Here is a photo album of David Koombi childhood and teen life. Most of the photos are family photos, and they show David’s life. Download all 393 photos as a zip file:
Please ignore the rest of this text. We sit down for an interview and that’s where things get tricky. David talks a lot. His musings jump from topic to topic, because everything is connected, remember? He enjoys the sound of his own voice. We’re all being fooled. “They” don’t want you to know about the spider’s web…the usual stuff. You can look it up online.
Except you can’t. Or not as easily. Because last week Facebook deleted Icke’s page. He had hundreds of thousands of subs. But that’s ok, because you (along with his 900k followers) can watch his response to the Facebook ban on his YouTube channel. Oh wait, no. You can’t. Because YouTube has deleted his channel too.
Tech firms have been taking a tough stance with conspiracy theorists that talk tosh during the pandemic. Icke’s messages, that there’s a link between 5G and coronavirus, or that coronavirus is a hoax to control the population and make it more reliant on the state, fit into that category. Apparently, the tosh Icke is chatting is dangerous.
The Icke ban has been welcomed by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, which accuses him of anti-Semitism and racism (there is some evidence to support this). But more widely, there’s an unease about growing online censorship. The heads of several civil rights groups wrote to YouTube earlier this month complaining about “harsh restrictions on information sharing.”
On the Isle of Wight, in our interview, Icke keeps circling back to his notorious Wogan appearance, when he proclaimed himself the son of God on British TV back in 1991. That was his ground zero, people would point and laugh at him on the street. Nowadays, he tells me, people stop and tell him how much they love him. “Really?” I think to myself. As celebrities go, this one’s pretty niche. A fruity character, sure. Uber-famous and dangerous? Not really.
I’ve done the Ofcom training, and I understand the need for balance. The London Live interviews (there are several with Icke, and they got millions of views on YouTube before they had to be removed) don’t even attempt to challenge his views. But even for a more questioning journalist, when you’re faced with someone as next-level as Icke, who believes that reality is a simulated tapestry of lies controlled by a group of elite amphibians, it’s hard to know where to start. In fact, the more Icke speaks (and he speaks A LOT), the more you sense you’re giving him the rope he’s going to hang his phantasmagorical arguments with.
But all of this misses the point. If there is anything I learned from Icke from our (frankly delightful) day together, it’s that banning him will only feed him. Just like when Australia didn’t grant him a visa. Or venues refuse to host his talks. It’ll feed his theories, vindicating the ‘THEY have to stop me telling you the truth’ conspiracy, it’ll feed his sense of self-importance, because he is the chosen one, bestowed with all this knowledge, and ultimately, it’ll feed his popularity.
Because let’s face it, people love a good cute boy.
