After Mehdi Hasan’s debate with far-right opponents went viral, some worry about the embrace of rage-fuelled content
M
ehdi Hasan knew he had gone viral. The broadcaster and author saw the views ticking up on YouTube; his phone was pinging incessantly. But the realisation that things had become, well, really quite surreal came when an older gentleman approached him at an event in Washington and, in Urdu, said: “I watched you with the 20 crazies.”
The man was referring to the British-American commentator’s appearance on Surrounded, a gladiatorial one-v-many debate web series, hosted on YouTube by Jubilee Media. During the debate – billed as “1 Progressive vs 20 Far-Right Conservatives” – Hasan was asked about his “ethnic background”, by a man who the Guardian unmasked as the organiser of two violent far-right protests. Another debater laughed maniacally to applause while agreeing he was a fascist. He was later sacked and condemned – and then raised $30,000 (£22,300) from supporters on a Christian crowdfunding site. The video has now been viewed more than 10m times.
“I saw the massive audience it gets with young people. I thought, well, that’s a good place to be,” says Hasan, who launched Zeteo, his own alternative news platform, last year. “But it’s really cut through in a way even I didn’t imagine – it’s been phenomenal for both good reasons and bad.”
