This article is my own intellectual property and was published with Disobedient Media
Disobedient Media previously reported on Brock Pierce and the Hollywood sex abuse scandal that continues to haunt the former child star. Our report on the matter was informed by the groundbreaking Amy Berg documentary, An Open Secret. In addition to his short childhood acting career, Pierce is known for his intense involvement in Bitcoin and other forms of cryptocurrency.
Recent press reports indicate that legacy press pundit John Oliver had criticized Pierce in a recent segment of his notoriously pro-establishment broadcast. CryptoLeak reported that Oliver referred to Pierce as a “douche” and obliquely referred to Pierce's involvement in a Hollywood pedophilia ring by telling his audience to "Google the Brock Pierce scandal."
The news is especially odd in light of Oliver's consistent support of Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful run for office, going so far as to repeatedly mock and attack third-party candidates including Jill Stein, as well as Bernie Sanders supporters. Oliver's role as a gate-keeper or sheepdog for the neoliberal wing of the Left makes it particularly odd, then, that he would attack a fellow member of the Hollywood elite. This is especially true in light of Pierce's connection to Oliver's guiding star, Hillary Clinton. In a previous report discussing Pierce, Disobedient Media noted that the former child star was a member of the Clinton Global Initiative.
Soon after John Oliver's out-of-the-blue remarks were aired, press reports emerged which indicated that EOS had removed Pierce from Block.One, stating:
"Brock Pierce was an early advisor to Block.one for several months and made significant contributions to the awareness of the EOSIO project. His past experience working with projects such as Ethereum, Blockchain Capital, and as chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation have proved immensely valuable. As we mentioned last week, we recently came to a mutual agreement that Brock would end his role at Block.one as he transitions to independent community building and investment activities. We thank Brock for his contributions, support, and continued larger than life passion for the EOSIO project."CryptoLeak wrote that: "Brock Pierce was removed from all EOS Youtube Videos and his name is nowhere to be found in the official EOS website."
EOS' decision to cut ties with Pierce is not the first time he has faced professional pushback. Disobedient Media previously related that the announcement that Pierce would serve as Chairman of the Board at the Bitcoin foundation prompted at least ten members to resign in protest. Several of the resignation letters explicitly listed Pierce’s association with pedophilia and child pornography as the reason for their departure.
Disobedient Media also reported: "As detailed in Berg’s film, Brock was a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, a former child actor who appeared in films such as the 1992 classic Mighty Ducks and Disney’s “First Kid,” and Chairman of the Board at the Bitcoin Foundation. Pierce also co-founded the Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), a forerunner of video sharing site Youtube. In 2010, Pierce was also a participant at the Mindshift Conference, which was hosted by now disgraced billionaire pedophile and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein....
It remains unclear as to what may have prompted Oliver or his corporate handlers to attack Pierce, as his involvement in the DEN scandal has been discussed publicly for a number of years, especially in the wake of Amy Berg's film on the rampant sexual abuse of children in Hollywood titled An Open Secret. It is also important to note that Pierce was never personally charged with a sexual abuse offense.
Disobedient Media will continue to report on this story as it unfolds.
I'm amazed it took this long tbh, I feel much better about my investments in EOS now that they're distancing from Brock.
Yes, Ausbit, I feel the same way. Pierce always seemed to be pushing the wrong message as to what EOS and the other Larimer projects were all about.
That said, Oliver is a slime ball and this article has it completely right that he was being handed this as a hit job. It tells me there is real fear of these projects -- EOS, STEEM, BitShares. They fundamentally threaten the main pillars of financial and social control -- social media and networking (STEEM), internet OS-layer services (EOS), Foreign Exchange and brokerage services (BitShares).
They have Bitcoin bound down with futures contracts wagging the fucking dog. Now it's time to go after the real threats.
Out of curiosity. What about Pierce's message did you disagree with?
I have been following EOS's releases since conception and Pierce's messages always resonated with me and seemed very much aligned (though expanded) with the fundamentals of Larimer and Blumer.
Absolutely, i was shocked when i uploaded the uncensored version of that documentary to Dtube and was watching it again and suddenly realised that Brock was in it. I first watched it years earlier, before Steemit or EOS were things. I imagine Brock still holds a lot of tokens though, we shall see where this goes. I was a bit concerned that Dan was going to be caught up in something intended to derail him at a later date in some way.
Got a link to that documentary? Dtube or IPFS preferred.
I uploaded this to @dtube right after it came out https://steemit.com/dtube/@libertyranger/z6xf8h7l
That link sems to not be working, or at least the video won't play so try this one
Altough I didnt know about his background till this week. He didnt seem to hold the professionalism EOS needs at this critical time.
You can watch the uncensored version of the documentary on all this on DTube, here.
My comment on all this and the actual video from John Oliver's show are here.
Had I looked one comment down I would've had my answer!
Hmmmm... 🤔
Whatever the case, a fine job in unbiased reporting here...
The mainstream media wields incredible power - not saying that Brock Pierce isn't a weird dude, but seeing mainstream media be able to do this is unsettling
It's very surprising that John Oliver would choose to focus on Brock Pierce, the only reason I think this would be done by an establishment mouth-piece would be to cast block.one/eos/bitcoin/cryptos in bad light.
I read another piece by @kyriacos that rightly points out that at least some of what Oliver said in his segment has elements of truth, here. More specifically, that the cryptosphere has, to a certain extent has, a number of questionable characters in lead roles. New markets , and potential profits always tend to draw a certain amount of unsavory characters.
More importantly, as you point out, why now, as this has been discussed on numerous occasions in the past? My feeling is that the establishment is ramping up their attacks on the crypto space in an attempt to portray the entire ecosystem as a seething cesspool littered with nefarious actors.
Crypto is a threat to the financial establishment and this is another obvious attempt to discredit the entire space with this approach - guilty by association and all that.
I've said this before in other threads but I also view Pierce as a victim of abuse as well. Coming up in Hollywood as a teenager and being surrounded by child predators... I imagine that there's much more to this story then depicted in An Open Secret. Not that this excuses any of his actions. Just that the nature of abuse is cyclical.
Controversial matters, for sure.
Though, Pierce was never convicted. And, Many have still looked up to and respected him as a leader in the space, regardless of allegations.
Likely he could have been a victim as well... though how constructive is it to hold such debates, with no actual evidence or facts being brought to the table...?
Perhaps we shall just need time to see how all unfolds...
I see what you're saying.
What evidence has been brought to the table?
I think it's these murky waters surrounding Pierce that have people scratching their heads and therefore reigniting this conversation.
While Brock Pierce was not convicted there was a $21,000 out of court settlement made by Pierce regarding a lawsuit brought against Rector, Pierce and Chad Shackley by former DEN employees who claimed sexual abuse.
Personally, I would like to hear Brock's side of the story as people often judge others based on the optics of the situation. But the fact that he hasn't, to my knowledge, addressed his involved in DEN and subsequent lawsuits do raise serious questions.
It's an unfortunate situation, as I've heard from people involved in eos that Pierce is a good person who has admiration and respect in the crypto community for his work.
My main point here is that his past, which we only half understand is being used to smear and taint cryptos in general.
If you have the time, have a look at this post from a few months ago by @fortified and also the comments.
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@fortified/brock-pierce-or-is-billionaire-bitcoin-board-member-founder-of-tether-and-alleged-pedophile-a-covert-cia-asset
He had put out an open letter on the matter, which was linked to in that same article your shared...
I stand corrected. Thank you.
However, the article I linked to you also describes how there's a significant amount of time before a response to the lawsuit is filed and allegations were made, a period of about five months, when he is said to have spent time in Spain with Shackley and was actively trying to get Rector out of prison.
Despite the open letter from 2014, there's still a lot of questions left unaddressed.
Obviously, the ongoing sexual harassment epidemic in Hollywood that's been in the media recently has refocused attention on Mr. Pierce's past.
I'm not saying he's guilty of anything, what I'm saying is that it's entirely appropriate that some of these questions be asked and answered.
There is a video of him on youtube speaking about the issue for about 1 minute.. but it isn't very effective in garnering trust in him:
Thanks, I did see this in another thread after making my comments here and I agree with yo that it's not very effective. Seems like there's likely a gag-order in place regarding the settlement with 'Egan'.
My position currently is that the case made in 'An Open Secret' is pretty strong and Brock's rebuttal is pretty weak. I am also unaware of any reason why he would be targetted for false allegations of this kind as he wasn't involved in any kind of crypto projects back then and their web project was fairly doomed to failure due to technology limits at the time.
John Oliver just tows the line of whoever is paying his salary. Anything which damages the neoliberal powers that be are 'roasted' (his interpretation of wit is just shouting things, the louder the funnier) on his show. It is hardly unsurprising that he is going after cryptos, a threat to the established financial order.
Thank you! I agree that the most likely angle is to attack crypto currency in general. Much as Oliver repeatedly attacks third parties and anti-establishment-everything.
That's the only logical conclusion I see for now.
Thank you - any news about these people is most appreciated. Ever since I watched an Open Secret, Pierce has been on my radar.
We could speculate forever on the significance of this but it would amount to a hill of beans. Though, I suspect that news in relation to Mr Pierce may be about to become very interesting.
Thanks, and agreed.
Great article. We all should remember that Karma catches up with us all. Peace and love.
I think EOS team made a good decision, there's no need for controversies like this one to lead the news. Let's start this great project clean!
After hearing that this man was involved with EOS i had almost made my mind not to invest in EOS. It was Dans association with EOS because of which i had decided to invest in it. Now that pierce has been side lined i think i can reconsider EOS for Dan.
I don't think it was out of the blue.
EOS has had a massive amount of funding and over a year to produce....nothing. Oliver was right in casting suspicion on such a massive project. Brock's shallow attempts to hype the project only made it worse.
Brock Pierce was an easy target, likely a pedophile and altogether the perfect example of a Crypto Chad Douche. Oliver is a comedian and knew he only had to let the guy speak to turn it into a joke. Clinton has nothing to do with it.
My question was more: why now? Than "why, at all?"
The issues re: Brock's past have been 'An open secret' for a while now.
Clinton may have nothing to do with it but the establishment media, hollywood crowd, and the democratic establishment are deeply intertwined, which is why it was so surprising that Weinstein got called out as well. Not because it was surprising that it happened, but that after sitting on the story for years, The New York Times just suddenly out of apparently nowhere changes its mind? Multiple outlets sat on this story or prevented it being published - what changed? In both cases the question would be, who benefits? And in both cases, I don't have an answer.
I noted early on in the Weinstein scandalization that it was a move to overshadow #pizzagate which had gained a lot of traction, and was hitting hard right in the center of the Washington DC cesspit. James Alefantis was one of the 50 most influential people in DC, and arguably one of the most influential people in the world as a result.
The celebrity swirl has subsided, and the pizzagate story was swept out to sea with it. It is a classic example of using celebrity scandal to control narrative and bury stories.
I don't think the Pierce attack was related, as that train has left the station. Something else is going on with Pierce. Perhaps he has repented and changed his ways, making him dangerous to the powerbrokers that remain devoted to their deviance. Dunno. That's the best guess I can come up with out of zero actual knowledge of him and his present life.
I would also be shocked were EOS to put a great deal of stake in the odors wafting from John Oliver and his handlers. EOS isn't dependent on their ilk, and is indeed aimed at their hearts, unless @dan has been convinced to go over to the dark side.
That doesn't seem likely.
What??
A Crypto S*X Scandal? Hmmm..
Controversy has always surrounded Pierce, but this has not stopped him from helping promote the crypto industry. Reportedly, Pierce has invested in many blockchain based companies and has helped crypto companies raise hundreds of millions of dollars.
Brock Pierce dillema aside, It looks that most of the people around here didnt liked that Episodes because he threw some hits at eos in particular.
But take the jokes out of the way, and listen his arguments.
What have EOS delivery to us so far? Only promisses of How amazing It Will be.
But there is nothing with substance. So far, we are paying (a lot of money) for a possibility.
If the promisses are delivered, awesome!
But what If it's not doable? What If the money is not enough? What If they decide to abandon and keep the money? These are also possibilities.
But i guess people only want to hear positive things.
Have a read about the patent for something called the PFNTRAC if you want to understand why Clinton Foundation Cronies seem desperate to control the direction of crypto/blockchain technologies.
https://patriots4truth.org/2018/01/12/how-they-plan-to-control-everything-in-your-life/
“PFN” means Protected Primary Focal Node. “TRAC” means Trusted Remote Activity Controller.
These guys have known for a long time that if they can control the internet they can control the people... in fact they've known this stuff since before the internet was really a thing...
Distributed crypto technology is the Achilles' heel to these plans unless they somehow manage to get control of it also.
I am adding http://DisobedientMedia.com to my bookmarks on Firefox, in Ubuntu, now. Thanks for helping me learn more, making the world better one oatmeal at a time.
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