- 'Sup, you beautiful bastards,
hope you've had a fantastic Tuesday,
welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show,
buckle up, hit that like button,
and let's just jump into it.
And the first thing we're gonna talk about today
is the situation around the NELK Boys,
who, if you don't know who they are, not the biggest deal.
Yes, it is a story about them,
but it is also a larger story regarding creators,
their responsibility, platforms, and COVID.
So the NELK Boys, if you don't know,
are massive YouTubers with over 5.7 million subscribers.
They're led by Kyle Foregard,
Jesse Sebastiani, Steve Deleonardis.
If you're not someone who watches them,
they may also be familiar because
they were making headlines last month.
This, because they were protesting
for gyms to reopen in Los Angeles as kind of a stunt,
they've also more recently made headlines
for throwing parties in a pandemic,
though, the NELK Boys, seemingly, with at least
one of these events, taking issue with that label,
tweeting about the media's portrayal
of what they've been doing,
saying, "They writing we hosted a party,"
but then, continuing essentially saying it's just the fans,
writing, "Anywhere we go, people will find us.
"They blaming the fact we have a strong fanbase."
And that's seemingly about what happened in New Jersey,
which we'll touch on in a second.
Understand, that is just the latest.
Last week, they shared videos of parties that they started,
for example, this one on your screen right now
comes from Illinois State University.
Just an absolutely massive event,
everyone as close as possible, not a mask in sight,
and according to New York Times reporter, Taylor Lorenz,
the group's actually been traveling
across the country to college towns.
You know, this outright stupid and dangerous behavior,
it's gotten them into some trouble.
Following those videos from Illinois coming out,
we saw a lot of people, including creators,
tweeting for YouTube to do something.
This, including a creator by the name of MacDoesIt,
writing, "YouTube, please consider
"reprimanding the NELK Boys and reevaluate
"their existence in your monetization program
"for the complicit actions of bioterrorism.
"We are in a classified pandemic and actions like this
"should not be let go easily."
And following this initial reaction, the initial reports,
you see, on Friday, Taylor Lorenz report
that YouTube actually demonetized the NELK Boys channel,
with YouTube giving the statement,
"We have temporarily suspended the monetization
" on the NELK Boys channel for violating
"our creator responsibility policy,"
and adding that it took action because
the group's off-platform behavior
was a harm to the community,
saying, "These creators were encouraging
"very large groups of people to actively disregard
"social distancing guidelines from local health authorities
"that were put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19."
With Team YouTube also saying that they were suspended
from the YouTube Partner program,
which, in addition to monetization,
give them access to Creator Support teams
and Copyright Match tools.
Also, with this story, it appears that there may be
consequences for other people.
According to reports, over 100 students
from Illinois State University
could be facing consequences as well,
with the school publishing a statement saying,
"The university is working with the Town of Normal,"
right where the school is located,
"the Normal Police Department,
"and the Illinois State University Police Department
"to investigate these events.
"Students will be charged with violations
"of the Student Code of Conduct and are subject to
"Town of Normal ordinance violations
"for their participation.
"Violations of the Student Code of Conduct
"can result in suspension from the University."
You also had the president of the school, Larry Dietz,
talking about this in his state of the university address.
- It gives me no joy to convey my great disappointment
in the actions of those who gathered.
Hundreds of faculty and staff members at the University
have been working nonstop to ensure that your education
can continue in a safe and healthy environment.
The actions of some were an insult to them,
to the town where you are a citizen,
and to your families who support you being here.
- [Phil] It's also worth noting there
that since August 17th, in less than a month,
there have been over 1300 cases on their campus.
As I mentioned last week, when we talked about Mizzou,
they are far from alone.
Right now, COVID-19 on college campuses is a huge issue.
All of that said, it brings us to what happened last night.
All of this kind of ties together,
the actions of what they're doing in person
and what YouTube's trying to do
to kind of curb that behavior,
because that NELK tweet that I shared earlier
where it seemed that they had an issue
with reports saying that they were throwing a party
last night in New Jersey, kind of arguing
that they didn't necessarily formally invite
a bunch of people over to party,
essentially the defense of, "What are we supposed to do?
"People just show up when we go places."
But the more that you actually look at this situation,
you realize, oh, at least initially,
they got everything that they wanted
even if it went sideways.
If this group of guys, they go to the mall,
a crowd naturally forms, that's one thing.
Literally the morning before everything got crazy,
they tweeted out, "Drop day at the Jersey Shore House,
"8:30 pm eastern standard time tonight."
They posted that in the morning, giving people ample time
to show up after having shared, and embraced,
and loved the massive crowds when they were in other places,
they also listed Jersey on a list of places
they would be coming to, asking where their fans were at,
seemingly drumming up anticipation
for their presence in the area,
and then, what do you know, a ton of people show up.
Now, I will say, at least one member of the group
did seem visually upset that so many people
showed up and gathered outside of the house,
and more importantly, the NELK Boys apparently
ended up getting kicked out of the Jersey Shore House.
- 'Cause you're here.
We have to go leave in our merched offices in 30 minutes
and we're uploading a video.
So if you're here right now, you don't (silence) like us
and I don't (silence) with you.
So you guys have to leave.
You're ruining our (silence) the biggest day.
We worked two months for this day,
so if you guys stay here,
I don't (silence) with any of you.
- But also, you have people saying this group,
they're taking advantage of this moment.
They're documenting it on social media
to add to the story, add to the moment, create more buzz,
also, because of the way they talk about being kicked out
on social media, you had some people saying,
"Are they really being kicked out
"or are they being 'kicked out'?"
- [Jesse] Holy (silence) boys.
45 minutes to the drop, we got almost
14,000 people on the site.
Let's (silence) go, get on the website right now.
45 minutes, baby, what do you gotta say, Ronnie?
- We're getting kicked out of our house.
- [Jesse] We're getting kicked out
of the Jersey Shore House, right?
- Get your (silence) and get out of here, guys.
- [Jesse] Are we actually getting kicked out?
- Time to go.
(laughs)
- [Jesse] Yeah, we're getting kicked out.
(silence) an absolute (silence) storm out there.
Yeah, we're getting kicked out.
But get on the site, boys.
- Dude, can I tell them--
- Right, and that merch drop is, I think,
why you're seeing creators like Tyler Oakley
calling for the NELK Boys to not only be demonetized,
but de-platformed, tweeting,
"YouTube saw this behavior
and only demonetized their channel.
"That was clearly not enough.
"YouTube, these creators are putting your users
"and themselves in danger while broadcasting it
"on your platform.
"We demand action, de-platform now."
Because while these guys have gotten
a ton of negative press, on the other hand,
you look and you see how many people show up.
You look, more importantly, to the like to dislike ratio
on their videos, including the most recent one,
and you realize 95 if not 99% of their audience
is still with them, supporting them,
and if anything, it appears that many
have seen the NELK Boys as actually
the victims of this situation.
So actually, if anything, the NELK Boys being demonetized
may actually make them more money
because their most loyal fans are gonna feel like
they have to support them even more.
And there is a lot of money to be made
when it comes to merch.
These guys have an insanely large, active,
and loyal audience.
Just on YouTube, their videos average
4 to 7 million views a pop.
You can then try to make a comparison
on what public numbers we know.
This is rough, not exact, some conjecture,
but to compare that to another massive creator,
Logan Paul, who gets between 4 to 6 million views a video,
he recently came out on his podcast saying
this year, he made 30 to 40 million dollars
from the merch line.
So who knows how much the NELK Boys are bringing in
because they built their whole model
around these massive drops.
At one point, they shared a video
showing over 150,000 concurrents on their website.
That is an insanely impressive number,
which is why you have creators like Tyler Oakley
saying that demonetization will not work,
some seeing YouTube demonetizing the channel
as kind of just a superficial move,
saying it's a move that's not meant
to actually cause any change
as far as the NELK Boys behavior,
but more a move by YouTube to just protect monetization
and the partner program.
But ultimately, that is where we are with this story
and I do want to pass the question off to you.
What are your thoughts with this story
regarding the demonetization that has already happened,
the calls for de-platforming,
one, not the other, both?
Why, why not, any and all thoughts,
I'd love to know in those comments down below.
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is legitimately my favorite thing today.
Zane of the Vlog Squad did a cover of "WAP."
It is a beautiful rendition of the original,
so much so that last night, while I was bored,
I re-cut my wedding video to it.
We got the official trailer for "Love and Monsters,"
"Binging with Babish" gave us
pollos hermanos from "Breaking Bad,"
we got "The Mandalorian" season two trailer,
and if you want to see the full versions
of everything I just shared,
the secret link of the day, really anything at all,
links, as always, are in the description down below.
And then, let's talk about the news around Breonna Taylor.
Of course, we've talked about her on the show in the past,
she was a 26 year old EMT in Louisville, Kentucky
who was shot and killed inside her own apartment
in the middle of the night.
This, after three Louisville metro police officers,
serving a warrant, entered by force with a battering ram,
firing multiple rounds.
Breonna's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, saying that they were
in bed when they heard someone pounding on the door,
saying he and Breonna repeatedly asked
who was at the door, but the police
failed to announce themselves,
Walker later telling officials that he believed
that Breonna's ex-boyfriend was trying to break in,
so when the police broke Breonna's door off its hinges,
Walker fired, striking one of the officers in the leg.
The police responded by firing several shots,
hitting Breonna five times, with one of the officers,
Detective Brett Hankison firing 10 shots
blindly into the room.
As for the warrant that these officers were serving,
it was part of a narcotics investigation
that involved two men who police believed
were selling drugs out of a house 10 miles away.
As a part of that investigation, a judge had signed
a warrant allowing officers to search her apartment.
This, because police said they believed that one of the men,
who was an ex-boyfriend of Breonna's,
was using her apartment to receive packages.
Though, very notable here, neither Taylor nor Walker
had any prior drug arrests or convictions,
and no drugs were found in the apartment.
Also, to clear up some confusion here
because it was initially reported that the police
had a no-knock warrant, meaning they didn't have to knock
or announce themselves before entering,
officials have actually since said that the orders
were changed before the raid to "knock and announce,"
which means the police were, in fact,
required to identify themselves.
And there, of course, you have police saying
that they did knock several times
and announce themselves as officers with a warrant
before they broke down the door,
but that police account has been heavily disputed.
Taylor's family, Walker, and multiple neighbors
have all said the police did not say who they were
or that they were serving a warrant,
many others also pointing to the fact that
the police incident report had multiple errors,
including things like listing Breonna's injuries as "none,"
despite the fact that she was killed
after being shot five times,
the police incident report also claiming
that officers did not force their way into the apartment,
even though they used a battering ram.
What we initially saw happen after all of this
was Walker was actually charged with
attempted murder of a police officer,
but those charges were dismissed back in May.
Also, as of right now, none of the officers involved
are facing criminal charges,
but investigations by both a Kentucky attorney general
and the FBI are underway.
Two officers, Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly
and Officer Myles Cosgrove have been placed
on administrative leave.
Also, back in June, Detective Hankison,
the officer who fired ten rounds into Breonna's apartment
was fired, with Hankison reportedly appealing his firing,
but that case has been delayed until
the criminal investigation is complete.
City officials have also made some changes,
including banning no-knock warrants,
which we covered on the show a while back,
as well as now requiring all officers serving warrants
to wear body cameras as well as other changes
to the police department aimed at
ensuring accountability and transparency.
And for a while now, that's where things have stood.
Many, of course, have been very vocal
about wanting criminal charges against the officers,
with her family also filing a wrongful death lawsuit
back in April that names the three officers as defendants,
and that wrongful death lawsuit is actually
why we're talking about this today.
At a press conference today, Louisville Mayor,
Greg Fischer, announced that the city will be paying
a record-breaking 12 million dollars
to the family of Breonna Taylor,
and that is a huge deal because according to reports,
this is the largest amount ever paid by Louisville police
in a police misconduct suit by far,
but also, in addition to this historic payment,
Mayor Fischer also announced the city was enacting
a number of police reforms as part of the settlement.
Among other things, those reforms included
creating a program to include social workers in LMPD
to provide assistance on certain police runs,
requiring commanding officers to review all search warrants
and other document connected to them
before an officer gets approval from a judge on them,
implementing an early warning system
that tracks all use of force incidents,
citizen complaints, investigations, and other factors
to identify officers with red flags,
and creating a housing credit program
to incentivize officers to live in certain
low-income areas of the city,
as well as encouraging officers to perform
two paid hours a week of community service
to better connect police with the communities
that they're serving.
So that was the big update today,
but by no means is this situation over.
With many people having the same mindset
of Kerry Washington, who tweeted,
"A settlement was reached, but justice was not served.
"Arrest the officers who killed Breonna Taylor."
With Breonna Taylor's mother also saying,
"As significant as today is,
"it's only the beginning
"of getting full justice for Breonna.
"We must not lose focus on what the real drive is.
"It's time to move forward with the criminal charges
"because she deserves that and much more."
With Crump also echoing that, saying,
"We want, at minimum, second degree manslaughter charges.
"We want full justice for Breonna Taylor.
"Not just partial justice."
But yeah, ultimately, that is where we are with this story.
Now, obviously, we're gonna be paying attention
to see what happens next, but until then,
I do want to ask, what are your thoughts
around these new developments, the settlement?
Also, what are your thoughts around these
newly announced reforms?
Specifically here, I'm pointing to the new program
incentivizing officers to move to low-income areas
so they, I guess, become part of the community
that they're serving.
And then, let's talk about this big whistleblower story.
If you haven't seen, a whistleblower has now made
a number of startling accusations against
an immigration and customs enforcement facility in Georgia.
Yesterday, we saw that whistleblower,
who has been identified as Dawn Wooten,
a former nurse at the facility,
saying in a federal complaint that women
at the Irwin County Detention Center, the ICDC,
have been receiving hysterectomies at an improbable rate,
Wooten saying in the complaint of the gynecologist
performing these procedures,
"Everybody he sees has a hysterectomy, just about everybody.
"He's even taken out the wrong ovary on a young lady.
"She was supposed to get her left ovary removed
"because it had a cyst on the left ovary,
"he took out the right one.
"She was upset. "She had to go back to take out the left
"and she would up with a total hysterectomy.
"She still wanted children, so she has to go back home now
"and tell her husband that she can't bear kids."
One female detainee likening the procedures
to that of an experimental concentration camp, saying,
"It was like they're experimenting with our bodies."
With Wooten going on to say that many of the women
receiving these procedures have told her
they didn't fully understand why they had to get them,
and that has raised the question of whether or not
these women truly gave their informed consent.
With Wooten saying, "These immigrant women,
"I don't think they really, totally,
"all the way understand this is what's going to happen
"depending on who explains it to them."
And this, because she says that nurses at the facility
who don't speak Spanish will try to use Google
to communicate with patients,
or they'll use another immigrant to help interpret
rather than using the language line
as medical staff are supposed to do.
The complaint also details the account of another woman,
a detainee at the facility who said that the staff
at the ICDC and the doctor's office
did not properly explain what procedure
she was going to have,
in fact, that woman saying she was given
multiple different responses,
including that she needed a small procedure
to drain an ovarian cyst,
that she was receiving a hysterectomy
to have her womb removed, and later,
that part of her vagina would be scraped off
because she had a thick womb.
So after receiving these conflicting explanations,
you have the woman saying she tried to
explain that to a nurse, but that nurse responded
by getting angry with her and yelling at her.
However, I should note here, that woman never actually
received any of the procedures that she said
were described to her.
This, because she tested positive for COVID-19.
Which also brings us to one of the other
major points of the complaint,
that there was widespread disregard
for protecting staff and detainees from COVID-19,
including a lack of social distancing,
denying tests for symptomatic detainees,
and even placing people who had tested positive
back into the general population,
with Wooten also claiming the facility officials
would under-report the number of positive cases,
and adding that in some cases, nurses at that facility
would even shred medical requests
submitted by detained immigrants
and fabricate medical records.
Also, regarding staff, Wooten says that they were
actually pressured to "Work symptomatic and work positive
as long as we had a mask on,"
which, notably, is both against common sense
and against the official policies of the facility.
In fact, Wooten said that even though
she became symptomatic at one point
and submitted her doctor's note to her supervisor,
they still required her to work until she told them
she would be quarantining until her test results came back.
And then, when she did return to work,
she said that she was reprimanded for not calling in sick
every single day, even though she had been told
that she didn't have to.
And all of that is a large part of the reason
why Wooten filed this complaint,
saying she complained to leadership multiple times
about medical safety at that facility,
but was then demoted, all without a proper explanation
or adequate justification, a move she called retaliation
for speaking up, with Wooten telling The Intercept,
"They're still not taking this seriously.
"Enough was enough."
Following these allegations, we saw ICE
telling the Associated Press,
"In general, anonymous, unproven allegations
"made without any fact-checkable specifics
"should be treated with the appropriate
"skepticism they deserve,"
and in a statement to the Atlanta Journal Constitution,
it also defended its handling of the Coronavirus, saying,
"ICE epidemiologists have been tracking the outbreak,
"regularly updating infection prevention
"and control protocols, and issuing guidance
"to ICE Health Service Corps staff
"for the screening and management
"of potential exposures among detainees."
However, the private company that runs ICDC,
LaSalle Corrections, has not publicly responded yet.
But also, notably, it is not the first time
that they have come under fire during the pandemic.
In July, another whistleblower complaint
alleged that a separate detention center in Louisiana,
which is operated by LaSalle,
had engaged in, quote, "gross mismanagement,
"dangerous practices, and compliance failures
"that exacerbated the spread of COVID-19."
Though their executive director
defended the company before congress,
saying that it had taken tremendous efforts
to mitigate impacts of this unprecedented pandemic,"
but, big note here, we're also now seeing others
backing up Wooten's claims,
including a member of ICDC's medical staff
and four people currently or recently detained there.
Also, since this report was filed,
we've seen the Georgia House Minority Leader
sending a letter to the state's medical and nursing board,
asking them to suspend the licenses of any practitioner
who's implicated in the complaint
until a full investigation can be conducted.
This morning, you also had US House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi,
echoing calls for an immediate investigation,
saying, "If true, the appalling conditions
"described in the whistleblower complaint
"are a staggering abuse of human rights,"
with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
calling this part of a mass human right violation.
But ultimately, that is where we are.
The complaint's been filed with the Department
of Homeland Security's office with inspector general,
we're gonna have to wait to see what happens,
what it uncovers, and where I'll end this story
is with a question to you.
What are your thoughts with this story
and these allegations?
But that is where I'm going to end today's show.
As always, thank you for watching
and hitting that like button, it helps support the show.
Also, if you're new here,
you should hit that subscribe button
and, hey, maybe text me at 813-213-4423,
but with that said, of course, as always,
my name's Philip DeFranco, you've just been filled in,
I love yo' faces, and I'll see you tomorrow.