https://twitter.com/carterjwm/status/849813577770778624

Before I begin, I watched Phil for years. But I have to speak up about Phil's inconsistancies regarding protesters or people who are viewed as SJWs, Radical Liberals and etc. I need to say this because wheather you like it or not, protraiting poorly researched incidents and portraiting a false narratives is what will doom indepentant media. It will show that Phil is no different than CNN, Fox or MSNBC.

On June 6/12, 2017 he posted a video which was factually incorrect. Like many people in the skeptic community which is primarly conservative the narrative that anyone who outlandishly though violence oppose conservative speech are automatically left leaning, sjws, or authoritarian left leaning individuals.

As you see in the video it wasn't nessarily a right vs left situation. The violence is primarly caused by Anarchist which can be both right Right wing or Left Wing. We've seen that people who are toting the red and black flag are causing the violence. So the narrative that the event is right vs left and the left acted in violence is ultmatly false.

An other portion is that Laruen Southern is known to participate in protests in order to provide narratives where she slants her converage of story. This steams from a wide range of tatics from aggervating individuals at protests to getting arrested for trying to stop immigrants . If Phil is going to hold himself to a higher standard and condemn publications like CNN for manufacturing content then he independant news outlets to the same standard.

I say this not because I dislike his converage. I'm saying this because if new media is going to be taken seriously then there should be constistancy of standards. Otherise new media outlets will fall into the same traps as MSM

-As the New York Times reported, opposition to abortion in Alabama is widespread across gender lines. “Opinion polling has repeatedly shown that a broad segment of Alabama voters, including a majority of women, generally oppose abortion rights, and for many of them, passage of the ban was a triumph.”

-They later add, “Although women hold only 22 of 140 seats in the Alabama legislature - one of the smallest percentages in the country - they also held important roles in the abortion debate in Montgomery, the capital. A woman, Representative Terri Collins, was the primary sponsor of the new law, and Gov. Kay Ivey, the second woman ever to lead Alabama, signed the ban, calling it “a powerful testament to Alabamians’ deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a gift from God.””

-Looking at Pew polls on abortion, women are about as likely to be pro-life as men across Europe and America. In the US, 57% of men and 60% of women believe abortions should be legal in all or most cases. Meaning they are pro-life 43% and 40% respectively.

-Gender has a relatively poor correlation to one’s view on abortion. Factors like religious affiliation and political ideology are much more closely linked. As for race, there is some correlation with abortion, but contrary to this meme’s portrayal. Black and Hispanic Americans tend to be more pro-life than whites. Meaning the reason for the Alabama bill likely has to do with it being a conservative Republican state.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/us/abortion-law-women.html

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/12/14/in-the-u-s-and-europe-women-are-about-as-likely-as-men-to-favor-legal-abortion/

https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/

I've been watching Phil for about 10 years now, and I've supported him through his various endeavors, through both the highs and lows of his career. Over the last couple years, I've been popping in to this sub from time to time to see what the fans think so I can avoid the cancerous cesspool that is the YouTube comment section, but I think that's coming to an end.

Much like the rest of reddit, this sub has devolved into a circlejerk for overzealous high school age DAE DRUMPF posters and it seems like the userbase here is dwindling as a result. I thought it was supposed to be about conversation and getting to the truth of the matter, but I feel like that becomes less and less true over time. With just a glance at the front page, very few of the submissions lately have managed to accumulate as many as even 10 comments (lots don't even get any) and only one (with a seriously misleading left-leaning headline) has managed to break 20, with most of the comments being about how the headline is bullshit.

Appointing mods seems to have been a mistake on Phil's part as well. The changes they made just make me cringe. From the "pretty princess" banner to the creepy fascination with Phil's son that they've coded into the automod, I can see why he'd avoid this place like the plague. I find myself coming here less and less as the weeks go by and I'll probably stop altogether before too long.

I don't know if the people who actually care have moved onto the Defranco elite discord or what's happened, but I feel like this sub is moving towards total obscurity and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Now, I'm all for securing reliable sponsors for the PDS because of how shitty Youtube's monetization system is, but something about the Postmates sponsorship rubs me the wrong way. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but something Linz posted on Twitter about refusing a SeaWorld sponsorship really pissed me off.

I’m doing it so you can follow the campaign and realize that a lot of people don’t do research on the companies and products they promote.

Does Phil do research on the companies he promotes? If he did, he would realize that companies like Postmates are an absolute blight on working class people. I don't understand how you could act holier-than-thou about a SeaWorld sponsorship while ignoring the way Postmates and other Gig Economy companies exploit their workers. Is it only OK to speak out about SeaWorld because it's animals being exploited, and not people?

If you don't know what I'm talking about, let me explain. Postmates, along with Uber Eats, Doordash, and all of the other app-based food delivery companies don't classify their drivers as employees. They classify them as partners, who are independent contractors. This means they can legally (or semi-legally) pay them pennies to deliver food. Driver partners are responsible for covering all of their own expenses and taxes. The problem is, these companies target people who may not understand the extent of their vehicle expenses and don't even realize how badly they're getting screwed over.

Other people do understand their expenses but may not have any other options for making money, like myself. I live in Canada, and we don't have Postmates here, but we have Uber Eats and Doordash. Our most popular delivery company though is Skip the Dishes, which is owned by Just Eat, a huge delivery company from the UK.

This is who I work for. Unfortunately I have an episodic disability, which means I can't hold on to a 'regular' job with a set schedule. My episodes make me bedridden for anywhere from a week to several months, so I can only work when I'm well enough to. I've been denied any income support or disability from the Canadian Gov't (but that's another story). These gig jobs tend to have extremely flexible scheduling, which is why someone in my situation would be able to work for them.

Now, every one of these company's pay structures is slightly different, but has the same end result. The driver gets paid a delivery fee plus tip, and that's it. The delivery fee tends to be low enough that after factoring in expenses, it doesn't even come close to minimum wage. Drivers rely on tips to subsidize the low pay. Most of these companies (including Postmates) have an option for the customer to tip after the delivery is done. Problem is, it's like an 'out of sight, out of mind' thing. The driver is gone, so the customer might not feel ashamed about not tipping. Note; I personally despise the tipping culture in North America but unfortunately it's a necessary evil for a lot of restaurant related jobs.

But here's where my company, Skip the Dishes, differs. Skip has an option for the customer to tip up front. Now, this doesn't really make any sense, but it's completely necessary to compel the driver to accept an order. Skip the Dishes calls it a tip but that's not really what it is. It's an added incentive to ensure your food is delivered in a timely manner. The delivery fee Skip charges is so low, that many orders with no tip would actually lose money for the driver after expenses. As in, the driver would have to pay out of pocket to deliver the food. But like I said, only Skip the Dishes operates this way. That makes them better for the driver than any other company, yet I've been working for them for 3 years and I have not had a single shift where I have made minimum wage after expenses. Think about that for a second.

For Spring Break this year, I decided to work as hard as I could to try to make some decent money. I figured order volume might be higher with most people off work. I worked 80 hours total, most of that with Skip the Dishes, and only 6 hours for Uber Eats. I ended up make just over $900 (CAD, which is about $675 USD) that week. Pretty good right? Well, I had to drive over 1300 KM (~800 miles) to do those orders. I use $0.50/KM to estimate expenses, which is actually slightly lower than the Canadian Government's recommended rate. So my vehicle expenses were over $650. I made less than $250 net, which is about $3 an hour. The minimum wage in my province is $15/hour...

I wrote a post about that experience on my website, you can read it here if you want. It's a bit long though. I also wrote another post about delivering in a Blizzard, right here. This one is a quick read.

I know I'm talking a lot about Skip the Dishes in a post about Postmates, but it's what I have experience with and what I feel comfortable talking about. If any Postmates drivers want to share their experiences, please do. From the research that I've done, it's clear Postmates is just as bad as Skip the Dishes, if not worse. One thing I like about Skip is that they give you the customer address when they send you an order offer. You know exactly where you need to drive to finish the order.

But Postmates doesn't do this. You're only told where the restaurant or store is, and you get the customer's address after you pick up the food/products. This is very problematic. There are many areas in my delivery zone that I don't want to deliver to. They may be sketchy, or in the middle of nowhere, or I might just not want to drive there for whatever reason. Features like this blur the lines between being an independent contractor and being an employee. As a contractor, we are able to accept or deny any work. We are not obligated to do any order that gets sent to us if we don't want to.

It's not possible to make an educated decision on the value of an order without knowing the customer's address. This is one of the reasons why these gig companies are getting sued all over the world:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/skip-the-dishes-lawsuit-1.4768467

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/foodora-to-leave-australia-amid-lawsuits

https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/25/14387256/ubereats-lawsuit-worker-misclassification-benefits-florida

https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/10/doordash-will-pay-5-million-to-settle-class-action-lawsuit-over-independent-contractors/

http://www.postmatescouriersettlement.com/home

A quick scroll through /r/postmates shows a lot of disenfranchised, depressed drivers. Postmates apparently just lowered their minimum pay for deliveries, which was already too low to begin with. Postmates drivers are actually trying to organize a strike to fight back:

https://gizmodo.com/workers-came-up-with-a-brilliant-plan-to-use-postmates-1835158791

https://www.reddit.com/r/postmates/comments/bq8phr/national_call_for_a_strike/

https://payup.wtf/postmates-time-to-pay-up

Perhaps this would be a good story for the PDS? 😉

Phil, if you read this, you should maybe rethink your partnership with Postmates. Or at least you and Linz shouldn't act like you choose them on a moral basis like when you refused the SeaWorld sponsorship.

TL:DR - Postmates takes advantage of their couriers and pays them way less than minimum wage. Ignoring the issues regarding gig economy companies while preaching about refusing a SeaWorld sponsorship for moral reasons is not a good look.

So let's get this straight: this man PewDiePie promotes an overt islamophobe like Ben Shapiro to his 88 million subscribers, follows alt-right white nationalist like assholes Stefan Molyneux, Paul Joseph Watson, etc etc. And he's surprised that a right-wing terrorist preached his name and killed 49 people?

At some point, how do you not notice a pattern here?

Edit: I have a feeling Phil is gonna go easy on PewDiePie in the video about this, and it's going to be a mistake. At some point he has to learn a lesson and not promote these disgusting people on his channel or anywhere on social media.