience, shared the same facts.
If you believe the moon landing was a hoax
the joke doesn't work.
When Borat got that bar in Arizona to agree that,
♪ Jews control everybody's money and they never give it back ♪
the joke worked because the audience shared the fact
that the depiction of Jews as miserly
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,
easier for foreign intelligence agencies
to interfere in our elections,
and easier for a country like Myanmar to commit genocide against the Rohingya.
[audience applauds]
Now, it's actually quite shocking
how easy it is to turn conspiracy thinking into violence.
In my last show, "Who is America?"
I found an educated, normal guy who'd held down a good job,
but who, on social media,
repeated many of the conspiracy theories
that President Trump, using Twitter,
has spread more than 1700 times to his 67 million Twitter followers.
The president even tweeted that he was considering designating Antifa
who are anti-fascists who march against the far-right,
as a terror organization.
So, disguised as an Israeli anti-terrorism expert,
Colonel Erran Morad,
[audience laughs]
[in a foreign accent] "Yalla. Let go"
[audience laughs]
Disguised as him, I told my interviewee
that at the Women's March in San Francisco
Antifa were plotting to put hormones into babies' diapers in order to
[in a foreign accent] "make them transgender,"
[audience laughs]
And this man believed it.
I instructed him to plant small devices on three innocent people at the march,
and explained that, when he pushed a button,
he'd trigger an explosion that would kill them all.
They weren't real explosives, of course, but he thought they were.
I wanted to see, would he actually do it?
The answer was yes.
He pushed the button and thought he had actually killed three human beings.
Voltaire was right when he said,
"Those who can make you believe absurdities
"can make you commit atrocities."
And social media lets authoritarians push absurdities to billions of people.
In their defense,
these social media companies have taken some steps to reduce hate
and conspiracies on their platforms,
but these steps have been mainly superficial.
And I'm talking about this today
because I believe that our pluralistic democracies
are on a precipice and that the next 12 months,
and the role of social media could be determinant.
British voters will go to the polls
while online conspiracists
promote the despicable theory of the "great replacement,"
that white Christians are being deliberately replaced
by Muslim immigrants.
Americans will vote for president
while 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, a year from now,
to formally withdraw from the Paris Accords.
A sewer of bigotry and vile conspiracy theories
that threaten our democracy, and to some degree, our planet.
This can't possibly be what the creators of the internet had in mind.
I believe that it's time for a fundamental rethink of social media
and how it spreads hate, conspiracies and lies.
(Audience cheers; applauds)
Last month, however, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook
delivered a major speech
that, not surprisingly, warned against new laws and regulations
on companies like his.
Well, some of these arguments are simply...
...pardon my French, bullshit.
Let's count the ways.
First, Zuckerberg tried to portray this whole issue as
"choices around free expression."
That is ludicrous.
This is not about limiting anyone's free speech.
This is about giving people –
including some of the most reprehensible people on earth –
the biggest platform in history to reach a third of the planet.
Freedom of speech is not freedom of reach.
Sadly, there will always be racists,
misogynists, anti-semites and child abusers,
but I think we can all agree
that we shouldn't be giving bigots and pedophiles
a free platform to amplify their views and target their victims.
[audience applauds]
Second, Mark Zuckerberg claimed that new limits
on what's posted on social media
would be "to pull back on free expression."
This is utter nonsense.
The First Amendment says that, and I quote:
"Congress shall make no law... abridging freedom of speech."
However, this does not apply to private businesses like Facebook.
We're not asking these companies to determine the boundaries of free speech
across society,
we just want them to be responsible on their platforms.
If neo-nazi comes goose-stepping into a restaurant
and starts threatening other customers and says he wants to kill Jews,
would the owner of the restaurant, a private business,
be required to serve him an elegant 8-course meal?
Of course not!
The restaurant owner has every legal right –
and indeed, I would argue, a moral obligation –
to kick that Nazi out.
And so do these internet companies.
[audience applauds]
Now third.
Mark Zuckerberg seemed to equate regulation of companies like his
to the actions of "the most repressive societies."
Incredible.
This from one of the six people who decide what information
so much of the world sees:
Zuckerberg at Facebook,
Sundar Pichai at Google,
at its parent company Alphabet, Larry Page and Sergey Brin,
Brin’s ex-sister-in-law, Susan Wojcicki at YouTube,
and Jack Dorsey at Twitter.
The Silicon Six.
All billionaires, all Americans,
who care more about boosting their share price
than about protecting democracy.
[audience applauds]
This is ideological imperialism.
Six unelected individuals in Silicon Valley
imposing their vision on the rest of the world,
unaccountable to any government
and acting like they're above the reach of law.
It's like we're living in the Roman Empire,
and Mark Zuckerberg is Caesar.
At least that would explain his haircut.
[audience laughs]
Now here's an idea.
Instead of letting the Sillicon Six decide the fate of the world,
let our elected representatives,
voted for by the people of every democracy in the world,
have at least some say.
Fourth, Zuckerberg speaks of welcoming
"a diversity of ideas,"
and last year he gave us an example.
He said that he found posts denying the Holocaust
"deeply offensive,"
but he didn't think Facebook should take them down
"because I think there are things that different people get wrong."
At this very moment, there are still Holocaust deniers on Facebook,
and Google still takes you
to the most repulsive Holocaust denial sites
with a simple click.
One of the heads of Google, in fact, told me that these sites just show
"both sides" of the issue.
[audience groans]
This is madness.
To quote Edward R. Murrow:
One "cannot accept that there are, on every story,
"two equal and logical sides to an argument."
We have, unfortunately, millions of pieces of evidence
for the Holocaust.
It is an historical fact.
And denying it is not some random opinion.
Those who deny the Holocaust aim to encourage another one.
[audience applauds]
Still, Zuckerberg says that "people should decide what is credible,
"not tech companies."
But at a time when two-thirds of Millenials
say they haven't 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?
There is such a thing as objective truth.
Facts do exist.
And if these internet companies really want to make a difference
they should hire enough monitors to actually monitor,
work closely with groups like the ADL and the NAACP,
insist on facts, and purge these lies and conspiracies from their platforms.
[audience applauds]
Now, fifth, when discussing the difficulty of removing content,
Zuckerberg...
Mark Zuckerberg asked, "where do you draw the line?"
Yes, drawing the line can be difficult,
but here's what he's really saying:
removing more of these lies and conspiracies
is just too expensive.
These are the richest companies in the world,
and they have the best engineers in the world.
They could fix these problems if they wanted to.
Twitter could deploy an algorithm
to remove more white supremacist hate speech,
but they reportedly haven't
because it would eject some very prominent politicians
from their platform.
[audience groans]
Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.
[audience applauds, cheers]
The truth is
these companies won't fundamentally change
because their entire business model
relies 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 history.
So here's an idea for them:
abide by basic standards and practices
just like newspapers, magazines and TV news do everyday.
We have standards and practices in television and the movies.
There are certain things we cannot say or do.
In England, I was told that Ali G
couldn't curse when he appeared before 9 p.m.
Here in the US, the Motion Picture Association of America
regulates and rates what we see.
I've had scenes in my movies cut or reduced to abide by those standards.
If there are standards and practices for what cinemas and TV channels can show
then, surely companies that publish material
to billions of people
should have to abide basic standards and practices too.
[audience applauds]
Take the issue of political ads,
on which Facebook have been resolute.
Fortunately, Twitter finally banned them,
and Google, today I read, is making changes too.
But, if you pay them,
Facebook will run any political ad you want,
even if it's a lie.
And they'll even help you micro-target those ads to their users
for maximum effect.
Under this twisted logic,
if Facebook were around in the 1930s
it would have allowed Hitler to post 30-second ads
on his solution to the "Jewish problem."
So here's a good standard and practice:
Facebook, start fact-checking political ads before you run them,
stop micro-targeted lies immediately,
and when the ads are false,
give back the money and don't publish them.
[audience applauds]
Here's another good practice:
slow down.
Every single post doesn't need to be published immediately.
Oscar Wilde once said: "We live in an age
"when unnecessary things are our only necessity."
But...
But, let me ask you, is having every thought
or video posted instantly online,
even if it's racist or criminal or murderous,
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 likely millions of times.
It was a snuff film, brought to you by social media.
Why can't we have more of a delay
so that this trauma-inducing filth
can be caught and stopped before it's posted in the first place?
[audience applauds]
Finally, Zuckerberg said that social media companies should
"live up to their responsibilities,"
but he's totally silent about what should happen when they don't.
By now, it's pretty clear
they can't be trusted to regulate themselves.
As with Industrial Revolution, it's time for regulation
and legislation to curb the greed of these high-tech robber barons.
[audience applauds]
In in every other industry,
a company can be held liable when their product is defective.
When engines explode or seat belts malfunction,
car company's recall tens of thousands of vehicles
at a cost of billions of dollars.
It only seems fair to say to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter:
Your product is defective,
you are obliged to fix it,
no matter how much it costs
and no matter how many moderators you need to employ.
[audience applauds, cheers]
In every under-- sorry
In every other industry you can be sued for the harm you cause.
Publishers can be sued for libel, people can be sued for defamation.
I've been sued many times!
[audience laughs]
I'm being sued right now
by someone whose name I won't mention because he might sue me again!
[audience laughs]
But social media companies are largely protected from liability
for the content their users post –
no matter how indecent it is –
by Section 230 of, get ready for it,
the Communications Decency Act.
It's absurd!
Fortunately, internet companies can now be held responsible for pedophiles
who use their site to target children.
So I say,
let's also hold these companies
responsible for those who use their sites
to advocate for the mass murder of children
because of their race or religion.
[audience applauds]
And maybe fines are not enough.
Maybe it's time to tell Mark Zuckerberg and the CEOs of these companies
you already allowed one foreign power
to interfere in our elections.
You already facilitated one genocide in Myanmar.
Do it again and you go to jail.
[audience applauds]
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 "uphold as wide a definition of freedom of expression as possible."
It sounds good.
Yet our freedoms are not only an end in themselves.
They're 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 hate, conspiracies and lies.
So allow me to leave you with a suggestion for a different aim for society:
The ultimate aim of society
should be to make sure that people are not targeted,
not harassed and not murdered
because of who they are, where they come from,
who they love or how they pray.
[audience applauds, cheers]
If we make that our aim –
if we prioritize truth over lies,
tolerance over prejudice,
empathy over indifference,
and experts over ignoramuses –
[audience laughs]
then maybe, just maybe,
we can stop the greatest propaganda machine in history.
We can save democracy,
we can still have a place for free speech and free expression,
and most importantly, my jokes will still work.
Thank you very much.
[cheers and applause]