Caolan Robertson is a writer, filmmaker and former PR person for the alt-right.
Between 2017 and 2019 he was a correspondent for Rebel Media, a director and producer for Alex Jones, Lauren Southern and English anti-Islamic activist Tommy Robinson, and created content for many others on the online right.
He was spokesperson for Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern during their aborted 2018 NZ tour. When that tour was cancelled, Robertson tweeted ‘hope New Zealand enjoys Sharia’.
Robertston is a gay man and says he was radicalised after the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.
Caolan Roberson (left). Photo: Screengrab
He's had a major change of heart and mind and is now collaborating on a deradicalization project called Future Freedom, with the aim of helping others exit the alt-right movement.
He tells Kim Hill that he never considered himself to be racist and said his attacks on Islam were attacks on a religion and ideology rather than ethnicity.
“I believed that the West needed to protect themselves from that by not importing that culture. That’s where it came from, it was nothing to do with individual Muslims.
“And, of course, I’m not defending that I thought that stuff now. I think the same kind of rhetoric I pushed led to the same horrible atrocities and real-world violence that we saw with the increase in hate crimes and, of course, Christchurch.”
Robertson says his views were shared by a lot of young people which is why he’s trying to lead others away from alt-right ideology.
He says he saw Alex Jones as a whacky, shock jock entertainer rather than a hateful person who caused harm to the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting by continually denying it had happened.
“Alex told me before I started working with him that his biggest regret was saying that. He said he would never say something like that again.”
He says Alex Jones admitted to him that he thought his supporters and listeners were morons and that he actually hated Trump and was sick of talking about him.
“I think I have an obligation to expose this, not to profit it from it, but put that stuff out.”
Another thing he exposed was Tommy Robinson purportedly being attacked by a migrant in Rome which he says was manipulatively edited. In the raw footage that he’s passed on to media outlets, Robinson is the instigator of the attack.
Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux. Photo: Supplied.
“There’s a huge demand from people on this side of politics to go to these [migrant] areas and show conflict and YouTube rewards them. That video had around three million views and Tommy made around $100,000 from it in donations afterwards.
“I felt that people needed to see that it was all manipulated, it was all a lie, and this is the same for most content made by people like Tommy and Lauren [Southern] and Stefan [Molyneaux].”
He says there’s a big disconnect between what alt-right personalities put out and what they say behind the scenes. He says some, like Milo Yiannopoulos, were far more radical than they appeared while others were purely motivated by money.
The Christchurch terror attack was the last straw for Robertson who then decided to dedicate his life to countering and exposing alt-right ideology.
“It’s a complete grift. It’s toxic. Stefan Molyneux had a billion views on YouTube, it was widespread, it was an entire eco-system. It was something that led to the rise of Trump and millions of young people voting for MAGA. It’s something that really needs to be looked at and assessed and the people behind it have absolutely no interest in any thing other than personal gain.”
He says he wouldn’t have become involved with the alt-right or held the views he had if it wasn’t for YouTube.
“I was a 21-year-old progressive working in London in marketing. Orlando happened and that’s a terrible thing with gay people being shot, but the only reason I went down that path is because I typed Orlando into YouTube and the top rated results were Rebel Media, Yiannopoulos, Gavin McInnes, and they were saying this was because Islam isn’t compatible with our ideology, and these were getting millions of views.
“The next night I was getting recommendations from newsletters sent to my email from YouTube to watch similar content. I was introduced to all these people just because I typed Orlando into YouTube. YouTube profits off this, they profit off outrage. People stay tuned longer for videos that are more shocking or outrageous. I wasn’t looking for that sort of content, I didn’t wake up and decide I wanted to be racist, I was looking to find out what happened in Orlando.”
Robertson believes it’s imperative that YouTube is seen as a liability for radicalisation and, despite having kicked a few people off, they’re still recommending troubling content.
“The structure in the United States is not built to deal with these systems. There have been senate hearings talking about radicalisation where some of the judges and decision makers don’t know the difference between a tweet or an email.
“This is such a complicated issue and it’s all driven by complex algorithms so it’s very hard for the system to understand it… I think we need to make more of a fuss because YouTube and Facebook are going to continue to do it. Facebook has been linked to far-right uprisings all around the world and even massacres and it’s not something our law makers even understand yet.”
Robertson’s videos are still available on Rebel Media despite him asking for them to be taken down and he still has people get in touch with him saying they like his videos. He responds to each person and tells them he’s no longer has those views.
“I explain to them that this is all a lie and they people who want you to believe it did so for money or fame or because they’re a racist and they’re far more extreme than you. They’re using you as a way in.
“It’s extremely depressing, it’s why I founded Future Freedom. I want to get people out and I feel like I need to play an active role in pulling people away from it.”
