state disinformation has reached industrial levels and we're going to focus on three countries — iran, china and russia. and we'll also hear how people are taking on the censors, how they're bypassing the firewalls and doing everything they can to access the truth. hello and welcome. well, this week, katie and i have left our normal studio in new broadcasting house, and we've come a few floors down to the bbc�*s radio theatre. we are broadcasting from an event called bbc world service presents, which is focusing on press freedom, the reasons why it's under increasing pressure around the world. press freedom means journalists being able to report without threats to their safety, without government interference, without laws designed to punish them for their work. for many, though, press freedom is elusive. the reuters institute for the study ofjournalism talks of democratic backsliding in some parts

of the world, and the economist calculates that more than 39% of the world's population lives under authoritarian rule. well, across this edition of the media show, we're going to discuss how states are now major sources of disinformation, how technology is changing the threats to freedom of speech, and how major media organisations such as the bbc see their role in responding to this. it's a lot to get through, and we're going to start by understanding how restrictions on the press affect the information that people are able to access. and we'll begin with the situation in three countries that have a long history of muzzling the media — russia, china and iran. and with us, we've got three experts from bbc monitoring. it, as the name suggests, monitors media activity around the world. kia atri follows the iranian media and, kia, just describe first a regular...a normal person, if you can say that in iran. what is their media diet? what sorts of information are they getting and where from?

their first exposure - would be the mainstream media, the state media. now, it's a very nuanced picture because, yes, i there is some kind of free debate, i except that there are quite a loti of red lines that the state imposes on the media. i you cannot criticise islam. you can't criticise the founder of the islamic republic, - ayatollah khomeini. you cannot criticise - the supreme leader of iran. now, obviously, the ordinary citizens have ways of- working round that, but... and iran has a very young population, doesn't it? it does have a very... i think 60% under 30? that's right. yes. are they better at circumvention? they are quite technically savvy. they are very well— networked. quite a lot of them are bilingual, you know, and, you know, - |they can access the cyber media, j except that even the cyber media itself is subject to constraints. let's move from iran to china and speak to kerry allen, who's china media analyst at bbc

monitoring. kerry, let's start with the same question to you. what can and can't people access in china? so, in china, it's very, very difficult to get access to independent media. this has long been the case... the internet actually arrived in china in 1989, the same year as the tiananmen square protests. and ever since then, there have been restrictions in place on the internet preventing people accessing information about this event, and any other protests that have taken part since. the internet is the main area for users to consume news nowadays, and there are more than one billion people on the internet in china, and it's very much the case in china that there are equivalents of all the platforms that we use here in the west. so instead of google, you've got a chinese service called baidu. instead of youtube, for example, you've got chinese services that exist the same. and all of these have to answer to the chinese government regulator. um, the environment is completely saturated by state media—run

or affiliated outlets. and if you want to access independent media... so, for example, you've heard... you've travelled overseas and you've heard about this platform called facebook. if you try to type in the url, you would get an error message, 404. so that's one way that people can't access independent news. and within that ecosystem in china, are people self—censoring because they understand the consequences if they cross the line? it's the case that when people go on chinese social media platforms, so instead of a platform like facebook or x, people would use a platform called weibo. um, nowadays, if you access a social media platform like facebook or like x, you just type in your email address. but in china, you have to give over your id number, your phone number. you have to give a lot of personal information, and that means that people are aware that they can be held accountable. they can be found, they can be punished, if necessary, if they post content that's seen as critical of the government. and that means that

people do actively avoid posting sensitive content. and just quickly, kerry, how much money does china spend on content that's aimed at people outside of china? absolutely billions. so, back in 2009, the government set, um... it set 8.9 billion usd — this was nearly 20 years ago — to actually expand its overseas presence _ so billions and billions of dollars, tens of billions of dollars have been spent doing this since. kerry, thank you very much. and let's talk about russia now with francis scarr, who follows russia for bbc monitoring. and, francis, kerry was talking about self—censorship. is that a similar situation in russia, or is that how the citizens of russia approach things? i think with russia there is a large proportion of the population, - unfortunately, that is willing - to consume the extremely anti—west and anti—ukrainian narratives that are being put out - by the state media. the polling we have suggests that around two—thirds of people - still get most of their news from state tv. _ just a few days ago. — a major propagandist was threatening

to fire nuclear weapons at the us and "sink the british isles", - in his words, if the west were to deploy regular l troops to ukraine. that said, there have been a whole raft of kind of repressive laws - which have been introduced overi the last few years, and especially since the invasion of ukraine just over two years ago, - to essentially make telling i the truth a crime, especially when it concerns criticising the kremlin or criticising . russia's actions in ukraine. and, of course, against this - backdrop, many people are afraid of expressing their views - and self—censorship has definitely increased in that sense. and what we're seeing now, l increasingly so, is that almost consumption of this kind i of independent reporting, which is considered illegal, i is becoming a risk for people. and what about social media? i mean, i think for years we've been aware that the russian opposition has been using social media, but is it also something now that's

used by the state successfully? that's definitely true. what we've seen historically is figures in the opposition i and independent media, i who have been essentially |deplatformed from traditional formsj of media, such as tv or newspapers, turning to social media. we saw alexei navalny, for example, using youtube to publish these - extremely slick videos accusing various officials of alleged - corruption, for example. but especially since - the invasion of ukraine, on telegram in particular, - one of the social media platforms, a number of so—called military- bloggers, or these kind of pro—war voices who are providing these - minute—by—minute updates of what's happening in ukraine have really proliferated on telegram - and garnered hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of views. _ and even though, ostensibly, social media platforms such as facebook,| twitter and instagram, are blocked in russia, i you have officials from i the russian government who are using them to put out and amplify these - anti—western messages.

thanks so much, francis. kia, francis and kerry, all from bbc monitoring, thank you very much indeed for helping us understand the experience of people in iran, russia and china. and as we understand those restrictions that people in those three countries are living with, let's also understand the consequences of those restrictions. suzanne raine is from the centre for geopolitics at the university of cambridge. and, suzanne, you also worked in the foreign office for over 20 years. in terms of what these three states want to deliver within their countries, how does their generation of disinformation, and also their imposition of censorship, help them pursue those goals? well, who wouldn't want to rule a country with no opposition? i mean, it's a no—brainer. if you can get rid of the opposition, you would do. but there's a cost to that. it's costing time and resource to suppress your political opponents. and that's resource which could be spent on governing the country better. it's also doing something really sort of insidious when you're

sealing off your country from outside, because it immediately triggers an interventionist response among people in the west who think human rights are being abused. and i think the third observation i'd make at the very beginning is, it's economically very unhealthy because states need foreign investment, generally, it's accepted, but if you demonstrate that there isn't a free press, that there's no investigation of financial impropriety, of scandals, it disincentivises anyone to take risks in that country. and if that... some of the consequences within these countries, what about outside? what about how the restriction of the press within these countries allows these three states to behave in certain ways on the global stage? so i think... i'm going to link to the flip side, which some of our commentators were talking about earlier, which is how they're projecting their own media externally, because the two are linked.

so control of state media and projection of state media, and what they've done very cleverly through state media, which parasitises and mimics kind of western state media so it has a kind of credibility around the world. and they're using that to build, reinforce, repeat a grievance narrative that plays very strongly to large segments of the world who have all sorts of reasons to feel that the west has treated them unjustly. so to develop a common bond, almost? completely. and that is instrumentalised. so you can see, for example, really concrete examples where the west needs to have a consensus. and the one that was, for me, most telling was in april '22, when the general assembly voted on whether to suspend russia's membership of the human rights council. and the voting, if i remember correctly, was 93 in favour

of suspension, 24 against suspension and 58 abstentions. so 58 countries couldn't side with the pro—democracy lobby, and those included a large number of countries that we consider to be democracies, who we would think are our friends. so that's where we're not really winning the arguments that we think is logical. well, so far we've considered how media is being restricted in some parts of the world, and we've been hearing about the impact that has on global power dynamics more broadly. next, let's learn about the extensive efforts to bypass some of these controls on media access and on press freedom. this is often referred to as circumvention. this may be individuals seeking their own solutions, but it can also be media organisations and tech companies who are offering help to individuals to do this to. just sitting next to me here in the bbc radio studio isjoe tidy, the bbc news cyber correspondent. hi, joe, thanks very much for being with us.

just give us a bit more detailed definition of circumvention, please. well, if you're a country and you want to control| the internet, there's lots of different - ways you can do that. lots of different - tools in your armoury. after all, the internet... we often think about it _ as being in a cloud and this magical thing that we get on our phones, but it's just wires _ in the ground and under the sea. and if you can control the wires, you can control the flow of data. so lots of different - countries around the world have different ways. so you can throttle a website - or a service to make it so the data going to and from that service is really slow. _ or you can ban certain websitesl from entire countries or regions, or you can stop people from having access in those areas. _ and what can individuals do to get around that? well, it depends on what type of thing they're doing. - so the ways ijust described, j if you block an entire country from the internet or an entire area from the internet, there's - not a lot you can do _ because you can't get a signal. but if you can get a signal- and you want to get on a service that isn't allowed in that country, you can use circumvention- methods, for example, vpns, virtual private i

networks, or proxies. and these act in a way... i so let's say i've got my computer. here and i want to access whatsapp in iran or something like that. i would go on to a vpn, and the vpn... - i would connect to the vpn to get to whatsapp, not i directly to whatsapp. and presumably, i mean, states are finding new ways, aren't they, of getting around this. yeah. so, for example, there are some countries that ban vpns. - and the way that you do - that is that you would recognise which ip addresses — i which is the place that that device is from — _ you would recognise that as a vpn address, and you can ban those. and that is quite effective, for example, in china. - so what we're saying is, individuals and media organisations are trying to get round the restrictions, and we know so are tech companies. and i think, joe, you'rejust back from interviewing will cathcart, who's the boss at whatsapp. whatsapp, let's remember, is owned by meta. will cathcart has been telling you how many people are accessing whatsapp despite bans in some countries. let's just hear a clip of your interview. you'd be surprised how many people

still manage to get through. it is a much higher fraction than you might think. what we can most do is look at some of the countries where we're blocked and still see, you know, worldwide, tens of millions of people connecting to whatsapp, be it via proxies or vpns or other ways that they've found ways to get around. there's a tension here where, you know, i don't want to necessarily point to a specific country and say, "oh, look, their block has actually been this ineffective," because you don't really want to tell that country that they should be doing different things, and you don't want to draw too much attention to it. i'd rather people just be able to access whatsapp and other services around the world. what did you make of his remarks, joe? well, it's interesting _ because of course, whatsapp occupies a sort of strange part - of the silicon valley world because it is a giant corporation that's part of meta, _ but it is a bit strange in the sense it doesn't do its business- in the same way as those companies. it is a very, very secure social network app. - i'm not just saying that i because we spoke to will. it is end—to—end encrypted, which means that only-

i and the receiver can read my messages. i that's partly why the governments around the world hate it, - because it's so secure. and we seen bans i in north korea, iran. intermittent bans in places like syria as well. - and in other countries, - they throttle it or they make it so you can't do voice calls. but it's also a western company. it's from meta. so there's that angle as well. some countries don't want it - because it has this western liberal democracy values that it's spreading around the world. _ but he's effectively, coyly, saying people are getting round the interventions by their countries. yes. ias you can probably imagine, i triedi to push him to get some more detail. he wouldn't give me any more. and that's, as he says, - he doesn't want to sort of red rag to a bull to some _ of these authoritarian regimes. i suppose one of the places might be china. we heard earlier this month that china has ordered apple to remove whatsapp from the chinese version of its app store. did will have anything to say about that? yeah. so that was a couple of weeks ago. so the figures that he's talking about, the tens of millions, i won't be counted in that yet. but, yes, he was very. corporate in his answer.

he said it's very unfortunate... you surprise me! american corporate person being corporate! of course. it's very clear to me that they're very angry with apple _ taking that decision. it is a decision that apple - would have been able to choose. but then again, if you're doing i business in a country like china, china tells you to take that app off the app store, you can't carry- on doing business if you don't comply with those laws. - you can see a longer version ofjoe's interview with will cathcart of whatsapp on the bbc world service youtube channel. now, in a recent speech, the bbc�*s director—general, tim davie, turned to the issue of the bbc world service. the bbc world service provides broadcast and digital content in over 40 languages, and it's currently funded out of the licence fee that the bbc receives. but tim davie said that it can't carry on like that, adding, and i quote, "we will need to discuss a long—term funding solution for the world service that comes from central government budgets." joining me on the stage at the bbc radio theatre

isjonathan munro, bbc news's director of journalism and deputy ceo. so, jonathan, thanks very much indeed forjoining us. the bbc wants the world service at least to be funded directly from central government budgets. why? first of all, as you've . been discussing on this edition of the media show, i the need for the world service for impartial, free journalism - around the world has gone up and up and up and more and more territories have got editorial restrictions. - secondly, inflation hasl affected all businesses. we're not immune from that at all. and thirdly, the need to change what we do because audience . behaviours have altered, they've updated, they'vej become more digital, - has meant that we've had to drive more investment. so, ultimately, we're looking - to have the ability to modernise it, to grow it, to invest in it, and that will mean that l we've got to change - the funding model over time. do you think you're being outgunned? we've already heard about the amount of money that some states are spending on media aimed outside of their borders. but isn't that the best case

for the world service? - there are billions and billions. of pounds going in from russia and china, for example, into globaljournalism, i which is state sponsored by moscow and beijing. i there's no more powerful argument for the bbc world service _ than to know that those particular organisations, sponsored- by the governments under- which they work, are advancing their reach ofjournalism — - what they describe as journalism, i think we would dispute - the definition ofjournalism in that case — around the world more quickly than we're able to, . because they're outspending all of the organisations that i are like the world service. we believe in free, l impartialjournalism, and that is not free. there's lots more to talk about. but i did want to bring in evie aspinall. hello, evie. you're director of the policy thinktank, the british foreign policy group. and still with us is suzanne raine from the centre for geopolitics at the university of cambridge. and, evie, i'd like to ask you, you know, reflecting on whatjonathan munro from the bbc has been saying, is he right? i mean, what do you see the role of the bbc today and bbc

world service in countering disinformation from authoritarian countries? i think the real kind of usp and benefit of the bbc is that it's seen to be impartial, it's trusted, it's repeatedly and consistently been seen as the most trusted news outlet around the world. there's real benefits to that in terms of promoting democracy internationally, enabling debate in nations that otherwise wouldn't have access to such media. and that's a crucial part of what the uk wants to do in the world. there's also benefits to the uk in terms of our soft power, and there's plenty of research done, particularly by the british council, on how people that engage with the uk, be it culturally, be it via the bbc, are much more likely to trust the uk. those individuals are more likely to come as tourists, they're more likely to do business, more likely to do trade. there's clear economic benefits as well for the uk. so you view the bbc as a geopolitical tool? a geopolitical tool of sorts. i don't think we ever want to instrumentalise the bbc. you don't want the bbc going out shouting british values all across the world,

but, inherently, what we are doing in going into countries and encouraging the use of free and open media that otherwise people wouldn't have access to, we are promoting democracy, we are promoting freedom of expression and values, and i think that's a really important thing for us to do. jonathan munro, bbc deputy ceo, you're still with us. in your view, what is soft power when it comes to the world service? it's a really good question, - because if you go around the world and talk about things that people . associate with the uk, i think three things come up most often. one is the royal family, the second is the premier league football, - and third is the bbc, and the bbc is also, | by a country mile, the most. recognised media organisation in the world. those three letters do an awful lot of heavy lifting _ for us around the world. the purpose of the bbc isn't to flex a muscle labelled soft power. - that may be a benefit . to the uk and, after all, the uk's citizens pay for the bbc, so that in itself is _ a beneficial thing.

but it's not what we're for. we're for the delivery _ of what are called, rather formally, the public purposes of the bbc, reflecting the world _ to the uk, reflecting the uk to the world, etc, etc, and that's— through our impartialjournalism and the programming we put out to populations around _ the world in english- and all the other languages. the soft power is a collateral, but in a good way. _ and suzanne raine, i can see you wanting to come in. i would park soft power because i think it is not helpful because it assumes an agenda. but impartiality works best, of course, when it's absolutely clear that you are reporting across all sides of a political spectrum about a country, and the risk is always... ..the same amount of critical analysis is not put on oppositionists to an authoritarian regime. so, for example, let's take iran. we need to hear from people in very conservative parts of the country who support the iranian government as it is now, not least because it helps the decision—makers

in our country understand when a protest happens, whether that's a bunch of people... ..whether that's going to work or whether it's not going to work. and i think sometimes we have a lot of wishful thinking because we talk to certain people. and just one additional point on that — i would be really interested in your view — is, are we broadcasting to these countries or from these countries? so one of the things that really concerns me is a breakdown in empathy and cross—cultural understanding, particularly when media barriers go up. and it's almost as important to hear in the west, to hear from people over there, in places where they can't speak, as it is to be broadcasting into them. i'm really interested in the balance. jonathan munro, from or to? so, overall, the strategy- and certainly our objective is to be in country or in market where we're doing ourjournalism. _ we can't do that in iran. you talked about getting all the sides of the - political debate in iran. that would be a wonderful

objective for us. _ but that is not a possibility. but i've just come back from delhi. most of our services for india are made in delhi or mumbaij for audiences who consume them in six indian languages _ and in english. there is, as you know, an election going on in india right now, - and modi's record with the media is a very controversial _ international issue. so i think you're right that we need to hear from all sides of that - debate and argument to give people the information that they need. - on china, it's absolutely right - that the government there has used the bbc as a battering ram for political reasons - over the last few years. i was in beijing pretty. recently being told that in no uncertain terms— by a chinese government minister. but if we're going to go - and do ourjob and report on how the uyghur minority is treated - by the chinese, we are going to have political incoming. and i would always rather do - the story and take the consequences than not do the story. just one final point - on impartiality, if i may.

it's often transposed by people, . including possibly people listening to this programme, with balance. it's not balance, . it's duly impartial. what is the impartiality that's relevant on a certain issue? l we don't have to be balanced i about whether it's a good thing or not for girls to have a school education in afghanistan. - that is not a matter of balance. in fact, we're doing a product called dars — lessons — - for girls in afghanistan to have - some sort of home—based education, thanks to the bbc world service. so impartiality is the range of- views that's relevant on a subject, not necessarily equivalence. yours is the last thought on this edition of the media show because our time is up. thank you very much indeed tojoe tidy, the bbc cyber correspondent, suzanne raine, from the centre of geopolitics at cambridge university, and evie aspinall, director of the british foreign policy group. thanks also to francis scarr, kia atri and kerry allen from bbc monitoring, and of course, jonathan munro, bbc news's director ofjournalism and deputy ceo.

but for now, from me, from katie, from all of our guests and everyone here in the bbc radio theatre, thanks for listening and bye—bye. if you'd like to hear a longer version of today's show, search bbc the media show wherever you get your bbc podcasts. hello there. although temperatures in north—west scotland reached 19 degrees on saturday, other parts of scotland were not as lucky. in argyll and bute it was a lot chillier. here we had temperatures of 23 degrees on friday but it was back down to 15 at best on saturday. further south though it felt a lot warmer because the sun was out — bedford one of the warmest parts of the country. we've got a bit of fair cloud and a little rain heading into the south—west of england by the morning, pushing into wales,

eventually towards the south—east of england, but ahead of that, plenty of sunshine, mist and fog patches clearing, cloud will bubble up, the odd shower perhaps. we have more cloud though and more showers come into scotland and the far north of england. should be a bit drier and maybe brighter across northern ireland. but the highest temperatures are going to be across northern england and into the midlands, 18 or 19 degrees here, with some sunny spells. could be a bit of a sleazy day, mind you. we are moving into the grass pollen season and pollen levels are going to be high across the midlands and southern england, even though in the south, we're going to find a bit more cloud just dampening down the temperatures. most of that rain we see here will fade away during the evening but we will import some rain from the continent later on in the night and we've still got those heavy showers pushing down across scotland and into the far north of england. then, for the bank holiday monday morning, temperatures are going to start at around eight or 9 degrees. fly in the ointment on bank holiday monday is that weather front there, it's not really moving very far at all and around it, we are pushing in more cloud and probably more rain actually

for south—eastern parts of england into central southern england and in towards the midlands. still got cloud and heavy showers in scotland, the far north of england. maybe staying dry but maybe cloudy in northern ireland and across other parts of northern england, wales, the midlands, towards the south—west, there will be some heavy and thundery, slow—moving showers in the afternoon. on the whole, more showers around for bank holiday monday, temperatures not quite so high, almost anywhere could catch a shower. tuesday though looks a little bit drier. we have still got the odd shower around across scotland, into northern england, the midlands, perhaps into wales, but not as many showers, not as heavy showers. the south and south—east are looking dry and warm, it may well be dry in northern ireland once again. and the theme as we head further into next week is for high pressure to build and that means things for many of us will turn dry, there will be some sunshine and those temperatures will be climbing as well.

live from washington, this is bbc news. richard parker is duly elected... cheering a nail—biter in elections in england. labour win the mayoral contest in the west midlands, capping a bleak set of local election results for the conservative party. negotiations continue in cairo to try and work out a deal between hamas and israel as fighting drags on in the gaza strip.

plus the us is reportedly set to send fresh military aid to haiti to help its new government re—assert control over gangs. hello, i'm carl nasman. we begin in the uk where the governing conservative party has suffered a shock defeat in the west midlands, losing the mayoral election to the labour party. the contest between the conservatives�* andy street, who was seeking a third term as mayor, and labour's richard parker went right down to the wire — with a recount ordered for one area. the outcome of this particular race had been cast as pivotal for the prime minister, rishi sunak. the bbc�*s political editor chris mason reports. how are you feeling, andy? we will see. out of his hands. the conservative andy street arrived here at lunchtime awaiting the verdict of voters. it was to be a long wait for mr street and his labour

rival, richard parker. votes rechecked, a recount in coventry and this result