Carl Benjamin, the YouTube star and UKIP candidate in the upcoming European Parliamentary Elections in Britain sat down for an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, discussing Brexit, feminism, and social media censorship.
The UKIP candidate and YouTuber took issue with accusaions from the left that he encourages, or participates in “trolling” and “online harassment,” before entering an in-depth discussion about gender.
“Unlike the media, I actually go out of my way to encourage people not to contact any of the subject of my videos. I’ve actually got it in the description of my YouTube channel. I’ve made many videos saying this.”
“As someone who has received his fair share of ire from the media and various progressive people … It’s not pleasant. But the thing is, there’s very little you can do about this when you’re a public figure with a public profile.”
Nevertheless, Benjamin said that public figures and the media should try to mitigate “dogpiling,” in which a mass of people “go after” the subject of coverage.
The UKIP candidate is often portrayed as a sexist in the left-wing media, but in this interview he stressed that he believes the state should be “completely gender-blind … I don’t think it should have an opinion on gender.”
At the same time, Benjamin said that he thinks the majority of men and women “are actually quite comfortable with their gender roles, and they actually quite like the way they’ve been set up.”
“They were not created by design … they were generated from thousands of years of men and women just trying to get by together.”
The UKIP candidate also talked about western societies’ biases around gender and identity politics, particularly the assumption that women and minorities receive more online abuse than men. He quoted recent research showing that among British politicians, white males are more likely to receive online harassment than women or minority MPs.
Research from the Pew Center has also shown that while men and women in general receive online harassment at roughly equal levels, women are twice as likely as men to describe the experience as “very upsetting.”
“I’m sure men don’t feel as upset,” agreed Benjamin, although he also argued that there’s a “social expectation” on men not to “play the victim.”
“I think there’s a social expectation that men are supposed to deal with this better.”
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter, Gab.ai and add him on Facebook. Email tips and suggestions to allumbokhari@protonmail.com.