Dave Rubin

About

Dave Rubin is an American political commentator and stand-up comedian. He is best known as the host of The Rubin Report, a political talk show on YouTube that mainly focuses on identity politics, freedom of speech, and other domestic issues. He is also notable for popularizing several terms and phrases, particularly the term Regressive Left.

History

On February 16th, 2013, Rubin began co-hosting on the liberal news network TYT (The Young Turks). He frequently premiered on TYT’s main network show as a panel guest and also hosted his own YouTube channel/TYT show full-time show named The Rubin Report.

He left his TYT job on March 2nd, 2015, to work full time as a host on The Rubin Report in partnership with RYOT.com for a short time before partnering with Ora TV in August 2015.

The Rubin Report

In its inception, the Rubin Reports structure was a round table discussion talk show where Dave and a guest panel would talk about current events and trending topics.

On June 13th, 2016, The Rubin Report left Ora TV and became independent via fan supported patron donations, and since then The Rubin Report has significantly evolved. The show's structure currently consists of a one-on-one hour-long conversation between Rubin and a weekly guest. Additionally, the show includes a segment entitled "The Direct Message" where Dave directly looks into the camera and gives his views on current events. Some notable guests include Milo Yiannopoulos, Sam Harris, Adam Carolla and Larry King.

Twitter Bot Complaint

On May 30th, 2019, Rubin tweeted,^[1] "A crazy amount of anonymous accounts keep telling me to fuck myself, how much they hate me, and that I should do my show the way they demand. This is obviously at least partially coordinated and I already have some evidence. Any thoughts, @jack @TwitterSupport?" The tweet received more than 6,400 likes, 2,800 comments and 1,100 retweets in 24 hours (shown below).

Following the tweet, people began trolling Rubin, posting images and messages featuring variations of the phrase "Go Fuck Yourself" (examples below).

On May 30th, The Daily Dot ^[2] published a report on the tweet.

Reputation

Rubin is considered a member of the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW),
an unofficial band of public figures who espouse controversial ideas and beliefs surrounding subjects related to free speech, identity politics and biology.

Criticisms

In 2018, the Guardian^[3] included Rubin and his show in a piece entitled "YouTube's 'alternative influence network' breeds rightwing radicalisation, report finds." The article uses Rubin's interview with conspiracy theorist Stefan Molyneux, who according to the piece "openly promotes scientific racism and advocates for the men’s rights movement" during the interview. They write, "Although Rubin doesn’t endorse these views, he doesn’t challenge them in any substantive way and appears to take his words at face value." They cite a study on the effects of this in study about political YouTube channels, like Rubin's. It states:

This type of scientific racism has been used to justify racial hierarchies and oppression for centuries. By letting him speak without providing a legitimate and robust counterargument, Rubin provides a free platform for white supremacist ideology on his channel.

Search Interest

External References