{"id":873900,"date":"2025-09-18T02:11:53","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T07:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/18\/debate-style-video-roils-internet-after-participant-openly-identifies-as-fascist\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T02:11:53","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T07:11:53","slug":"debate-style-video-roils-internet-after-participant-openly-identifies-as-fascist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/18\/debate-style-video-roils-internet-after-participant-openly-identifies-as-fascist\/","title":{"rendered":"Debate-style video roils internet after participant openly identifies as fascist"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The YouTube channel Jubilee, which is known for its debate-style videos, is facing backlash online after a participant in a recent show self-identified as a fascist. The incident has roiled the internet, inspiring online discussion for days, and it has also had major consequences. The man, who identified himself as Connor in the video, says he was subsequently fired from his job. <\/p>\n

The episode, which was posted Sunday, featured British American journalist Medhi Hasan, who was tasked with debating 20 \u201cfar-right conservatives.\u201d<\/a> Hasan hosted a show on MSNBC from February 2021 to January 2024.<\/p>\n

Hasan had made the claim that President Donald Trump is \u201cdefying the Constitution\u201d as one of the topics of conversation. In a roughly seven-minute-long debate with Hasan, Connor spoke about his desire for an autocracy in the United States and praised the ideas of Carl Schmitt, a Nazi Party political philosopher, while saying there was \u201ca little bit of persecution\u201d of Jewish people during the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a fan of the Nazis?\u201d Hasan asked the participant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI, frankly, don\u2019t care being called a Nazi at all,\u201d Connor said.<\/p>\n

Later on, Hasan said, \u201cWe may have to rename this show, because you\u2019re a little bit more than a far-right Republican.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat can I say?\u201d Connor replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you say, \u2018I\u2019m a fascist.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I am,\u201d Connor said with a smile as several others in the circle clapped.<\/p>\n

In just two days, the YouTube video has garnered 4 million views. Clips quickly began spreading online, sparking criticism that the channel and YouTube were platforming pro-fascist content. <\/p>\n

\u201cJubilee this isn\u2019t even a debate anymore. It\u2019s just pure hatred that these people have in their hearts. Giving these people a platform is insane to me,\u201d said a comment that got over a thousand likes under the YouTube video.<\/p>\n

A creator known by the username @mattxiv on X posted a remark<\/a> that was viewed over 500,000 times: \u201ci don\u2019t think a channel that gives a platform of millions to people who self identify as \u2018fascist\u2019 should be allowed to monetize its videos. do you @youtube.\u201d YouTube did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Data from Google showed that searches for \u201cJubilee\u201d jumped significantly Tuesday after Connor announced he had been fired from his job. <\/p>\n

Hasan has since said online that the extent of the guests\u2019 views were not thoroughly communicated to him before he went on the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be clear, I didn\u2019t know they would be actual outright open fascists!\u201d Hasan said on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In another reply<\/a>, responding to someone who had inquired about why Hasan would agree to go on the show if \u201cJubilee invited a bunch of nazis,\u201d he said that \u201cthat\u2019s not how the debate was sold to me. You can see my shock when they start expressing their views openly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connor later claimed that he was fired because of his participation in the video. In an interview with the right-wing online social media brand TheRiftTV, Connor said being fired made him feel \u201cdestroyed.\u201d TheRiftTV started a fundraiser to help him as he looks for new jobs which has already received over $30,000. Connor did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately voicing fully legal traditional right wing political views results in real consequences,\u201d read the description of the campaign on GiveSendGo<\/a>, a Christian crowdfunding<\/a> site that has become a go-to platform for controversial crowdfunding campaigns. \u201cThis is cancel culture and political discrimination on full display.\u201d<\/p>\n

In what appears to be Connor\u2019s Telegram channel, many rallied behind him in his debate, writing that Hasan \u201chad nothing to say because you were right,\u201d among other hate comments about Hasan.<\/p>\n

The YouTube video was part of Jubilee\u2019s web series \u201cSurrounded,\u201d in which one guest sits in the middle of a circle, \u201csurrounded\u201d by around 20 people with opposing viewpoints. The web series has featured well-known political influencers as the main debaters, including Candance Owens, Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro. <\/p>\n

The show works by having the main guest start a debate by making a claim and having those who wish to debate it rush up to a chair facing the person in the middle. Whoever touches the chair first is allowed to take part. <\/p>\n

Whoever is sitting in the chair is able to take part in the debate until those surrounding the chair decide to vote the participant off. People who wish for the person in the middle to be voted off can raise a red flag, and if enough people raise their flags, the person is kicked off the debate and replaced by another person in the circle. <\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the only video that has gone viral for its controversial participants. Clips from several other \u201cSurrounded\u201d videos have caused controversy in the past, with users claiming that the channel was giving a platform to bigoted views. One of the channel\u2019s most viewed videos, a debate in which Kirk is surrounded by \u201c25 Liberal College Students,\u201d accumulated 30 million views<\/a>. <\/p>\n

In an interview this year<\/a>, Jubilee Media CEO Jason Lee addressed those concerns, saying the channel hosts people with controversial views to give their audiences the \u201cability to hear nuanced perspective[s].\u201d He added that the show tries to limit misinformation by incorporating fact-checks throughout the videos. Jubilee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a question that we\u2019ve been asked about: \u2018Is it dangerous to platform or have certain voices or points of view on?\u2019 And the way I would respond to that is I feel like we live in a more dangerous world if two individuals are not able to sit in the same room together and have a conversation,\u201d Lee said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that conversation is going to be productive or that anyone is going to necessarily change your point of view, but I think that that is sorely missing.\u201d <\/p>\n

The video featuring Hasan\u2019s debate with Connor features only one fact-check, for a claim Connor made about the number of people killed by Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.<\/p>\n

Jubilee\u2019s videos span a range of topic areas. Currently, the channel is recruiting people<\/a> for its \u201cSurrounded\u201d series, including \u201cConspiracy Theorists,\u201d \u201cConservative Christians\u201d and \u201cAnti Capitalist[s],\u201d and are part of a larger trend of debate-style internet content. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

<\/span>Bruna Horvath<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Bruna Horvath is an intern on NBC News’ tech team.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The YouTube channel Jubilee, which is known for its debate-style videos, is facing backlash online after a participant in a recent show self-identified as a fascist. The incident has roiled the internet, inspiring online discussion for days, and it has also had major consequences. The man, who identified himself as Connor in the video, says […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":873901,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[146416,121,104640],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-873900","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-debate-style","8":"category-video","9":"category-youtube-videos"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}