Censorship advocate Sacha Baron Cohen is facing a sizable boycott movement over claims his upcoming Ali G movie is racist.
The English actor has no place to hide here. He certainly can’t defend himself on the principle of artistic freedom and free speech when he has repeatedly disgraced himself with calls to censor speech.
Cohen demanding censorship in 2019:
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 could all agree that we should not be giving bigots and pedophiles a free platform to amplify their views and target their victims.
He then said he wanted Big Tech to “insist on facts and purge these lies and conspiracies from their platforms.”
Sacha Baron Cohen faces a censorship crusade targeting his upcoming Ali G movie, which critics describe as racist. (Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage)
Well, not long after, we all saw how this worked. The sword of labeling something “hate speech” was used as an ideological weapon to silence people who, for example, insisted men could not magically become women. Cohen said nothing in the defense of those people.
This is how dumb Cohen is. First he said this:
The Silicon Six — all billionaires, all Americans — who care more about boosting their share price than about protecting democracy. 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.
Then he said this:
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.
So, he wants those same “unelected individuals” to decide what speech is allowed in the public square of social media and what speech isn’t. Please, make it make sense.
Ah, but he wasn’t done there…
In 2021, he demanded that Donald Trump, a sitting U.S. president, to be permanently banned from social media and celebrated when he was.
And now, Cohen is the one facing a censorship crusade targeting his upcoming Ali G movie, which critics describe as racist. You made this bed, pal — now you get to lay in it…
A U.K.-based watchdog site that uses AI to track media bias — has rallied its members to support sending 37,000 emails to cinemas around the world urging them to refuse to screen the film. “Black British comedians called the character ‘an alibi for racism’ in 2000,” the organization wrote (it was apparently one comedian, to be precise). “[British author] Jeanette Winterson asked what separates it from the Black and White Minstrels; Kazakh and Arab organisations documented the harm of the catalogue behind it. Sony Pictures UK is selling it with the line ‘He iz back. We ain’t liable.’ The screens belong to the chains, and a booking is a choice.”
Sure sounds like the kind of hate speech Cohen wanted banned in 2019.
Sacha Baron Cohen is so tedious. Some rich guy running around setting up the rubes for laughs in a Big Hollywood Movie is, at least to me, the ultimate in elitism. There’s nothing good-natured or insightful about Cohen’s schtick. He sees himself as a superior being and abuses his power to manipulate everyday people into making fools of themselves, which I find grotesque.
He’s not studying human nature. He manipulates it into the outcome he desires. He’s a heartless jerk, a bully, and a flaming hypocrite.