This is Dan Dix here reporting for Press for Truth. I am in beautiful Puerto
Vallarta, Mexico and I am joined right now by Ray Vahe, the CEO and founder of
Bitshoot, a man who started a platform that I can't be more thankful enough for
because you know had he not half the people would not even be aware that I
still existed after I got banned from YouTube. So Ray first of all you know
thank you for taking some time to speak with me here. I love the shirt
Bitshoot makes beach free again. Tell us about I well I guess let's start off
with telling us what brought you to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico here. Do you know
I've been meaning to come to this conference for years because it's full
of like-minded people who believe in freedom, free speech, privacy, all the
things that Bitshoot stands for. So it's something I wanted to come to and
Jeff asked me hey Ray would you like to come and speak so I thought I
can't miss that opportunity and it's also a chance to meet a lot of Bitshoot
content creators like yourself in person of course we've been speaking for years
on and off and it's been a real pleasure meeting you here and your
lovely wife. Well pretty much like more than half of the attendees and
certainly the speakers here are on the platform and so if anybody's not
familiar with this platform you really need to be you really need to be
subscribed to me there but you spoke a little bit about it in your talk and
you talked about the the origins of censorship essentially and where this
all came from take us back to 2017 when the platform started what made you want
to even start an alternative to YouTube in the first place. So I was a massive
fan of the alternative media over a decade ago even before I started
Bitshoot and I was watching channels like yours like James Corbett or all
sorts of content on YouTube and they even had my own YouTube channel or I was
just making nursery rhyme videos in fact for my daughters but I noticed you guys
especially in the libertarian movement the freedom movement we're talking
about the beginnings of censorship things like videos being taken down or
accounts being restricted not getting the reach that they previously got and
this this is something that not many not too many people seem to know that
it was the libertarians who were affected the most first the right wing came
later but you guys being taken offline was a red flag for me and I thought
maybe there's something I can do about it and the question was who gets to
control the distribution of content big tech was saying that it should be
centralized authority based on algorithms and advertisers and I thought
no it should be users and the community who get to decide what they're watching
as long as it's not illegal content or doing anything you know really wrong then
that's why I decided to start Bitshoot. Well that goes directly against the
let's call it the status quo of big major video platform sharing platforms
and and so you're going against the grain you're clearly an enemy of those
who want to you know censor people like me so what sorts of things have you had to
deal with in terms of censorship I know you had a big deal going on with your
platform in the UK tell us about that and other areas where they've tried to
censor you. I think in my opinion we are the most the platform
demonetized the boosted platform out there so we've dealt with all kinds
DDoS attacks removal from hosting providers removal from banks removing
from payments processors in fact at the time that we left the UK we couldn't
get a single bank in the UK or in the entirety of Europe to open an account
for us yeah so this has been a real journey finding out what you have to
go up against when you want to support freedom online but I don't want to
complain because there's a lot of positives here that we were able to survive
and move out of the UK I would say that the final straw for us was the
regulation that was coming in off-com in the UK and the online safety act
which meant that if we had stayed if we had remained we could literally no
longer be Bitshoot we would have had to have engaged in censorship and
surveillance for the UK government for off-com so that was the red line we knew
then that we had to move and we moved the company out of the UK to the US where
we were able to get a bank account and continue operating with our principles
free speech and privacy so it's almost like they gave you an ultimatum it
was engage in censorship start silencing the voices who we tell you to
or we're going to take you down it was at the options there and I honestly think
it speaks to your integrity to to you know take take the platform away rather
than cave you're exactly right that was it if we had remained you know and we
hadn't we would have had to have conceded to their censorship and
surveillance act yeah otherwise we would have been operating illegally so we
left the UK and unfortunately we had to block the UK as well in order to
completely remove ourselves from there and unfortunately these laws are coming
in all over the world so it is something that's ongoing and you know we're
coming up with new ways to resist them but this is an ongoing thing right now
let's talk a little bit about those new ways because I know you know
decentralization is key when it comes to all aspects of getting outside of
government control and so what sorts of things are you working towards with the
with the platform bit shoot in order to ensure that it's it's not going to be
taken down someday or that they're not going to try to do what they tried to
do to you in the UK yeah so so we operate bit shoot largely like YouTube
operates at the moment but we're the one platform I think that probably has
had to operate only on crypto for the best part of a year so you know we've
got experience in in just running a business on crypto which is very
difficult I can tell you but we're also looking at new decentralized protocols
that we can implement into bit shoot and ways that we can make it more
resilient while we keep the platform running as it is so these things are
important you need to make sure that we are coming up with actual solutions that
will help content creators not gimmicks so that's what makes it more difficult and
makes it means that we have to spend more time focusing on what actually works
but you know the government make their moves and we're making counter moves
to make sure that we will be resilient moving forward well I mean
obviously when running any business you know having some capital moving
forward is incredibly important and what most companies who do this type of
stuff rely on is advertising and there's nothing wrong with advertising per se
but it all comes down to who are the advertisers and what kind of say do they
have over the content right so how have you navigated that space when it
comes to engaging with advertisers allowing advertisers on the platform but
not you know giving up the integrity and caving to any censorship from them
so firstly I will say that our preferred revenue model is not advertising it is
membership driven and a lot of people thankfully support us that way so that
is a very resilient method because a lot of people giving you little bits of
money means that you can remain independent but we do also have
advertising and like you say advertising itself is you know not
inherently bad since there was commerce people have to tell people
about what they're doing you bitch you have to tell people what we're doing you
have to tell people what you're doing but the problem occurs when advertisers
have conflicts of interest and gain too much control over a platform like has
happened with YouTube for example a massive advertiser is big farmer and
you know when they have all of that spending strength they can influence
what appears on YouTube and do or what is boosted what isn't boosted and you know
so we just we'll accept advertisers but we won't let them dictate to us what
content is on there the rules are very simple on bit shoot we support free speech
well I think big pharma during the COVID 1984 era was a perfect example of
what they can do in terms of censorship and I know when they kicked me off in
early 2020 I was I was already on bit shoot but I immediately you know realized
okay we really need to focus our energies on these alternative platforms
and did you see a large surge in in usership in the
COVID era from people who were getting banned and then moving over to
platforms like yours definitely so many content creators who wanted to talk about
these important subjects were removed entirely from YouTube during that time
and we're coming over looking for alternatives and you know I will say
this at the beginning of COVID everyone was speculating right governments were
speculating the legacy news was speculating alternative media were
speculating but the only ones who weren't allowed to speculate
were the alternative media pretty much and you know if since then the things that they
were speculating about many of them that were considered the ideas that were
considered dangerous misinformation are now widely considered to be true
so it it just goes to show that if you shut down conversations you're not allowed to have
important conversations that it's going to backfire it's not the best thing for society to do
it doesn't make those ideas go away they came over to bitch you and people were still able to hear
them thankfully but yeah it's entirely the wrong thing to do it's a mistake trying to centralize
what is the truth has never worked throughout history and never can right and I mean there was
like a like when the censorship cracked down I remember I was telling people like
for years in fact before I got censored to go to bitch you guys they're going to crack down
they're going to censor me they're eventually going to take me offline but I'm still going to be on
platforms like bitch you and quite honestly not enough people did it not enough people
heeded the warning and I had a lot of people who were saying stuff like Dan you're back
you know after I got reinstated on YouTube they're saying oh man where'd you go I thought
you just kind of disappeared there for a few years and but but the thing is you know
another thing is going to come another scam damage another economic crisis some sort of
terrorist attack anything could happen in the censorship is probably going to come again so
I mean what sorts of words of advice might you have for people who are on the fence because
honestly it's just a couple of clicks guys to set it sign up to a new platform I'm not so
sure what everybody's so concerned about but yeah what what would you advise people to do
considering more censorship will be coming down the pike yeah I would say look it takes five
minutes to sign up to bitch you and follow press for truth everyone should be prepared to take a
bit of responsibility to support their own freedom and their freedom of the family and
you know this is a very little thing you can do as a hedge just in case you ever need to use it
if press for truth is banned again which like you say is very possible if something else comes along
I've no doubt that you're going to be speaking out on the side that you believe in and that can go
against the establishment and they'll no doubt shut you down again if that happens so just take
five minutes these are real baby steps you know and if you want to do a bit more maybe
occasionally share the video from alternative platforms rather than sharing it from YouTube
they've got so much power so much money that it just makes them very cocky and very
able to just shut people down turn people off close discussions so take a little bit of that
away from them by supporting alternatives yeah well very very well said guys I'm going to have
to stress it one more time it's absolutely imperative that you sign up to these alternative
platforms like bit shoot especially moving forward as the heat is getting cranked up here
it's the boiling frog scenario so I really want to encourage you to do that I do have an affiliate
link with bit shoot you can actually save money now on a membership and when you get a membership
to bit shoot you're not only supporting the platform you're not only supporting guys like
me at press for truth but you're hedging yourself against being shut out of good truthful
information when the hammer comes down so that's that's a great thing to do any
any final thoughts on on all of this I mean it's your first time speaking at an event here in
a capoco and a capoco used to be in a capoco now we're in port of a erta but yeah any final
thoughts on the on this whole event no again it's just fantastic being here meeting you
and having a wonderful time awesome guys don't delay go to the link in the description now
if you're not already on bit shoot hurry up and subscribe there and if you are there
make sure you sign up for a membership like it doesn't cost much at all
again you're going to be going to supporting pioneers like ray who have started at that
platform and it'll be supporting voices like mine moving forward as well so hit that link
in the description and I hope to see you over there on bit shoot thanks so much for talking
to us thanks then thanks everyone we all want truth the truth will set you free