Ground there in the city of descried it heavy bombardment from forces the saying that explosions can be heard through the north of the city. The Prime Minister abu ahmed spoke person has just told us that the Libyan Forces do not have a mission to bombard its own city and its people. They said that the effort to bring to justice what they describe as the criminal clique of the t. T. S. Will not entailed discriminatory bombardment. By refuting the claims of leadership, irans Supreme Leader is vowing retaliation. For the killing of a top nuclear scientists, gunmen ambushed a vehicle carrying will say, in fact, reside, and his bodyguards near tehran. On friday, irans president is basing the assassination on israel. He has more from tehran. There is a general sense of shock and disbelief that this could actually take place in the country. But we heard from president hassan rouhani. He issued a written statement earlier on saturday in which he blamed israel, and also said that the countrys nuclear and defensive programs will move forward despite this assassination. He said that this will only increase the will, and the determination of it when scientists down the line, and that factor is that they will be replaced, and his replacements will work even harder to try and make up for the fact that he has been assassinated. Hundreds of police and paramilitary personnel have been deployed to control protesting farmers in a round. Indias capital. Thousands are rallying against new laws and they say could take away their livelihoods. Lizabeth raanan has more from the protests at the delhi high water costs are the single Border Crossing now between the states and marianna and delhi with thousands of farmers have remained camped out behind me is a Main National highway in the country. But as far as the eye can see, there are thousands of farmers and their tractors, they try their vehicles, which have been converted to temporary homes. I mean, this looks like a tract, a city, and they want, they dont want to go to the ground. Its been a lot of to them on the outskirts of the city because they demand initially was to go to the center of the capital to make the opposition heard. And they say that if theyre not allowed to go to the center, theyre only allowed to go to some ground on the outskirts. They will remain on national highways. Who will sing this great interruption to traffic on to the government, repeal the farm lulas, which they are against where the single crossing. And its a similar picture as other Border Crossings around delhi, it is peaceful today. There is a very large police and paramilitary presence. Nearby monitoring the protests. New restrictions will be imposed in the us city of los angeles from monday in response to a rise in corona virus cases, all private and public gatherings of people from different households have been banned. It comes as a number of recorded infections in the us passes. 13000000, more than 400000 people have died from corona virus in europe. As the continent undergoes a 2nd wave of infections. Despite that, france is reopening stores ahead of the holiday season. For French Police officers have been detained after a video emerged, showing them beating a black music producer. The assault has sparked widespread public outrage and more than 100. 00 cuban artists have protested outside the culture in stream have on against what they say. The state crackdown on dissent. The demonstration came out of police broke up another Group Holding a hunger strike, calling for the release of a jailed rapper. Those are the headlines coming up next year. Its a studio be unscripted. Do stay with us on aljazeera. Why are journalists under attack . Because democracy is under attack and i realized i was working for something that was evil. And i had been a part of actually creating it. When Mark Zuckerberg essentially said that it is ok for politicians to lie, that spells doom my name is maria ressa and im a journalist and also the message that the government is sending is very clear. Be silent or your next ever since. Thousands and Death Threats on line. Thank you. Thank you. Im christopher wiley. Im a Data Scientist, but most people know me as the cambridge analytical whistleblower. Thank you. Facebook knew about cambridge analytical scheme, says 2015 before the story broke. Facebook threatened to sue the guardian and then banned me for whistleblowing. Are revealed hard data is being manipulated to political gain without our consent. Thanks. Thanks. Since rappers started reporting the president protect us that the drug war, i believe that he did leak charged and arrested. It makes you feel about leaks quite right. Im inspired by how maria continues to stand up for the truth in the face of real danger. Chrysis revelations lead to the largest danger Crime Investigation in history if we allow cheating in our democratic her thighs and we allow this amount. What about next time . What about the time after that . We know firsthand what happens when social media is weaponize and in danger. It now poses to our democracies around the world. This is an existential moment. And its time for us all to act fast. Its so good to talk to you, you figured out and then you created a system. You taught yourself how to code, you learned the data. And then you built this whole system that was very efficient, modify behavior. And then you decided to take it down. When did you decide it was wrong . When i 1st joined the company that later became cambridge analytic, a c l group, i joined a company that at the time was working on projects that were geared towards countered stream ism encounter radicalization. Looking at how extremism spreads online and we got discovered by a guy by the name of steve bannon, who won 3 short got a billionaire to acquire the company. And what i saw was that i had worked on a system that got essentially inverted to radicalize young men in the United States. And, you know, witnessing the inception of an insurgency the campaign. And so when i started seeing videos of people in focus groups who were so angry with things that were frankly untrue. You know, i realized i was working for something that was evil. And i had, you know, been a part of actually creating it. And i couldnt keep doing that. Its interesting when you said you were looking at it for counter radicalization at 1st. I came to it because i was looking at how social Network Analysis spread the ideology of terrorism. And we created rappler because if you can convince people to blow themselves up with this radical ideology, why couldnt you have some things that are for a good, right . Thats why we created rappler. But then when you started seeing the negative parts, its hard to pull yourself out how and to be a whistleblower. What gave you the courage to do that . Yeah, i think it was for me, you know, growing up kind of as an outsider, i was partly in a wheelchair when i was growing up because of a invisible disability and then lobby on top of that sort of being queer. I came out as a with the war, but ive been coming out for my entire life and you know, for me its that sense of otherness that and comfortable with being uncomfortable. Yeah. That i think gave me a little bit of a notch to help me become, become a whistleblower. But with setting up rappler and, you know, being on the outside, i think youre going out there every single day. Pissing off a lot of people trying to do you find that you know, your lifes journey sort of influence and thought, oh gosh. So i was born in the philippines and then moved to the United States when martial law was declared in 1972. But when i was with americans, i never felt completely american. And when im filled with for the peano, so i built feel completely filipino either. So i guess its that its that otherness part of it. Right. And that, thats good training for journalists or whistle blowing or whistle blowing. But i mean, i do find that theres a bit of an overlap because not that i would ever call myself a journalist. But in some senses i feel similar. Theres something similar about that. You know, shoving uncomfortable information into peoples faces, the knowing you have to Pay Attention to this and then viewing the consequences of that. So i was going say, thats the mission of journalism, right . You speak truth to power and youll know power doesnt like that in your and i think you been speaking truth. I mean theres a cost to yourself, but you also seem to learn something more from each instance that youve done that. Has this been a good experience or a bad experience . Its a mixed bag, i guess. I mean, i think its been on the whore. A good experience for i have learned a lot. So how, you know, you know, after watching 2016 happen and knowing so many things about what was going on. You know, i learned that i do feel compelled to speak uncomfortable truths. But at the same time, you know, you know, getting called to testify, our congress, you know, as a 20 something game or living in london, its not something that you really expects to be part of your life journey. It was pretty intimidating. Is pretty intimidating to have, you know, the department of justice and f. B. I. Sitting behind me and you know, giving the a subpoena after that. But i think, i think on the whole, its been a good experience. Because if you think back before 28, seen the idea that privacy or data protection, you know, the internet would be a mainstream political issue in the 2020 election and the primary race would kind of be laughable. So i feel like at least in that sense, exposing wrongdoing and exposing the structures that facilitate and support that wrongdoing. With Companies Like facebook yet have at least opened up an awareness into a conversation in our mainstream political discourse that i think is productive. How easy is it to manipulate mass and im asking you, i get frustrated a lot by the, the current sort of discussion about the election manipulation because it so focuses on the United States and to a lesser extent, britain. Because britain and the United States. And im sure coming from the philippines. You know, this full well have been manipulating elections and democracy is around the world for hundreds of years. Britain was a empire, a speck. And, you know, the reason why, you know, the national drink in britain is tea and you know, National Animal is a lion and, you know, these are not natural things here. And so i think the reason why people are so upset in the United States or in britain or other parts of europe is an American Voter now understands what it feels like to be an african voter. Because, you know, living in a country where youve got a gradually eroding Information System where lies are everywhere, where you dont know what to trust. Youve got Foreign Countries left right and center, trying to manipulate you trick you deceive you and corruption rife in the administration. Looking at the philippines and something that id be interested in hearing your thoughts on coming from an x. U. S. Colony. Where you had a large country dictating the terms of how Government Works if you know, to becoming independent. And now having a large American Corporation run by a bunch of straight white dudes in america, starting to influence at least what information is allowed or not allowed to exist, or what gets amplified and promoted. Or what does thing in the philippines do you, do you feel like there is a sort of neocolonialism happening online . So youre the 1st person. I heard say that colonialism never died. It just moved on line. Right. And i think we talked about facebook as a 1st level, which, i mean, frankly, the collapse that roshan of our institutions began on facebook. What the description of the philippines Stanley Karnow wrote in our image and he described the philippines as a country that spent 450 years in a convent and 50 years in hollywood. We were colonized by spain and then the United States. And i think its ironic that the country that gave democracy is also the, the place where Silicon Valley then has given someone like to tear down a bull. So narrow these types of authoritarian leaders who work who are killing democracy, the power to do it, to manipulate people. But i think we all know that the, our countries in the global south bear the brunt of all the tech, this issue. And that have been made, right . I mean, how do we get power, how weve never really had a seat at the table in these things. And weve, theyre the worst. Do you think you should go see other people sure. Of that part. I mean, part of the reason i can speak about it is because i can articulate it in a way that the west can understand. You currently are, you know, challenging and allegedly, and arguably corrupt regime. What does it mean for you to say give us a seat at the table . Do you give a corrupt regime a theater table to talk about now . So i think one of the things this time show us is exactly how Human Behavior is universal regardless of culture in many ways. Because a very same things that manipulate americans and europeans are the very same things that manipulate us in the global south. We just dont have the institutions to fight back and look how weak your institutions have gotten here. Behavioral modification system. How do we fix it . I think ive been a journalist for this is almost 35 years. Its never been as hard to work as a journalist, as it is today. I have to post bail 8 times. My government filed 11 cases and invested 11 cases and investigations that year and then began arresting me and 21001st arrests was valentines day. Those over the valentine. Oh end. My government seems to work very well in february this february. You know, theyve, theyve gone and filed a similar case against the largest broadcaster in the philippines. What would you say . You know, to, to your critics in the philippines about the charges that you know, the government has lodged against you. Did you break the law . Oh my lord. No, i am challenging power, right . We continue to do our jobs and we will continue the line. I always use this, we are going to hold the line because the philippine constitution like the United States constitution has a bill of rights where patterned after the United States constitution. And then let me ask you this, what the cambridge talladega do in the philippines. The Company Operated in many places around the world. This is something that also i learned spending time there that, you know, its really profitable to go and corrupts governments. Because governments have like really monetised that youve got. Sovereignty is something thats really hard for you, for a company to replicate. And you know, with you, karen, you can dictate, you know, mineral rights, resource rights, passports, all kinds of things in the philippines. You know, they are not as there are, you know, the story of the philippines. You guys kind of got trumped before everybody else. Ok. Yes. Youre facing prison in quite serious charges, least 80 years. Why do you care so much . Because then when it be easier to just go somewhere else, i mean i could toss in question at you why you became a whistleblower right . Because this is the time that matters. Because if i didnt stand up for the standards and ethics, the mission of journalism, when it matters, then Everything Else i did beforehand doesnt matter. And then im not who i am. Defining who you are. I hate this time period. I hate that the baton was passed to me now, but thats why it matters. How do we get Civic Engagement when people dont know the facts . I dont think we can. Its kind of like what were doing right now. Were sitting on a stage. Were having a discussion, there is an audience they know that were talking. And if i Say Something thats not true or somebody can call it, or a journalist can call it. What we have now is a situation where i can become invisible. And i can go and whisper in, so everybodys ear and they all hear something different. And i can do that now with the benefit of having followed everybody in the audience around for years and years and years reading through their text messages, listening to their phones, looking at everything that they look at, even when they dont realize that theyre being watched. And i dont think that we can have a functioning democracy when there is no longer public discourse, because everything has become privatized. And oftentimes people cant, dont even know if theyre receiving something that is targeted or not, which again goes back to if you get rid of transparency, you get rid of accountability. You get rid of democracy. We can take questions from the audience. Maria Julie Posetti from the International Center for journalists. Ive spent time with you and with your news organization, and i know that you have learned a lot as a result of the orchestrated dissin for measuring campaigns, the deliberate targeting of journalists and rappler in particular. Given that were talking particularly about what kristof has referred to as pushing, if these problems, you know, from the global south to the west. Can you tell us sitting here in london . What journalists in particular, dealing with these problems now can do to prepare themselves. So if i think this is an excess tensional moment for democracy, globally journalism, the death of journalism, i want to say the death of journalist, but the death of journalism is only the 1st signal for the death of democracy. Our dystopian president is your dystopian future. If we dont do anything right now, and of course, with the elections coming up in the United States, its a huge problem. But what are the danger signals the fact that we dont know the facts on the fact that you dont know whom to trust. Because in the philippines, the 1st targets of attacks and these are exponential attacks, right . I was getting an average of 9890 hate messages per hour in the philippines. In 2016, our data showed that women were attacked at least 10 times more than men. So myside, ginny, sexists, im the kind of gender sexualized gendered attacks on women. Whats the end goal . You pound someone to silence so that a whole narrative collapses. And then the voice with the loudest megaphone is amplified, bottom up, and then top down our president , for example, the attacks against me and rappler. We were attacked for a year on facebook and social media. And then after that, a year later, president to tear to said the same exact thing which is like astroturfing it is, it lays the groundwork for what the government does. You are all living through something similar is just our institutions crumbled within 6 months. Your institutions are a little bit stronger than ours, but human beings behave the same way. And the lack of trust is ushering in a whole new 1930940 s. Right. All of a sudden were looking at fascism and i guess this is why i am so scared and i want Silicon Valley. I want the west who have stronger institutions to do something more about it. Because if we dont, instead of a year or 2 years of this or going to look at decades of fascism. My question to you, christopher, i am from kenya. You work for cambridge analytical, you know, robi, over 70 people died may be directly or indirectly related to the role of cambridge in the data. My question then is, is it legal or moral for british or american firms to work in countries like what they take advantage of local regulations and yet continue to operate. This is something that i found most shocking when youve got a, a company in country a, but safe in britain engaging with multiple firms and contractors each in their own jurisdiction. Creating this information or a propaganda that were entirely in britain would be wholly illegal. And then disseminating that in another country, because youve got so many different players involved and so many different components of wrongdoing. Its actually really difficult to figure out where technically did a crime occur in, in tax law. Were just starting to, you know, create principles and rules that prevent people from just hopping from one jurisdiction to another. But with data and the internet, we are what we know where tax law was in 1950, not realizing that the internet is global. That data is global, that this information can be global. We lack, you know, not only the actual institutions to sue police, but we actually lack like principles in saw, a lawmaker start to understand actually how the internet works. I dont mean not sarcastically, as in that it is actually global and that we need to create principles that, that him embrace that global ness. Lots of wrongdoing can happen. Maria, you have been tricked since and yet continue your fight. Im originally from turkey and losing interest contrie for the last 20 years. In my country, many journalists are in jail now, and many others are free to go for writing speaking. And so what do you see of journalism and fear . Weve never been as vulnerable as we are today because power in countries like yours and mine has taken what the internet, what social media, what Companies Like cambridge analytical and it is, it isnt only thing which analytical, we now have filipino Companies Like cambridge on the right they are the ones taking advantage of it. Why is it that the bad guys are the ones who are taking these tack . These tools of manipulation and using them against us for us, for someone like chandan dar, for example, he had to flee his country and he made the decision to do that. For fear of his life, others are dying. We see this and every single report that comes out about journalism. Why are journalists under attack . Because democracy is under attack because you attack the Truth Tellers because the integrity of facts is gone. Right . Were not agreeing on the facts and the internet. The way social media is set up. This one concept of growing it by having you choose friends of friends to grow has polarized our societies. So we have far more polarized societies and then we have no understanding of what the facts are. And then you attack institutions. And when you have someone like your leader and my leader, they become stronger in this environment. They hijack. And this is why democracy his dying in our areas of influence. We need to protect the facts because if you dont have the facts, you cant have integrity of elections. You cant have integrity of markets. How can we have a working society if we dont know how a public sphere, where we agree on what the facts are . Weve always had the devil and the angel on our shoulders. But the way those social media platforms have been formulated. Hands the devil in your ear, why is it that youre allowed to experiment on society . And when real people like get killed, there are no actual consequences. Coded 19 is a Public Health crisis that has been compounded by capitalism. Navigates the Big Questions raised by the global pandemic. How is the system based on private ownership and the pursuit of profit . The world in a time of us . Capitalism is the pandemic. If it were exploited to protect the people for the profit episode, one of the full hail the meltdown on aljazeera dissecting the headlines in the midst of a pandemic. Lets start with some of the on the ground realities of the News Coverage was the way of the one challenging assumptions of the official night listening post on aljazeera. So again, im fully back to bill in doha with the headlines on i would begin with breaking news and there are reports of heavy shelling in the capital region. The government announced on wednesday it would launch a final assault on a after a deadline for the to graham leadership. To surrender. Has more from nairobi, kenya, weve heard from multiple sources that the Ethiopian Government military, that their Regional Council refuted mccary has begun leadership. The military leadership to go in Peoples Liberation front. There in the city of describing. Heavy bombardment from forces are saying that explosions can be heard to the north of the city. The Prime Minister area, its called person has just told us that we do not have a mission to bombard its own city and its people. They said that the effort to bring to justice, what they describe as the criminal clique of the t. T. S. Will not entailed discriminatory bombardment by refuting the claims of their leadership. In other news, irans Supreme Leader is vowing retaliation for the killing of a top nuclear scientist. Tehran is on israel gunmen ambushed a vehicle carrying on friday. There is a general sense of shock and disbelief that this could actually take place in the country. But we heard from president hassan rouhani, he issued a written statement earlier on saturday, in which he blamed israel, and also said that the countrys nuclear and defensive programs will move forward despite this assassination. He said that this will only increase the will, and the determination of it when scientists down the line, and that factor is that they will be replaced, and his replacements will work even harder to try and make up for the fact that he has been assassinated. Hundreds of security personnel have been deployed to control protesting farmers in iran. Indias capital, thousands are rallying against new laws. They say could harm their livelihoods. And more than 400000, people have died from coronavirus in europe as a continent undergoes a 2nd wave of infections. Despite that, frances reopening stores ahead of the holiday season. Those are the headlines studio b. Unscripted continues next on the serious thank you. Im sure a lot of people in the audience, you know, have heard bits and pieces about whats going on in the philippines. But from your perspective, like, whats the big deal, why should we care about . Not only way you and your organization are experiencing, but whats more broadly happening in the philippines. I think that our organization, rappler, has been fighting impunity on 2 fronts that are relevant to everyone around the world. The 1st is these Information Operations, the manipulation on facebook, on social media. Because when you say a lie, a 1000000 times, it becomes the fact. And then if you dont have facts, you then can create whatever narrative you want, including journalists are criminals, right . The 2nd is still connected to that, which is the impunity in the drug war president to tear down our president was elected with the power of social media and 2016 may of 2016. Actually, this was the beginning of the dominoes tumbling down may of 2016 or before the all right guard corps. But theyre all connected now, i think, right . , i mean, our drug war, if you look at the numbers, the u. N. , our own commission on human rights says in a little less than 3 years, at least 27000 people have died. These are huge numbers in 21 years of ferdinand marcos. You, youre talking about a death toll of a little over 3200, so impunity in the drug war, impunity in Information Operations. Our institutions collapsed within 6 months because we didnt have facts and journalists like me are under attack and its not just little rappler, which is a start up. Although i guess i could go to jail for 80 some odd years because of the cases that have been filed, they are politically motivated. I am not doing anything different than i used to do when i was working 20 years ago. What is different tech . And i think part of one of the reasons you were fascinating to me is because you came into this, you looked at the code, you looked at the data and you later realized its impact on society. Im waiting for Silicon Valley to realize that as well. Do you think Silicon Valley which is predominantly run by white privileged man . A large, large number of whom are american . Do you know . Do you think that that plays a role with like if more people from the philippines or other countries were in leadership roles in tact . Do you think that that would make a difference . Id like to say if journalists were the ones making some of the tech decisions, it would be a little bit easier. It would be better. So when Mark Zuckerberg essentially said that it is ok for politicians to lie. That spells doom in this tech in the bold world right . That spells the end of democracy. Because you cannot tell fact from fiction. The old, before you can create a marketplace, you have to have rules of a marketplace and the rules that we have in social media dont work. You also talked about values. What are the values . What are the values of tech optimization . Monetise a show. Thank you. I think i actually one of the things that lots of journalists even celebrated back when talk was gore, was you know, the mantra, facebook move fast and break things. And you know, the hubris of not really thinking about, you know, what you could be doing is breaking democracy and not just in your own country, but around the world and even with the evidence theyre right. So its interesting that, you know, you bring up the death toll of the current regime in the philippines. I think to, you know, myanmar where facebook was actually warned by, you know, journalists, the United Nations about what was happening, where, you know, facebooks systems were being deliberately exploited to propagate hate messaging, which contribution. And this is not me telling is United Nations saying contribution to you know, Ethnic Violence and ethnic cleansing . Yeah, i would, would have thought that would be quite a big deal for any c. E. O. To sort of be told by when you look at facebooks response about that where well, the worlds complicated will try harder and while thousands of people get murdered. Do you think that there are parallels between what happened in myanmar and what either is happening or could even progress to happen in the philippines . Its in every country. The Ethnic Violence is still continuing in myanmar. The Information Operations thats led by the military is still continuing in myanmar on facebook. The guy who led that u. N. That u. N. Fact finding was marchal key. There were some moneys and indonesian who used to head the commission on human rights that report a standing face book as a tone independent report and they say the same things. Im shocked, not a thing yet is moving. And thats part of the reason. So here we go, like, what do we do . I mean, im not completely against facebook. Other right now i am, i am, i, we were, you know, were Fact Checking part years here against our behavior. Im against impunity, right . If you look at it, every Time Facebook trice do the right thing, that the market incentives actually punishes that. You know, i provided a lot of information to american regulators. Facebook receives the largest find that a Technology Company had received in history, you know, 5000000000 from the f. T. C. And 100000000 from the f. C. C. And the share value went on. Were in a weird situation now where you can be at the helm of a company that has received the largest financial penalty of a company in your industry, in all of history and shareholders. Go, great, lets buy more stock because the worst that can happen is that much money, you know, when you do something really bad, sure is going to take a day off of this years profit margin. But hey, ho, thats there. What do you think . You know, can be done or should be done using the regulatory action can even work if one country has this regulation, another country doesnt. I think some of the states in the u. S. Are now talking about data portability. I think thats a potential solution. So if you own your own data, you can take your data out of facebook and put it into another social media platform. Do you think that people would actually move or do you think it would start to create potentially a 2 tiered system where truth and privacy become . What in a marketplace sting . Interesting, that could be. But ill tell you the behavior of filipinos given the, the police, and thats been injected into facebook, right. If you think of license poison for the, from the time rappler was set up in 2012 all the way until 2016. Facebook was number one in alexa ranking, right . This is a ranking of all your websites. Now its back to like number 7. We know something is wrong, but theres no other option. I dont think data or information are moral, morally wrong or morally good. I think that theres sort of these rules that, yeah, you know, i think about it in kind of like electricity. You can, you know, power a studio. We can sit comfortably in a warm environment. We have lots of light even though its night time. You can also electric, you can kill someone, you know, i remember when my, when i was little, my grandmother would always freak out if there was cutlery anywhere near the toaster because you could die making toast. So yes, electricity is dangerous. But would you want to live without electricity . Yeah, and the way i sort of think about it is, well, what do we do about electricity to try to amplify the good things that dies and minimise the bad things that it does. And we have safety standards, weve got building codes, wiring code like this part in your book. Yeah. Imagine a facebook was a building you know, where the building has been designed deliberately to make it really hard to leave the building the maze. And you know, the building powers itself every time you open a door. So theres lots of doors that go nowhere and you cant really leave. And at the front of that building, there are some terms and conditions in a book. You know, 20000 words, you know, a short novella exciting, read outside and then the door size. By the way, you agree that youve read this like work side and that you agree to everything that yes, you know, and we wouldnt tolerate by. Right . And we also wouldnt say that the onus should be on people to avoid the weird and wonky and perhaps dangerous building. We would be going, why are these buildings being designed the same way . And why arent there rules to prevent people from designing these buildings in the 1st place . For me, what i find so frustrating about Silicon Valley is that they will continue to win, as long as they keep up the narrative, that the onus and burden of safety in our democracy is on regular people rather than the people who designs the therms. This is the 1st thing i said, because i was like, when i was getting attacked, i was, they kept saying, you know, youre a public figure and you know, really we cant do anything about it. Then i just thought, you know, hello. Im protected by the constitution of the journalist. Youve taken away that protection and why is it the users fault . If you design it this way and who gets to let you choose . What is allowable and knowledgeable on this pot form . This is the thing that i find, you know, really scary is that, you know, we, we have kind of relegated our democracy to Mark Zuckerberg and i find that very terrifying but true. Medium long term. And of course my in infested interests is in the short term because i could go to jail if we dont find the right solutions. Right . Yeah, i mean, i unfortunately, i dont, i dont think theres a solution because we have, its a, its an infrastructure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, imagine if you had a Pharmaceutical Company regulated like a tech company where you dont actually have to do any kind of trials, you dont have to prove safety of your systems. You can just like experiment. And when something goes wrong, you can say, oh, sorry, like, pharmacy pharmaceutical business is complicated. You know, biology is complicated or an airline going, you know, sorrier plane crashed, its hard to make things fly that are like really having something happen. But when it, when you look at it like the reaction that facebook has, you know, whether it was in me, jamar in the philippines in new zealand. But the list goes on there in the press release is like a pro forma standard. The world is really complicated. Weve got it wrong, this time were going to work to do better. And i question why is that that youre allowed to experiment on societies and when real people get killed, there are no actual consequences. And you know, i feel safe mostly when i go onto a plane or take a drug from the doctor. So i, you know, i think that people should feel safe going on online as well. Yes. Agree. The gotten away with impunity so far also because old power looked away, they abdicated responsibility to the young guys who know what theyre doing. Do you think that Mark Zuckerberg is in his about the, the new editor, a new publisher . Are they not publishing . Right. And are they not allowing it . Its like they invited people to their house and they gave everyone guns and said its the wild, wild west. So yes, i think the wow, i can tell you as they do you think that information is a weapon or in my gut . Isnt it, isnt the weaponization of information, isnt that whats mean . I thought, i think if you look at donald trump, he has eroded the american constitution has, you know, gotten away with impeachment and is at the same time, you know, putting children in cages at the american border and undermining, you know, civic cohesion in the United States. And i look at by and i just think that there is destruction that is happening and it is the product of information or rather descend from a sharon absolute and that is dangerous. And so in that sense i, i think that information can be a weapon, but at the same time, you know, journalists also use information, you know, for good, the gatekeeper in this public sphere, the Worlds Largest distributor of news is facebook. You tube comes in a very close 2nd, right in terms of and the designs of both of these platforms are optimized to manipulate, to sell us and our data at our weakest possible moment to the person or company that will pay for an intended result. Its like these are platforms now that are designed there behavioral modification systems, and we are pavlovs dogs going in there. Oh, it will no not know. I know not perhaps lets open it up to pavlovs dogs. For some questions. A lot of these challenges were confronting right now, like, for example, epidemics, weve had a terrible measles epidemic in the philippines. Go coronavirus right now, which is being significantly complicated by misinformation. Do you see any hope that those kind of real world costs are going to start being recognized by even some of the more authoritarian activists . So in the philippines, ill say yes, the government has now talked about how theyre going to run after the, the fake news thats being said about the coronavirus, right . But then again, the governments own machinery is the one pumping out news because it is pumping out lies because if it takes the attention, it refocuses attention from things going wrong. I guess im curious why the west always calls it misinformation. Its disinformation. It is meant to manipulate you, the dissent from aishah networks go bottom up from each of our countries in the global south and connect to this kind of nervous system that in my country now is combining russia and china. It is scary as all heck. But this is how information is weaponized for power and who can control this right now . Silicon valley. The immediate solution. This is to christopher. So in 2013 while youre still with s. C. L. Group, you had set up a Similar Company called us. And according to bust, a few do you had told an acquaintance of yours that you wanted to build the n. S. A. s wet dream and you also claimed that evil pays more. So thats not true. One of the things that ive learned is that you know, when you go up against a company that specializes in this information and it also uses that increase narratives about people who criticize. So i do, i dont take your assertion as valid and its this simply, its not true. I did not set up that company. I do not remember. And i have not seen any actual state of evidence to, you know, to substantiate this, this flippant comment. Ok, well it seems to me that you helped create these tools which you admitted to building and you know, eventually these tools were misappropriated and you know, day we used to hijack elections and undermine democracy. So do you understand why some people would question your motives today . Of course i understand that, and i think its healthy for people to, you know, have skepticism about anybody who talks about anything. You know, i understand that i was involved in creating a company, but, you know, ended up doing some really terrible things, not just in the United States, but in many countries around the world. When i joined a c. R. , i was, you know, 2324. I recognize that i did not know enough about what i was doing and you know, i have learned a lot in that process and if there were regulations in place at the time when i 1st started, that for example, required me as a Data Scientist or as an engineer to make a proper assessment of risk where there would be consequences if that did not happen, not to say that came originally. There are other countries like it would never have existed or not exist in the future, but it would have made a lot of people think about what theyre doing. Considering the earth and the political situation in the philippines. What advice would you keep to a potential filipino wiesel blower this 1st bear ill say one thing, lawyers, lawyers, lawyers, lawyers talk to lawyers its boyers have saved my life. In so many occasions. Thats, thats all i would say. Whistleblowers in the philippines have a horrendous track record. And part of the reason we have so few. And the reason why fear now works is precisely because it is the whistleblower who suffers vs who ever they blow the whistle against. Ive submitted myself to the men and women inside the judiciary, who i hope will abide by the spirit of the constitution. But i am very cognizant that they have families to protect. They have reputations and ambitions, and this makes our Justice System extremely flawed. But i submit myself to that. This is the christopher. Youve recently been banned from facebook and theres been a study to show that when people deactivate their facebook accounts, they generally become happy. So i was wondering if this is affected your major school. So yeah, im banned on facebook and also ban on instagram because its on my facebook. So my life no longer has well curated pictures of a lot of toast and 1st try. Am i happier without using facebook . Not really and heres why. Its really hard to stay in touch with people without using the 2 main systems that everybody else uses. Facebook didnt just sort of deactivate my account and sort of a normal way. I got like, completely raced off of Facebook Like i dont exist anymore. And my photos, you know, my memories, my friend groups all went away. And when you look at other examples in history of where the sort of collective memory of a person is a race to die in. For example, the soviet union, where if you spoke out against the regime, you would be disappeared, not just physically, but like literally your photos would go away, mentions of you would go away and it felt really weird to look at, you know, 10 years of my life disappearing, they didnt just ban me, they deleted me, and it felt really weird to be deleted. I am more broadly happier. I feel lighter. It is. I sort of gone through this somewhat on the scale in that sense, but i do miss being able to be in touch with people. I think for me, my final thought is diet. Weve got a really serious problem. To me it feels like the kinds of excess dental crisis that we have in some ways, like climate change. You dont notice the incremental changes and democracy and tell you no longer have that. But i hope that people take that to heart and you know that if, if you think thats worrying, then you know, make your voice heard and be angry about it. The 2 biggest battles and you mention them both is climate because we will die. And you cant fix climate if you dont have the information. The battle for world the battle for truth. These are the 2 battles that is pivotal this year is pivotal. If we dont do the right things, we will lose both. It is death by a 1000 cuts, and we must do more. I dont think its being a Debbie Downer because obviously we have hope. We must have hope with us. We have to fix it. I think human values havent changed. Weve always had the devil and the angel on our shoulders, right. But the way the social media platforms have been formulated. Fans the devil in your ear and encourages us against them, splintering our public sphere part so each of us can take our role. We get rid of the lies in our immediate areas of influence. We look for what binds us together rather than what pulls us apart. We act a little bit like outsiders so that we can understand and analyze a little bit better. And i think for the journalists and the audience, there is no time that requires the mission of journalism of Truth Tellers no time. Like now, we need to do this and we need to do it. Now. When you play for england, i was never really going to be as accepted is my strike, a counterpart whose name is and why. If you raise facts historically great facts about the empire, people become hysterical. They say if you dont like leave, if youre not upsetting people, youre not saying, you know, i do. Oh oh. But its getting nice and hot now in argentina quite a few degrees above average that tends to produce big thunderstorms as one they have a blanket. 34 cells is a tip of averages, that heat is extending northward. So while the thunderstorms, they become quite dramatic will delay trying to days ago across the river plate in northern argentina and in europe who are injured sunday. I think theyll stay in the same sort of area being dramatic, which means paragraph stays hot and largely directed from the far south, as does a good part of bolivia. But i think the rain will be welcome, in peru has been little bit dry to start the season. Now the showers are regular, but small throughout the caribbean and that season, oh, nothing too big is in the forecast for honduras on the corrector coaster each or panama, although it will likely be costa rica and panama, where the biggest shows do fall. Something obviously happening further north, the, along the north, the gulf of mexico. So the Southern States of the us, the been a frame here recently to produce just some street flooding in new orleans. Now, as you can see, the forecast is back in texas. Now theres been rain in ways running through the Southern States. There will be more today to be more on sunday. Again, movies was not a significant rain, so expect yet more flash flooding. But the American People have finally for poken america as i see it when america is off balance or because more dangerous the world is looking at us with a mixture of sadness and with the election behind us. Will the Republican Party dump truck to the hill weekly take on us politics and society . Thats the bottom line. For we understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the world. Cinematic aljazeera bringing you the news and Current Affairs that matter to aljazeera in afghanistan, the taliban is renowned for its violent repression. Now a new deal with the u. S. Could see the group return to power one, o one, a still best to gates of afghan women who paid the price for pace on aljazeera. This is aljazeera. Hello, im fully back to go. This is the news hour live from doha, coming up in the next 60 minutes. Ethiopian Government Forces launch an offensive to capture that gray regional capital. As the u. N. Again calls for immediate humanitarian access. We are very worried about the every tree and refugees almost 100000 hosted in p. Grey region for many years. Also this hour iran Supreme Leader of ours to