Videos

OP, I posted this video here the other day, and with similar results, so I took it down. I was confused by the negative reaction, until when I went back to look at it, and finally noticed the description, which, if you don't watch it, makes it seem like a right-wing conspiracy video.

Having pondered it for day, I've concluded that regardless of the validity of the content in the video (virtually all of it IS based on confirmed true conspiracies that were proven true by freedom of information act requests and declassified documents), the way Johnny Harris chose to present it was, honestly, deeply irresponsible, to the point that it made me almost suspect of his intentions, and resulting in me doing a short investigation of Harris's credibility as a journalist.

So first, the video title, description, and intro using sound-bites of Vivek Ramaswamy (Trump sycophant) saying a vote for Trump is a vote against the Deep-state, are calculated choices. As others have noted, it was likely designed to get right-wingers to click on it. In and of itself, that isn't a terrible idea, but the damning part is that the video does not adequately distinguish that or illustrate that Trump is using this concept as a grift.

the only pushback against Trump is at the very beginning, when he mentions that he uses the term Deep-state to refer to anything he doesn't like. The rest of the entire video does nothing to de-legitimize Trump's use of that word.

If the goal was to educate right-wingers of how these political machinations work, and how Trump will do nothing to fix it, then they failed utterly. I think this video will simply be fuel for the fire of right-wing conspiracy theorists, who have difficulty separating factual conspiracies from fictional ones, and thus are easily manipulated. The brief mention of Trump using the word for things he didn't like will be easily dismissed by the audience he is attempted to target, while the rest of the video will only seem to reinforce their belief in Trump being their savior, since he's "the only one talking about it."

Looking into Harris further, I found that there was a strong controversy of a video of his that was essentially sponsored by the World Economic Forum, which advocates for the neoliberal concept of 'stake-holder capitalism' over shareholder capitalism. In response to criticism that the video seems like a blatant piece of propaganda, Harris said that his ideals and the WEF's ideals just happened to align, and that they had no influence on his finished video. This is eerily similar to Kurzgesagt's response to criticism that their videos sponsored by the Bill Gates foundation just happened to line up with what they also already thought, and the fact that they exclusively used Bill Gate's preferred research source that happened to back-up Bill Gate's ideology was merely a coincidence, as that was 'the best source'.

And that's just one of many criticisms of his work.

In conclusion, I now think Johnny Harris makes beautifully shot and edited videos, but his Journalistic integrity is suspect, and this latest video is only further damning in that sense. He's worked for years as a journalist, he's hired many people to work with him, to help him edit the video, I assume to bounce ideas off of on how to frame it, who to target, etc. And I just... find it hard to believe that they didn't see the problem with how this video was done, and considering what's on the line in this upcoming election, for them to not do their due diligence in ensuring the content they're putting out won't actually help a dictator come to power is extremely irresponsible.

I will no longer be posting his content online, and that's a damn shame, because he could've done a lot of good with his content.