Opinion | The Platform That Lets Fascism Go Viral

Written by Jiwoo Park

Many young online users frequently describe Jubilee videos as “rage-bait content,” meaning that it is content intentionally designed to elicit negative reactions. All jokes aside, Jubilee does anger a large group of people for a legitimate reason. Jubilee Media is a company that is mostly famous for its YouTube channel, Jubilee. With 10.5 million subscribers, Jubilee posts various videos ranging from political debates to recreations of dating apps in real life. Originally, Jubilee’s videos were created with the goal to help people see others’ humanity, but recently, things have taken a darker turn. Jubilee’s increasingly popular political videos are the antithesis of their original goal. Participants in these videos are polarized and viewers argue in the comments – there is no humanity in these videos. 

Many have criticized Jubilee’s political content for a variety of reasons. The most common criticism is of the videos’ structure. Out of the various types of videos, Jubilee’s most popular one is “Surrounded” in which one person is surrounded by 20-25 people who hold opposite beliefs as the one person. That one person is usually a well-known political figure. Past guests have included Charlie Kirk, a right-wing political activist who was recently assassinated for his political beliefs, Mehdi Hasan, a leftist journalist and CEO of Zeteo News, and others. These Surrounded videos usually never include productive discourse. The “surrounders” have to physically fight for their chance to debate the surrounded person, and can be voted out by the remaining “surrounders.” People end up lunging at chairs to get a chance to debate and are voted out before any constructive arguments can be made. However, the structure and unproductive nature of Jubilee videos should not be the biggest concern of viewers: the larger concern is the people Jubilee invites to participate in these videos. 

The most-watched Jubilee video is “1 Conservative vs 25 Liberal College Students (Feat. Charlie Kirk) | Surrounded,” with 39 million views. In this video, Kirk makes various racist, misogynistic, bigoted, and false arguments: he argued that Black people were “better” under Jim Crow laws, stated he would force his daughter to deliver a baby if she were 10 years old and pregant due to rape because “abortion is murder,” and much more.

Kirk was a controversial figure who created a platform and audience from hate. He has made other detestable comments outside of Jubilee including that gun deaths are “worth it” to protect the Second Amendment, the word “empathy” is damaging, transgender individuals are wearing the gender equivalent of Black face, Black women “do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously,” and that DEI efforts were faulty. Undeniably, Charlie Kirk was a figure who promoted abominable ideas and rhetoric, and Jubilee was a tool that helped spread these ideas. 

With the Jubilee video, Kirk’s popularity and presence dramatically increased. While a lot of people saw him as an abhorrent person, a lot of others saw him as a well-spoken, intelligent leader. Kirk’s popularity soared, and a growing audience repeated his words and spread his rhetoric. More people actually began to believe in the things he said, such that DEI was giving away deserving “white” jobs to “unqualified” minorities or that transgender individuals were a threat to the “natural order” of society. Kirk now has more than 7 million followers on TikTok and hundreds of thousands of listeners. 

Kirk is not the only bigoted individual Jubilee spotlighted. Ben Shapiro, a conservative political commentator, has also made an appearance to argue against Kamala Harris during the 2024 election election season. He claimed that “Harris’ border policies will turn American into an unsafe and bankrupt nation,” her DEI-based policies are destructive, her “pro-abortion stance is morally indefensible,” and more. Candace Owens, a far-right commentator, Jordan Peterson, a conservative psychologist and author, and Michael Knowles, a conservative political commentator, are other figures who have made appearances on the channel to promote their misleading and malicious stances on politics. 

Even beyond directly spotlighting problematic political commentators, Jubilee makes an effort to include individuals with hateful opinions in their videos. One of the most viral Jubilee clips is from Mehdi Hasan’s Surrounded video in which a participant admitted that he was a fascist. Hasan claimed that “Donald Trump is defying the constitution” and the participant surprisingly agreed. He instead stated that he advocates for autocracy by someone who is in line with Catholic teaching. The conversation, straying away from the original claim, led to discussions about the Nazis in which the participant stated, “I frankly don’t care being called a Nazi at all,” and “I think that there was a little bit of persecution,” when talking about approximately six million Jewish people who were murdered during the Holocaust. Hasan then called him a fascist, and the participant agreed, stating, “Yeah, I am.” The other 19 conservatives in the video proceed to clap and cheer for the participant when he admits to being a fascist. In the same video, other participants told Hasan to “go back to where he came from,” and “I don’t want you here." The entire video was filled with racist, xenophobic, white-supremacist remarks and justly sparked outrage. 

Jubilee is not a humanity-first channel anymore. Jubilee is instead a platform that promotes racism, xenophobia, white-supremacy, misinformation, and other extremist ideas. Fascist individuals should not be given a platform to spread their rhetoric and opinions. Mehdi Hasan stated, “I don’t debate fascists” for this very reason. Fascism and hate should not be amplified, but Jubilee work endlessly to incorporate these ideologies into their videos for the sake of views and virality. 

This criticism also applies broadly across all of the Internet. In a digital age where information is easily accessible and anyone is able to share their opinions online, it is important for media companies and individuals to ensure hate is not being spread.