It is often on the back of public fury that dangerous new precedents are set. Authoritarianism can sneak in when we’re all hopping mad about something or someone. So mad that we don’t even notice that society’s rules are being rewritten in an illiberal way. I fear it’s happening again, with YouTube’s demonetisation of Russell Brand.

This is a risky thing to say. The climate is febrile right now. Criticise any aspect of the censure of Brand, following the publication of very serious allegations against him, which he strongly denies, and you risk being damned as a Brand defender. Worse, his weird online army, that ‘scamdemic’ mob that views Brand as a Jesus-like slayer of ‘the Covid regime’, might mistake you for a fellow traveller. Guys, please don’t.

Tribalism has warped the discussion of the Brand scandal

So I’ll clear my throat before asking what the hell YouTube is up to. That there apparently exists evidence that one of his accusers attended a rape-crisis centre following her alleged encounter with him makes this an issue of the utmost seriousness. That there is apparently a text message in which the woman said: ‘When a girl say[s] NO it means no’ is troubling in the extreme. The press has every right to report on what these women claim to have experienced. Brand, for his part, has said that his relationships were ‘always consensual’.

What’s more, I think Brand’s fanboys have behaved appallingly over the past few days. In my view, their insistence that ‘our boy’ is being stitched up by a globalist cabal is conspiratorial drivel. Their dismissal of Brand’s accusers as handmaidens of the lockdown regime doing the anti-Brand bidding of their masters is cruel and misogynistic. Their delusions of oppression – as if the capitalist class would plot to take down some saddos who think we’re living through a vax genocide – is laughable.

And yet, even in times like this, especially in times like this, it is important we keep our cool. Especially where liberty and justice are concerned. And YouTube, to my mind, is wrong to suspend Brand’s income. Such a significant restriction on a man’s ability to earn a living, such a severe form of economic reprimand, is surely a punishment that should only be inflicted when guilt has been established by law?

YouTube is preventing Brand from making money from his videos on the basis that he is ‘violating’ its ‘creator responsibility policy’.

‘If a creator’s off-platform behaviour harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action’, a spokesperson said. It is estimated that Brand made a million quid a year from his zany vids. Now, by decree of an American corporation, he no longer will.

Who would feel sorry for a rich brat like Brand, right? Especially one who faces serious accusations of sexual assault. Not so fast. We should feel very uncomfortable indeed that a multi-billion-dollar entity, an unaccountable business oligarchy headquartered in California, has made itself judge, jury and executioner on an affair that might well become a matter for the courts. That some suits have decreed in their infinite wisdom that Brand has fallen foul of their ‘off-platform behaviour’ guidelines, and thus must be punished.

Who would feel sorry for a rich brat like Brand, right?

It is not the role of Google – the owners of YouTube – to determine the guilt or innocence of any individual. How dare they. This smells to me like a corporatist usurping of the democratic institutions of justice. It is a snub to the right of everyday citizens to see justice done in a fair, open, rules-based way that Silicon Valley has rushed to judgement and rushed to punishment. They’re penalising Brand, yes, but they’re insulting us.

Some will say: ‘YouTube is a private company, so it can decide for itself who to host and who can make money on its platform.’ Okay, but some of us – me included – are not free marketeers. We believe society has a right to curb the behaviour of big business, especially where it impacts on consumers, users and citizens. And restricting the right of huge corporations to pre-empt the potential judgement of the courts, and to infer guilt against the accused, seems proper to me.

I no more trust Google and YouTube to rule on the morality or legality of a citizen’s ‘off-platform behaviour’ than I would trust an unelected dictator to do so. Give us a jury or give us nothing.

There has been a furious discussion about the presumption of innocence since the Brand allegations came out. Some say this presumption only applies in court, when the individual is being prosecuted by the mighty state. In everyday public chatter, in contrast, people can make any presumption they want. Technically this is right, though I do worry that devaluing the presumption of innocence in the court of public opinion risks devaluing it in courts of law. More to the point, though, while I’m okay with Joe Public making their minds up about Brand, YouTube and Google are a different matter entirely. I don’t want corporations with extraordinary cultural power and economic clout to presume guilt in anyone. You shouldn’t, either.

Tribalism has warped the discussion of the Brand scandal. His haters have damned him already, his followers insist he’s morally spotless. But I don’t want society to be organised according to hunches. We need calm, we need reason, we need to treat the accusers with respect, and we need to insist that no one’s life be destroyed on the basis of accusation alone. It’s a difficult principle to adhere to right now, but it is so much better than the alternative.