WEBVTT 00:04.500 --> 00:08.500 This is Dan Dix here reporting for Press for Truth. I am in beautiful Puerto 00:08.500 --> 00:14.440 Vallarta, Mexico and I am joined right now by Ray Vahe, the CEO and founder of 00:14.440 --> 00:18.720 Bitshoot, a man who started a platform that I can't be more thankful enough for 00:18.720 --> 00:23.400 because you know had he not half the people would not even be aware that I 00:23.400 --> 00:29.120 still existed after I got banned from YouTube. So Ray first of all you know 00:29.120 --> 00:32.220 thank you for taking some time to speak with me here. I love the shirt 00:32.220 --> 00:37.260 Bitshoot makes beach free again. Tell us about I well I guess let's start off 00:37.260 --> 00:41.220 with telling us what brought you to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico here. Do you know 00:41.220 --> 00:44.580 I've been meaning to come to this conference for years because it's full 00:44.580 --> 00:49.260 of like-minded people who believe in freedom, free speech, privacy, all the 00:49.260 --> 00:53.520 things that Bitshoot stands for. So it's something I wanted to come to and 00:53.520 --> 00:58.540 Jeff asked me hey Ray would you like to come and speak so I thought I 00:58.540 --> 01:02.480 can't miss that opportunity and it's also a chance to meet a lot of Bitshoot 01:02.480 --> 01:07.080 content creators like yourself in person of course we've been speaking for years 01:07.080 --> 01:11.260 on and off and it's been a real pleasure meeting you here and your 01:11.260 --> 01:15.600 lovely wife. Well pretty much like more than half of the attendees and 01:15.600 --> 01:21.020 certainly the speakers here are on the platform and so if anybody's not 01:21.020 --> 01:23.800 familiar with this platform you really need to be you really need to be 01:23.800 --> 01:28.080 subscribed to me there but you spoke a little bit about it in your talk and 01:28.080 --> 01:34.780 you talked about the the origins of censorship essentially and where this 01:34.780 --> 01:40.080 all came from take us back to 2017 when the platform started what made you want 01:40.080 --> 01:45.020 to even start an alternative to YouTube in the first place. So I was a massive 01:45.020 --> 01:49.640 fan of the alternative media over a decade ago even before I started 01:49.640 --> 01:54.040 Bitshoot and I was watching channels like yours like James Corbett or all 01:54.040 --> 01:58.840 sorts of content on YouTube and they even had my own YouTube channel or I was 01:58.840 --> 02:04.900 just making nursery rhyme videos in fact for my daughters but I noticed you guys 02:04.900 --> 02:09.060 especially in the libertarian movement the freedom movement we're talking 02:09.060 --> 02:13.860 about the beginnings of censorship things like videos being taken down or 02:13.860 --> 02:17.900 accounts being restricted not getting the reach that they previously got and 02:17.900 --> 02:22.400 this this is something that not many not too many people seem to know that 02:22.400 --> 02:28.680 it was the libertarians who were affected the most first the right wing came 02:28.680 --> 02:35.320 later but you guys being taken offline was a red flag for me and I thought 02:35.320 --> 02:39.240 maybe there's something I can do about it and the question was who gets to 02:39.240 --> 02:44.140 control the distribution of content big tech was saying that it should be 02:44.880 --> 02:49.340 centralized authority based on algorithms and advertisers and I thought 02:49.340 --> 02:53.820 no it should be users and the community who get to decide what they're watching 02:53.820 --> 02:58.580 as long as it's not illegal content or doing anything you know really wrong then 02:58.580 --> 03:04.680 that's why I decided to start Bitshoot. Well that goes directly against the 03:04.680 --> 03:10.260 let's call it the status quo of big major video platform sharing platforms 03:10.260 --> 03:16.040 and and so you're going against the grain you're clearly an enemy of those 03:16.040 --> 03:21.900 who want to you know censor people like me so what sorts of things have you had to 03:21.900 --> 03:25.380 deal with in terms of censorship I know you had a big deal going on with your 03:25.380 --> 03:29.680 platform in the UK tell us about that and other areas where they've tried to 03:29.680 --> 03:34.640 censor you. I think in my opinion we are the most the platform 03:35.520 --> 03:41.720 demonetized the boosted platform out there so we've dealt with all kinds 03:41.720 --> 03:48.440 DDoS attacks removal from hosting providers removal from banks removing 03:48.440 --> 03:53.500 from payments processors in fact at the time that we left the UK we couldn't 03:53.500 --> 03:59.260 get a single bank in the UK or in the entirety of Europe to open an account 03:59.260 --> 04:06.700 for us yeah so this has been a real journey finding out what you have to 04:06.700 --> 04:12.320 go up against when you want to support freedom online but I don't want to 04:12.320 --> 04:16.460 complain because there's a lot of positives here that we were able to survive 04:16.460 --> 04:21.960 and move out of the UK I would say that the final straw for us was the 04:21.960 --> 04:26.360 regulation that was coming in off-com in the UK and the online safety act 04:26.360 --> 04:31.280 which meant that if we had stayed if we had remained we could literally no 04:31.280 --> 04:35.940 longer be Bitshoot we would have had to have engaged in censorship and 04:35.940 --> 04:42.480 surveillance for the UK government for off-com so that was the red line we knew 04:42.480 --> 04:47.800 then that we had to move and we moved the company out of the UK to the US where 04:47.800 --> 04:53.400 we were able to get a bank account and continue operating with our principles 04:53.400 --> 04:57.520 free speech and privacy so it's almost like they gave you an ultimatum it 04:57.520 --> 05:02.980 was engage in censorship start silencing the voices who we tell you to 05:03.380 --> 05:07.520 or we're going to take you down it was at the options there and I honestly think 05:07.520 --> 05:12.420 it speaks to your integrity to to you know take take the platform away rather 05:12.420 --> 05:18.460 than cave you're exactly right that was it if we had remained you know and we 05:18.460 --> 05:22.640 hadn't we would have had to have conceded to their censorship and 05:22.640 --> 05:29.380 surveillance act yeah otherwise we would have been operating illegally so we 05:29.380 --> 05:33.940 left the UK and unfortunately we had to block the UK as well in order to 05:33.940 --> 05:38.040 completely remove ourselves from there and unfortunately these laws are coming 05:38.040 --> 05:43.580 in all over the world so it is something that's ongoing and you know we're 05:43.580 --> 05:48.940 coming up with new ways to resist them but this is an ongoing thing right now 05:48.940 --> 05:53.240 let's talk a little bit about those new ways because I know you know 05:54.100 --> 05:58.040 decentralization is key when it comes to all aspects of getting outside of 05:58.040 --> 06:03.560 government control and so what sorts of things are you working towards with the 06:03.560 --> 06:07.720 with the platform bit shoot in order to ensure that it's it's not going to be 06:07.720 --> 06:11.620 taken down someday or that they're not going to try to do what they tried to 06:11.620 --> 06:17.160 do to you in the UK yeah so so we operate bit shoot largely like YouTube 06:17.160 --> 06:22.880 operates at the moment but we're the one platform I think that probably has 06:22.880 --> 06:28.900 had to operate only on crypto for the best part of a year so you know we've 06:28.900 --> 06:33.960 got experience in in just running a business on crypto which is very 06:33.960 --> 06:38.780 difficult I can tell you but we're also looking at new decentralized protocols 06:38.780 --> 06:43.660 that we can implement into bit shoot and ways that we can make it more 06:43.660 --> 06:49.820 resilient while we keep the platform running as it is so these things are 06:49.820 --> 06:54.800 important you need to make sure that we are coming up with actual solutions that 06:54.800 --> 06:59.900 will help content creators not gimmicks so that's what makes it more difficult and 06:59.900 --> 07:04.900 makes it means that we have to spend more time focusing on what actually works 07:04.900 --> 07:11.300 but you know the government make their moves and we're making counter moves 07:11.300 --> 07:15.600 to make sure that we will be resilient moving forward well I mean 07:15.600 --> 07:19.440 obviously when running any business you know having some capital moving 07:19.440 --> 07:23.560 forward is incredibly important and what most companies who do this type of 07:23.560 --> 07:27.720 stuff rely on is advertising and there's nothing wrong with advertising per se 07:27.720 --> 07:31.820 but it all comes down to who are the advertisers and what kind of say do they 07:31.820 --> 07:36.140 have over the content right so how have you navigated that space when it 07:36.140 --> 07:41.440 comes to engaging with advertisers allowing advertisers on the platform but 07:41.440 --> 07:46.080 not you know giving up the integrity and caving to any censorship from them 07:46.500 --> 07:52.260 so firstly I will say that our preferred revenue model is not advertising it is 07:52.260 --> 07:57.120 membership driven and a lot of people thankfully support us that way so that 07:57.120 --> 08:00.540 is a very resilient method because a lot of people giving you little bits of 08:00.540 --> 08:05.840 money means that you can remain independent but we do also have 08:05.840 --> 08:09.880 advertising and like you say advertising itself is you know not 08:09.880 --> 08:13.920 inherently bad since there was commerce people have to tell people 08:13.920 --> 08:17.200 about what they're doing you bitch you have to tell people what we're doing you 08:17.200 --> 08:22.840 have to tell people what you're doing but the problem occurs when advertisers 08:23.580 --> 08:28.620 have conflicts of interest and gain too much control over a platform like has 08:28.620 --> 08:34.520 happened with YouTube for example a massive advertiser is big farmer and 08:35.020 --> 08:42.580 you know when they have all of that spending strength they can influence 08:42.580 --> 08:49.160 what appears on YouTube and do or what is boosted what isn't boosted and you know 08:49.760 --> 08:57.220 so we just we'll accept advertisers but we won't let them dictate to us what 08:57.220 --> 09:00.940 content is on there the rules are very simple on bit shoot we support free speech 09:01.860 --> 09:08.220 well I think big pharma during the COVID 1984 era was a perfect example of 09:08.220 --> 09:13.280 what they can do in terms of censorship and I know when they kicked me off in 09:13.280 --> 09:20.420 early 2020 I was I was already on bit shoot but I immediately you know realized 09:20.420 --> 09:24.520 okay we really need to focus our energies on these alternative platforms 09:24.520 --> 09:28.880 and did you see a large surge in in usership in the 09:29.500 --> 09:33.460 COVID era from people who were getting banned and then moving over to 09:33.460 --> 09:39.080 platforms like yours definitely so many content creators who wanted to talk about 09:39.080 --> 09:43.600 these important subjects were removed entirely from YouTube during that time 09:43.600 --> 09:47.600 and we're coming over looking for alternatives and you know I will say 09:47.600 --> 09:52.300 this at the beginning of COVID everyone was speculating right governments were 09:52.300 --> 09:57.360 speculating the legacy news was speculating alternative media were 09:57.360 --> 10:00.540 speculating but the only ones who weren't allowed to speculate 10:01.100 --> 10:07.840 were the alternative media pretty much and you know if since then the things that they 10:07.840 --> 10:12.400 were speculating about many of them that were considered the ideas that were 10:12.400 --> 10:16.580 considered dangerous misinformation are now widely considered to be true 10:17.100 --> 10:22.540 so it it just goes to show that if you shut down conversations you're not allowed to have 10:22.540 --> 10:27.720 important conversations that it's going to backfire it's not the best thing for society to do 10:27.720 --> 10:33.940 it doesn't make those ideas go away they came over to bitch you and people were still able to hear 10:33.940 --> 10:41.980 them thankfully but yeah it's entirely the wrong thing to do it's a mistake trying to centralize 10:41.980 --> 10:48.700 what is the truth has never worked throughout history and never can right and I mean there was 10:48.700 --> 10:54.020 like a like when the censorship cracked down I remember I was telling people like 10:55.000 --> 11:00.600 for years in fact before I got censored to go to bitch you guys they're going to crack down 11:00.600 --> 11:04.660 they're going to censor me they're eventually going to take me offline but I'm still going to be on 11:04.660 --> 11:09.900 platforms like bitch you and quite honestly not enough people did it not enough people 11:09.900 --> 11:14.220 heeded the warning and I had a lot of people who were saying stuff like Dan you're back 11:14.220 --> 11:19.120 you know after I got reinstated on YouTube they're saying oh man where'd you go I thought 11:19.120 --> 11:24.720 you just kind of disappeared there for a few years and but but the thing is you know 11:24.720 --> 11:30.460 another thing is going to come another scam damage another economic crisis some sort of 11:30.460 --> 11:35.400 terrorist attack anything could happen in the censorship is probably going to come again so 11:35.400 --> 11:40.080 I mean what sorts of words of advice might you have for people who are on the fence because 11:40.080 --> 11:45.020 honestly it's just a couple of clicks guys to set it sign up to a new platform I'm not so 11:45.020 --> 11:50.720 sure what everybody's so concerned about but yeah what what would you advise people to do 11:51.900 --> 11:57.620 considering more censorship will be coming down the pike yeah I would say look it takes five 11:57.620 --> 12:03.860 minutes to sign up to bitch you and follow press for truth everyone should be prepared to take a 12:03.860 --> 12:08.500 bit of responsibility to support their own freedom and their freedom of the family and 12:08.500 --> 12:14.540 you know this is a very little thing you can do as a hedge just in case you ever need to use it 12:14.540 --> 12:19.560 if press for truth is banned again which like you say is very possible if something else comes along 12:19.560 --> 12:24.740 I've no doubt that you're going to be speaking out on the side that you believe in and that can go 12:24.740 --> 12:31.340 against the establishment and they'll no doubt shut you down again if that happens so just take 12:31.340 --> 12:37.300 five minutes these are real baby steps you know and if you want to do a bit more maybe 12:37.300 --> 12:43.040 occasionally share the video from alternative platforms rather than sharing it from YouTube 12:43.040 --> 12:51.960 they've got so much power so much money that it just makes them very cocky and very 12:53.720 --> 12:59.980 able to just shut people down turn people off close discussions so take a little bit of that 12:59.980 --> 13:05.800 away from them by supporting alternatives yeah well very very well said guys I'm going to have 13:05.800 --> 13:11.000 to stress it one more time it's absolutely imperative that you sign up to these alternative 13:11.000 --> 13:16.400 platforms like bit shoot especially moving forward as the heat is getting cranked up here 13:16.400 --> 13:21.360 it's the boiling frog scenario so I really want to encourage you to do that I do have an affiliate 13:21.360 --> 13:27.260 link with bit shoot you can actually save money now on a membership and when you get a membership 13:27.260 --> 13:32.820 to bit shoot you're not only supporting the platform you're not only supporting guys like 13:32.820 --> 13:38.340 me at press for truth but you're hedging yourself against being shut out of good truthful 13:38.340 --> 13:43.260 information when the hammer comes down so that's that's a great thing to do any 13:43.940 --> 13:48.520 any final thoughts on on all of this I mean it's your first time speaking at an event here in 13:48.520 --> 13:55.280 a capoco and a capoco used to be in a capoco now we're in port of a erta but yeah any final 13:55.280 --> 14:01.580 thoughts on the on this whole event no again it's just fantastic being here meeting you 14:01.580 --> 14:07.100 and having a wonderful time awesome guys don't delay go to the link in the description now 14:07.100 --> 14:11.660 if you're not already on bit shoot hurry up and subscribe there and if you are there 14:11.660 --> 14:15.680 make sure you sign up for a membership like it doesn't cost much at all 14:15.680 --> 14:20.980 again you're going to be going to supporting pioneers like ray who have started at that 14:20.980 --> 14:26.360 platform and it'll be supporting voices like mine moving forward as well so hit that link 14:26.360 --> 14:30.760 in the description and I hope to see you over there on bit shoot thanks so much for talking 14:30.760 --> 14:42.470 to us thanks then thanks everyone we all want truth the truth will set you free