In his own name
At Cambridge, Sacha Baron Cohen wrote his undergraduate thesis on the alliance between Black and Jewish Americans in the civil rights movement, and researched it at the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta. It won a prize, and the subject stayed with him. Ali G, Borat and Brüno were comedy of a particular kind: a character who could not be taken seriously, placed in front of people who took themselves very seriously, so that prejudice would show itself without being asked. The people in the room did the talking.
In 2019 he began to speak as himself. Accepting the Anti-Defamation League's International Leadership Award in New York, he gave a keynote on the responsibilities of the largest internet companies and their part in the spread of antisemitism and disinformation. A year later he set out the same case in TIME. In August 2023 he stood at the Lincoln Memorial with the King family at the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington and told the crowd what people had said to him while he was in character, and what he had learned from it.
November 21, 2019
Keynote address at the ADL Never Is Now summit
His first major speech as himself. Accepting the ADL's International Leadership Award, he argued that a handful of internet companies had become the greatest propaganda machine in history and asked that they be held to the same standards as publishers.
“Democracy, which depends on shared truths, is in retreat, and autocracy, which depends on shared lies, is on the march.”
November 21, 2019
ADL International Leadership Award
Presented by the Anti-Defamation League at its Never Is Now summit in New York. The keynote above is his acceptance speech.
Source: ADL
On the front line with the King family, Rev. Al Sharpton and Robert Smith at the 60th anniversary March on Washington, Lincoln Memorial, August 26, 2023.
August 26, 2023
Remarks at the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington
Speaking as himself at the anniversary march, he described what people had said to him while he was in character, called racism and antisemitism lies with the same root, and asked the crowd to choose truth and empathy over hate.
“We always have a choice. Today, as others spread lies, we choose truth. As others stoke conspiracies, we choose facts.”
We Must Save Democracy From Conspiracies
TIME, October 8, 2020
Written four weeks before the 2020 US election, the piece argues that conspiracy theories spread on social media, Facebook in particular, are a threat to democracy, and describes what he saw while filming Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.
Nkhata Bay, northern Malawi
Kunyanja Secondary School
Kunyanja Secondary School in Nkhata Bay, northern Malawi, was opened in 2004 by three young Malawian teachers, Sydney Simumba, Feston Singoyi and John Chaula, with ten children on a few benches. A chance meeting with two Britons on their honeymoon, Jason Strelitz and Mandy Wilkins, became a partnership, and through their charity Masambiro UK the school has grown for 22 years.
More than fifteen years ago Sacha funded the school hall, which has been central to the school's growth: assemblies, examinations and a venue for the town. Today the school teaches more than 700 children. More than 12,000 have passed through it, and hundreds have gone on to university.
Masambiro UK, registered charity 1170717 (Charity Commission)
The school hall Sacha funded, at an assembly.
A game in front of the classrooms.
Organisations he supports
Humanitarian work he has funded, from Idlib to Khartoum, and the organisation that gave him a platform in 2019.
Save the Children
Children's health and protection worldwide. His support funded measles vaccination for children in northern Syria.
Concern Worldwide
An Irish humanitarian organisation working in the poorest places on earth. His support went to water, sanitation, health and nutrition work in the Mogadishu region of Somalia during the 2022 drought.
CARE
Emergency relief and long-term development. In December 2025 his support went to people displaced by the war in Sudan: cash for food, mobile medical teams and dignity kits for women and children.
NHS workers and first responders
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 he and Isla Fisher sent a planeload of personal protective equipment to health workers and first responders in the UK.
Anti-Defamation League
The ADL fights antisemitism and all forms of hate. He accepted its International Leadership Award in 2019 and has worked with it since on the accountability of social media platforms.
Campaigns
Holding the platforms to account, from the 2019 keynote onwards.
Pressing Facebook to remove Holocaust denial
From the 2019 ADL keynote onwards he pressed Facebook to remove Holocaust denial. On October 12, 2020 Facebook announced it would remove content that denies or distorts the Holocaust.
Source: Meta newsroom, October 12, 2020
Stop Hate for Profit, co-founder
He co-founded Stop Hate for Profit, a coalition of civil rights groups that holds social media companies to account for the hate and conspiracy theories they profit from, and froze his Instagram account for its day of action on September 16, 2020.
, TIME
Read Sacha Baron Cohen's Speech on Standing Against Hate: 'We Always Have a Choice'Full text of his remarks at the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, as prepared.
, The Washington Post
The 'Silicon Six' spread propaganda. It's time to regulate social media sites.Op-ed calling for regulation of the largest social media companies.