be so dumb as it's basically impossible but also there are people who are saying in the russian and english language for other foreign languages as well sort of state provided media organization organization people are saying in art see that this is something that is being used by the british at the moment to try to discredit russia at the time what it when it is holding what they're calling a vastly successful world cup and that therefore this is. a kind of a british plots trying to destabilize russia that's the kind of messaging that we're hearing on platforms like r.t. thank you. rescuers in northern thailand are in a race against time to pump water from a flooded cave where a group of teenagers on the football coach have been trying for twelve days these are live pictures from the mouth of the cave in chiang rai heavy rains for cost of the weekend could mean the boys and their coach will have to dive into the water

using scuba gear and make their way out but they'll need basic training as none of them can swim. as more from the cave complex in chiang rai. as the training and the planning for this very difficult process of getting the boys in their coach out continues there was a clock over when they have to get that done that is because the monsoon rains are expected to start again we've been lucky with the weather last couple days it's expected to start again in three days on sunday and see that there's still draining right now trying to get that water level is low is possible now when you think about the logistics of getting these boys out yes obviously the part about training them the basics of school but also there are different stages to this exit you know this is something that you know a situation where they're forty five kilometers in and it's not all the same terrain it's not all the same water level so they have different stages to go through so that being said if the rain starts to fall again what they're planning for right now where there are chambers that aren't submerged where there could they can leave supplies that could change if there's more rainfall so they need to try

this process before the conditions inside change now it's going to be very difficult for that but also when you think about bringing them out it's going to be in stages they'll probably have to rest for hours you know once they get out of the main part. once they get to that section they might have to rest there so it's going to be a long process to get thirteen inexperienced many out of there so it's going to be a very very long process again because the rains are coming in on sunday there's really a hard deadline on this operation to right now they're still training and planning for exactly that. but also to come here and. i think you'll see that let me push you away i just like you i removed. activists a tense standoff that moves to pick villages in the occupied west bank one that stay with us.

hello and welcome back we'll look at the weather across southeastern parts of asia first of all and here we've got some pretty heavy showers across parts of the philippines for instance central as have seen some fairly heavy rain and you see there some decent totals coming in borneo some showers but much of java valley some outre jimmy not looking too bad a lot of dry fine weather here and that's expected to continue once you get into the gulf of thailand then you start to see the showers developing in bangkok is like you see some fairly heavy rain at times during the course of saturday that's moved down into a straight here for much of the country the weather is covered by an area of high pressures all looking dry and fine i think for tasmania the next few days looking pretty unsettled a series of weather fronts just pushing through so it is going to be pretty wet here but it's high pressure nice high pressure in the west and generally settled conditions we've had some folk issues at sydney airport over the last twenty four hours could still be a bit murky here at times temperature twenty four degrees which we head into the

weekend temperatures taking a bit of a nosedive there and pretty chilly weather there from up on highs of eleven should be fine across much of western australia if not particularly warm eighteen the high in perth as for new zealand we've got heavy rain working its way across the western side of the south on the north on estates largely dry but will become grouchy cloudy during saturday. we have here as if data we know the product of from buying everything that you're doing that's really where the power of the all powerful internet is both a tool for democracy and the threat do you believe that any of your companies have adana fide the full scope of russian active measures on your platform in the echo chamber world of fake news in cyberspace the rules of the game left changed there are no precedents people in power investigates this information and democracy just leave.

welcome back a quick reminder of the top stories here this hour the syrian government and its ally russia are intensifying their bombing campaign in southern province that's according to opposition reports they say the number of their strikes has increased up to talks with rebels ended without an agreement. counterterrorism police say two people critically ill in southern england have been exposed to the nerve agent not a joke it's the same substance used to poison russian double agents. and his daughter junia in salzburg in march. and monsoon rains are expected in thailand on sunday which could hamper the rescue of the football team trapped in a flooded cave for twelve days the boys and their coach are being taught the basics

of scuba diving and millions of liters of water being pumped out. a humanitarian rescue ship was docked in barcelona in spain after being refused entry to italy and malta the astral belongs to the product of a open arms charity that rescued sixty people from a rubber boat off the coast of libya on saturday italy is accused private rescue boat operators of encouraging human trafficking to take refugees across the mediterranean from africa. to europe so this isn't covered so unless we manage to rescue sixty people on fortunately since we left the area i think if i haven't lost count almost five hundred people have died in the last four days this demonstrates that what's happening is viable the closing of the ports in italy and malta if they get ships like us out of the way as evidently italy and other european countries want what happens is that people will die but german chancellor angela merkel is set to meet hungary's prime minister she tries to sell her migration plan to e.u. member states viktor orban has signaled his willingness to strike

a deal with merkel that would limit the number of asylum seekers arriving into europe on monday merkel reached a compromise agreement with her conservative coalition partners to set up migrant transit centers on germany's border with austria germany's interior minister is heading to vienna to try and get the support of the australian chancellor dominic kane has more from berlin. obvious week in parliament on wednesday anglo-american went on german television and in an interview she gave more detail about the sort of shape the plans for migration detention centers might take the crux of this is establishing way in the person concerned that the migrant the person being detained first claimed asylum feel forages here in germany would have forty eight hours to hold that person and if they can't establish which country to send that person back to in that period of time the detainee will then be sent to a place where they can they're not going to be held against their will separately to that we received information that suggests that mr minister from the christian

social union is talking about three centers that are already federal police headquarters or bases where these detainees might temporarily be held remember all of this will be contingent on getting support from the social democrats who are the main partners to angela merkel's christian democrats in the grand coalition so the meeting on thursday where all this will be thrashed out will be pivotal in establishing whether this compromise solution between the two conservative parties in the coalition will actually then go on to be a settled policy of the grand coalition. turkey's government says the two year nationwide state of emergency will be lifted on monday but a new decree will allow some of those modes in measures to continue president russia typer to impose the measures after a failed military coup in twenty sixteen the new decision that follows his victory in last month's elections secured him a new five year term that gives him sweeping new powers a one in a referendum last year police in saudi arabia arrested two men for ason after

a woman's car was set on fire the owner says a car was deliberately set alight by men opposed to women drivers she says she faced abuse from men in her neighborhood soon after receiving her license last week the kingdom overturned a decades long ban on female drivers. several people have been injured after israeli forces began to destroy a bedouin village in the occupied west bank military exclusion zone has been established around the village and protesters put themselves in the path of the bulldozers. force that reports. on the dusty rocky ground below the bedouin village of qana heavy machinery prepares the way from friday this will be a military exclusion zone a clear signal of the villages impending demolition near the threatened homes israeli security forces moved in another bulldozer had been stopped in its tracks by protesters stand off and then they started dragging people away. that was

was ready for us it was now the question was why as they tried to remove the activists understand all this this is what the activists are trying to do to try to stop this activity this seemingly imminent demolition area and they're being moved out of the way by the security force was. that the treatment was marginally better for members of the media judged to have got to close. the apparent aim to allow for easier access to the area for large vehicles potentially required for the demolition of the villages one solid structure it school. has lived here since his birth he says the pressure on the community has mounted drastically in recent days . we haven't been sleeping not just last night we haven't slept for two weeks since the decision came out every day they show up on the top of the hill over there they come here they scare the children in the school. going to. the village lies in the

way of a long planned expansion of the illegal israeli settlements in circling jerusalem in the occupied west bank in may the israeli supreme court ruled that qana school and homes had been built illegally in military controlled area c. and therefore could be demolished with its residents transferred to a palestinian. town on jerusalem's east infringements just for the international community is. how we come in fear one day that israel can be held accountable or if not it means you're pushing this region to what is. horrible and evil horrors of violence and counter-violence and themes back in can the israeli operation ground on and the scuffles continued to break out the palestinian red crescent society treated dozens of people injuries in the background the bulldozers moved with a sense of inevitability laying the groundwork for what now seems the imminent destruction of this community. al-jazeera. in the occupied west bank

five senior prison officials in ethiopia have been sacked for alleged torture and other abuses at hannah tourist jailed human rights watch says inmates in the prison in known as jail were abused for years among those tortured were members of three opposition groups that have been put on a list of terror organizations those groups have not been taken off the list it's all part of reforms undertaken by the new prime minister ahmed after he took power in april. the chairman of korea at whose family has been at the center of a series of scandals in court in seoul a ruling is expected on an arrest warrant for fifty six a nine year old chose an hoa he suspected of tax evasion and embezzle meant a court last month projected a request to arrest shows wife on charges including assaulting workers. now the two sides in the u.k. is divided government will meet on friday to try to resolve their differences of a brags that at the heart of that disagreement is how to avoid

a hard border between northern ireland and the republican lawyers have told al jazeera the government could face mass legal action from people claiming brags it violates their human rights. on the irish border it is currently impossible to tell where one country ends and another begins as the tarmac changes because this is the . same drive around here and you can see why people worry about a return to the past the british government's bland assurances that it'll all be ok off to brics states mean nothing to declan was when there was a hard border you couldn't drive these roads it's ward most of these border roads were actually creator are closed off which makes matters bikes that people couldn't get from. their owners the neighbors say sure their daughters are sure their farm such was life in cross mclean well before the peace process british soldiers dead no war could be entered by helicopter do you think that the business community

north i'm sorry is doing an off the face against back to these teenagers from colleges either side of the border no nothing of those days. to keep it that way are there leverage the balance of free movement already of free communication they have taken full advantage of that to their credit and they are filled with ambition and they're right by us they are international in their perspective and they have to want to be constrained by always angry middle aged largely. plus an hour away you can see northern ireland from carlingford the border splits the day. told me who runs the water sports here really wants to know if the happy atmosphere will be punctured by customs posts and travel restrictions absolutely no answers and we're left in the dark looks at things there is govern themselves

seem to be in the dark about how hard they're going to manage things and that in the south as worrying i can't understand why they don't go and have another referendum make sense but. that's ignorant. what all these people have in common is not only a concern about the future working arrangements but the potential blight to their lives from a brick sets that may shut the border once again the british government says tied itself up in knots trying to figure out how to extricate itself from the european union without creating a new border with the european union by contrast is much more interested in how communities either side of the border i'll go to continue exercising the same freedoms of movement that they already have and that apparent contradiction is now the subject of close examination by human rights lawyers it's a legal morass it's in it risks being a legal swamp generation lots of different legal actions it's very very uncertain

as to how it plays out no one knows whether people have a claim of it may have lots of claims no claims but the real the the i mean what is obvious is that it's going to result in deep legal uncertainty as of now the u.k. side has been unable to come up with a solution to the irish border issue that convinces anyone with human rights lore against them on top of everything else they are in very deep also largely al-jazeera on the irish border. police have detained a woman who tried to climb the statue of liberty to protest against the u.s. president's immigration policies she was on new york's famous landmark for about two hours before being arrested the woman had said she wouldn't climb down until donald trump's administration released all the children it has detained at the border with mexico. time is running out to save the great barrier reef that's the warning from australia's climate council its latest report says coal bleaching could happen every two years by twenty thirty four due to rising sea temperatures the council says that rate of bleaching will continuously set back recovery of the

reef global warming has led to more frequent and longer heat waves in the world's oceans ecologist said damage to the reef may be irreversible and they've noticed a drop in the diversity of fish and the number of young fish settling on the reef martin rice is acting chief executive at the climate council he says the bleaching is very worrying. when we look back in one nine hundred eighty s. with syria turned coral bleaching it twenty years because of change and i'm an intensification of climate change warming surface temperatures that return every six years now so we'll look at the great barrier reef ahead future unless we urgently and deeply reducing greenhouse gas pollution and we could actually see here it turn up late two years that's a fate they going to sign or. a new lease reset larch

well scientists of use a furtive technique known as ivy have to create test tube embryos in the hope of saving the northern white rhino the only two that are still alive are infertile females who live in kenya scientists created the embryos after collecting semen from bull run as before they died on the eggs of a close subspecies researchers are now looking for a surrogate to carry them and hope to have the first northern white rhino calf born around three years time. time for a quick check of the headlines here on al-jazeera the syrian government and its ally russia are intensifying their bombing campaign in southern iraq province that's according to opposition reports they say the number of airstrikes increased after talks with rebels ended without an agreement at least two hundred seventy thousand people have fled their homes since the offensive began more than two weeks ago counterterrorism police say two people critically ill in southern england

have been exposed to the nerve agent novacek it's the same substance used to poison russian agents that his daughter union souls were in march the latest incident happened in a neighboring village of amesbury monsoon rains are expected in thailand on sunday which could hamper the rescue of a football team trapped in a flooded cave for twelve days told boys and their coach are being taught the basics of scuba diving and millions of liters of water being pumped or. german chancellor angela merkel set to meet hundreds prime minister she tries to sell her migration plan to e.u. member states that the obama signalled his willingness to strike a deal with merkel that would limit the number of asylum seekers arriving into europe on monday merkel reached a compromise agreement with her conservative coalition partner to set up migrant transit centers on germany's border with austria germany's interior minister is

heading to vienna to try and get the support of the austrian chancellor. turkey's government says a two year nationwide state of emergency will be lifted on monday but a new decree will allow some of those emergency measures to continue president russia typer to impose the measures after a failed military coup in twenty sixteen and the new decision follows his victory in last month's election which secured him a new five year. and the chairman of korean at whose family has been at the center of a series of scandals in court in seoul a ruling is expected on an arrest warrant for sixty nine year old cho young though he's suspected of tax evasion and embezzlement a court last month rejected a request rest chose life on charges including assaulting workers two daughters have been at the center of temper tantrums not rage and water rage well those are the headlines the news continues here on jazeera after people in power station

that's a watching. the i.m.f. said riyadh's breakeven although price for twenty eight thousand is likely to be around eighty eight dollars a barrel why is argentina again turning to the i.m.f. to help now we bring you the stories that are shaping the economic world we live in counting the cost on al-jazeera. recent elections most notably that to trump is u.s. president of highlighted the dangers to democracy posed by those using social media and the internet to spread malicious propaganda and fake news so how and why are platforms such as facebook google and twitter so i wanted to use in a two pronged special report we sent paul babe sounds to investigate.

san francisco and silicon valley tech companies driving the digital revolution see themselves as positive agents of political and social change facebook's mission is all about giving people a voice and bring people closer together those are democratic values and we're proud of google's mission store going as far as information and make it universally accessible and useful the more you learn about technology the more you learn what's possible. at the winter park and. if we want to be a democracy it's up to us to make sure that we have our giving better. russia's manipulation of these platforms during the two thousand and sixteen u.s.

presidential election has raised fundamental questions about their systemic vulnerabilities do you solemnly swear to tell the truth last november the companies were summoned to appear before the us senate intelligence committee that's right it's not new russians have been conducting information warfare for decades but what is know is the advent of social media tools with the power to magnify propaganda and fake news on a scale that was unimaginable back in the days of the berlin wall you've created these platforms and now they are being misused and you have to be the ones to do something about it or we will what you're doing by allowing this fake stuff to come across this misleading this damaging information is threatening the security and really softening of our nation i wish your c.e.o.'s would be here they need to ass answer for this after repeated pressure from congress facebook disclosed last

september that four hundred seventy fake accounts link to a shadowy company with ties to the kremlin the internet research agency had spent some hundred thousand dollars to purchase more than three thousand ads most on divisive hot button issues this come from a. to protect his causes and included post many would characterize as anti immigration oriented most of the russian sponsored facebook page heart of texas attracted nearly two hundred fifty four thousand followers part of texas group created a public event on facebook to occur at the islamic center in houston texas to stop the islamization of texas russian operatives also created a page for united muslims of america a real group whose name they commandeered to promote a counter protest at the islamic center. but neither side could have known is that russia. were encouraging both sides to battle in the streets and create divisions between real americans causing this disruptive event in houston cost

russia about two hundred dollars. the russians created more than one hundred facebook pages to exacerbate social divisions in the u.s. there were pages for african-american groups and police advocates southern nationalists and liberal activists. bt supporters and christian fundamentalists army of jesus and other russian pages ran anti hillary clinton ads during the election each of these fake accounts spend literally months developing networks of real people to follow and like their content these networks are later utilites to push and to write this information. the day before the hearing facebook revealed that russian content used as many as one hundred twenty six million americans twitter found more than thirty six thousand russian accounts that generated one point four million election related tweets seen almost three hundred million times and google disclosed that russian trolls likely posted eleven hundred videos on

a team new to. this is a yes or no question do you believe that any of your companies have identified the full scope of russian active measures on your platform said our investigation to. to news so i would have to say no certainly not with certainty right now and we're still working. on a comprehensive investigation but these are ongoing issues and we continue to invest again we are relying on twitter facebook and google to find and reveal this information and it's been dropping out so i think we have a long way to go before we know the full story seed of idea nothin is director of the center for media and citizenship at the university of virginia the author of the google ization of everything his new book and the social media will be released this year russian interference is alarming but the biggest effect that social media have on the prospect of democracy has to do with undermining our ability as

citizens to think and act. effectively and collectively. why do you think the world is in the midst of an internet assault on democracy since two thousand and eleven what we have seen is the rise of thora tarion leaders often elected in places like poland like hungary like india like the philippines and google and facebook and twitter have all been used by these forces and then in my own country donald trump laid almost all of his hopes on a facebook based campaign late two thousand and seventeen facebook reached almost two point two billion people that's stunning and if you were to design a communicator system a propaganda system for nationalist forces for anti muslim forces for authoritarian forces you could not build a better platform than facebook. we set out to investigate like facebook twitter

and google are such powerful tools for malicious actors who want to spread this information and undermine people's faith and democracy the first stop was in silicon valley to meet with the co-founders of blitz metrics then as you and logan young they teach social media marketing their own advertising campaigns on facebook for the n.b.a. champ golden state warriors and more than one hundred other clients. facebook is the world's most powerful and sophisticated targeting platform it is a database instead of a social network facebook sorts its users characteristics into hundreds of categories making it easy for advertisers to target people with great precision and you don't have to be a statistics expert you can just click on a few buttons and the system will do the work for you in two thousand and sixteen the trunk campaign spent most of its hundred million dollar digital advertising budget on facebook you when young demonstrated how facebook could have been used to reach blue collar workers in michigan

a state that usually goes democratic but that trump won by less than eleven thousand votes. i can do based off income you know if i know average blue collar worker makes fifty to one hundred k. so i could say people that are conservative are very conservative they can be a.f.l.-cio members they could be against immigration and there's all these other issues that we can block it and here we can even put in labor union or the united auto workers right if you have the kind of content that's directly relevant to that particular group such as the u.s. auto industry isn't as strong as it used to be so this is dated facebook has brought together from many different sources not just their political that's right we have this information of your membership we have your zip data we have if you've made that donation we know the kinds of products that you're buying in the supermarket everything that you're doing that doesn't involve cash usually makes its way to facebook but the most powerful capability facebook provides comes from combining its data with out of advertisers them so so think about the trump

campaign they have all of the information of the people that are making donations they upload that to facebook and facebook and say i'm going to find friends of people that have donated and then i can combine that with the other day that we're showing and say how many of those people are also in michigan and are also over thirty five and are also working in detroit and are late you know laid off at the ford plant and you can also tell us the messages that were most affected group yes then you can spend just pennies to be able to see how they're working and then showed how a small amount of money spent promoting new clients video resulted in millions of views and i can see here we spent five hundred six dollars and for that we got to reach ninety four thousand and ninety four thousand times showed up on someone's feed but it has over twenty nine million views and the reason is these shares this is been shared four hundred twenty two thousand times so really what you want to do when you buy is generated shares that's exactly it the russians are really good at pushing incendiary content that people will just have to engage and have to share

the russians device of content one hundred. twenty six million americans on facebook according to the company points out the ads were seen over and over again by the same people who appear in the news feeds hundreds of millions of times and do you think that these hundreds of millions of impressions. maybe maybe not was it in michigan or florida or places that close i don't really know but what i do know is that they're saying how effective facebook is and how we can micro-targeting how it's great for advertisers that are selling furniture and cars at the same time you don't think the hundred million impressions on facebook can't create an impact on an election you can't have that both ways of course facebook can influence elections like we used to joke about how you throw an election using various tools facebook which facebook could do. and tony martinez worked at facebook from two thousand and eleven to two thousand and thirteen and played a central role in developing facebook's micro targeting system. responsibility

there was a product manager for ads targeting which meant basically turning all your user data into money for facebook what role do you think facebook played in selection i mean political pundits get things wrong all the time right but a well trained machine learning algorithm trained on good data doesn't often come up with the wrong answer and i spent years building tools to basically defeat human reason or human error you know dominate human tastes it's very weird but don't you think that can be a real problem when used political candidates in their messages rather than consumer products right now i think politics are somewhat different right at the end of the day our democracy and our political system depends on it and that's frankly more important than selling a pair of shoes like no question right martinez is much more concerned about the way facebook encourages people to live inside their own echo chamber which is also called the filter bubble to me the bigger issue that i really don't see a solution for is the sort of filter bubble slash fake news problem right where you

know citizens used to have a right to an opinion and now they have a right to their own reality you know facebook flatters their vision of the world. and they're never forced to challenge their assumptions you know they can go off in some rabbit hole of untruth they spokes mission is to give people what they want in their news feed and executive provide an orientation through that message home to martin is on his first day of work he had this very sweeping vision of you know the new york times of you in fact the accident from a question is like what is facebook you know sometime in turn said oh it's often i was like no wrong right it is your personalized newspaper they basically feed you anything that you engage with by engage means likes comments share etc like their news feed algorithm is optimized to that facebook recently announced changes to its news feed that will prioritize posts from friends and news from sites that users rate is trustworthy but the changes could reinforce filter bubbles and do little to stem the spread of bogus news why is it so easy to disseminate fake news and facebook what i think it all comes down to you know what psychologists call coggan of this and it's right views of the world that flatter your worldview you just eat

up like candy or french fries and just can't get enough of it and that's that's why fake news is so effective because if the world as you like to see it rather than it actually is today more than two thirds of americans get news on social media you think facebook is contributing to the polarization. but i don't think anyone had any notion that we would reach a level where it's reached today which you have democracies that basically can't function but i mean kind of democracy in which you and i can agree on the ground truth values and realities if we don't have that then how do we form consensus around a policy goal how do we solve it it's not it's problems. information about those exist but the breadth of information that an average person. holds. the largest in history. he is a psychologist at stanford who did pathbreaking research and what you can tell about people from facebook likes we just look at likes that people have not we actually the algorithm can take likes from your profile your facebook profile and

would be able to very accurately reveal your psychological traits your political views your sexual interrogation your. ethnicity. what are you take drugs or not a number of other sensitive and intimate things. thinks the upside of using these new psychographic profiling techniques in politics far away is the downside making it possible for politicians to adjust their message in such a way as to make it relevant to people it's great because it increases and gauge ment of people in politics it's great for the democracy but people can be engaged because of very narrow issues and who gauge meant within a narrow political point of view is not necessarily good for democracy as in social networks are a great advantage a great boon to them democracy anyone can become a blogger anyone can become a publisher well on one hand it brings us all of those people that say's not real

things but on the other hand it protects us from governments or powerful individuals or corporations dominating the communication channels but the algorithms are channeling to the things you really want to see so in some sense that undermines any sense of truth or a common reality in which people can talk and try to work out policy together you know there's data that exists that shows that humans always this is just human nature we always occupied our own echo chambers we always occupy the universe of me now today. thanks to repeat that recommendation systems those universes of us of me and you are the largest universes we ever had and they're also overlapping to a great extent. i think the effect of the filter bubble has yet to be quantified and i'm willing to render a hypothesis that when we get decent full assessment of the

a fact of filter bubbles it will be different among different groups and different people how have social media platforms affected political discourse social media platforms have divided us have made a shallow or you know the very addictive nature of it interferes with our ability to dive deep into one tax interferes with our ability to speak face to face in any depth. and perhaps to come to some sort of mutual awareness of the brain as you know it it does structure our habits of thoughts in ways that are not healthy for living life in a complex world and living in a democracy i think that the spread of junk news in this information and social media platforms as undermined truth in a sense if you're reading and learning about the world through facebook what you're getting is a mixture of traditional quality journalism and completely out there completely

made up stories that look like journalism you're going to have a really hard time distinguishing what is true and what is not. and if you are of the mind that you would like to undermine our ability to think about facts and coherently argue about policy you're going to turn to social media to get your word out there to mess with people to frustrate people to confuse people. because nothing better has ever been invented. larry kim and i'm one marketing consultant so it is just how easy it is to spread this information on facebook who is troubled by all the fake news sites that power. during the two thousand and sixteen presidential election last october he ran a test to see a facebook and address the problem he took us through the steps of his experiment wanted to know if facebook had close the loopholes and the whole effort took less than an hour so the first thing that i did was create a fake news website basically to disseminate the fake stories so my blog i decided

to go with the name citizens and news networks the story that i used was actually a very famous fake a story about a doll trump a protester who was saying that he was paid thirty five hundred dollars to protest a trump rally and i was from the election yeah you can see this is a really ridiculous looking site it doesn't seem very authority of it in any way i did this intentionally because i wanted to see all the facebook kind of fake news police you know be able to kind of catch this little the civil hack in the act then what did you do well so the next thing you need to do is set up a facebook page for my fake website and that's really easy to do and takes you know one or two minutes so if you want to promote a fake news and facebook they don't check it all when you say i know i. know absolutely absolutely that they don't check i was claiming to be a media outlet but you know that was all self declared information and then i just

simply shared the big news article to my fake news facebook page and now we're almost in business here you know step three we need to see to promote this story to to an audience. you know using facebook ads to boost exposure of his fake article in facebook news feed him spend fifty three dollars on a so-called engagement brews experiment targeted people in three swing states key to trump to victory michigan pennsylvania and wisconsin i went with a demographic that is very likely to eat this stuff for example people who are. republicans who are members of the national rifle association people who do need to conservative causes after he selected the groups he wanted to target he clicked on the boost post button you know i just want to get caught i want somebody at facebook to shut this down and say like you know this is a violation of some terms but keep in mind facebook is a advertising business and the ad was approved within minutes so what happened did

you immediately start getting people posting to it or reacting to it the reaction was bonkers like people were clicking on it and commenting on it and sharing on it and liking it like crazy within an hour about five thousand people sought. for for fifty bucks that doesn't happen that often you know i have companies that are spending orders of magnitude more than than than fifty bucks and they can drive this type of thing gauger and what did you take away from doing this experiment my takeaway is this is appalling that fake news threatens to undermine our system of government so it's very concerning that you know people can still do this year later after after the election what do you think can be done to address this problem pretty obvious first step is there should be some kind of an application process you know like just like when you sign up for a credit card you know it's kind of a validation of advertisers to verify who they are and if they are real or not.

facebook declined our request for an interview it pains us as a company and then our platform was abused in this way facebook google and twitter and each announced the propriety of measures to deal with this information these include tweaks to algorithms political ad disclosure increased security staffing and review of articles by outside fact checkers facebook's approach to fact checking is actually not doing people think that content throughout the site is being checked because they're seeing some disputed tax. and that's just not true. robin kaplan is a scholar at the data and society research institute she focuses on policy to deal with this information and propaganda on social media platforms do you think baseball twitter and google can address the problems of this information over their platforms without fundamentally changing their economic model no i don't these are private companies that creates new challenges because firstly they are driven by

their own goals and incentives that need to align with their business model things like clicks likes and shares are the metrics that are used to prioritize or d. prioritize content because that's how ad revenue is based but those signals don't actually tell us much about whether or not that content is truthful or important or more valuable do you think the companies can really solve a lot of the problems by tweaking their algorithms i don't think algorithms are actually going to fix this problem is companies need to start hiring on editorial staff and journalists people who have been located within the traditions of news media to start informing some of the decisions that platform companies are making in reviewing content what do you think of the company's argument that if they take a greater role in curating content it's going to lead to censorship we can develop a process used to make sure that they are not censoring content arbitrarily so i think we need to start having

a conversation about whether or not they should be held to a higher standard of norms and values that we've had with print or radio or cable i think it's time for platforms to step up to the plate and accept the responsibility that their media companies that they're not neutral technology companies here's the ironic thing great people to face because too much power so as a reaction they want facebook to assume more power by actually potentially censoring or editing content on their platform as a former employee i'm not sure that i want facebook becoming the editor in chief to the world series papers i'm actually not a big fan of that solution do you think social media platforms can deal with the problem of echo chambers and fake news without undermining their economic model in a way there's nothing they can do about it and be the companies they are zehra i think that's right. but one thing that might change is i think people might get just more savvy or they might understand that they're looking at fake news i mean something like every every new technology is characterized by in the initial period of discovery being used by the criminals or roads or you know for various negative

for negative outcomes and so i think we're going through social media of growing pains right now it's too early to tell but i don't think that that that society adjusts to these in germany in the one nine hundred thirty s. radio and film became powerful instruments of propaganda. they were the chosen instruments of gavels of hitler and they worked beautifully for them after world war two we confronted the fact that propaganda was dangerous we had a fervent public conversation about it we had commissions devoted to it in order to deliver solid dependable information so no we haven't adjusted the technology we've just gotten lucky we have managed to manage through the use of competition the celebration of multiple voices through the practice of consensus but i fear that that consensus is breaking down when that consensus breaks down our front again it's strong. in the next computing episode of the special report how russia and the

extreme right to use alternate to social media accounts known as boats to spread disinformation and propaganda. it's. really hard the internet is the tool for democracy under threat. in the echo chamber world of fake news in cyberspace the rules of the game have changed there are no precedents people out investigates disinclination and democracy part to. business updates brought to you by qatar airways going places together.

business updates brought to you by qatar airways going places together with over forty thousand people killed under his rule it took twenty five years to bring him to a court of law but why for so long it was such

a brutal dictator considered the west. al-jazeera unravels the history of chad's notorious former president his say dictator on trial. this is al-jazeera. this is the news hour live from coming up in the next sixty minutes rebels in syria val to fight to the death as. hundreds of thousands of civilians languish in peril . pushing her plan angela merkel tries to sell germany's migration policy to the

e.u. . two people remain critically ill in the u.k. after being exposed to the same nerve agent used to poison a former russian spy. plus we take you live to chang right thailand where the pressure is mounting rescue the trapped teenagers in a cave. the number of syrians escaping fighting in that our province has risen to at least three hundred twenty thousand and the bombardment of that our province has intensified to its heaviest yet this follows the collapse of ceasefire talks on our large numbers of civilians are fleeing towns throughout that are hoping to find refuge across the border in jordan and territory occupied by israel in the golan heights a government offensive backed by russia airstrikes seen them retake large walls of

rebel held territory they now control the area shown here in red rebel areas are in green the operation is now into its third week it's forced at least a third of a million to escape towards the borders well neither israel or jordan are allowing them in so camps in syria are full of people with out with inadequate shelter and nowhere to go well as their situation worsens the un security council is preparing to meet in new york in a moment we'll take you live to both those borders first then a hole there is following developments from beirut. a call to arms has been made. rebels entered our province say they are facing little choice but to fight to the death. failed the opposition says the terms demanded by the russian military which was negotiating on behalf of the syrian government.

we didn't even begin the negotiations and the russians were not even ready to listen to our demands the russian side insisted on their own terms and left the meeting during their meeting we insisted on guarantees before we give up our weapons because how can we give up our weapons without an international guarantees . the relative lull in the fighting has been shattered the military offensive resumed in full force. civilians yet again the victims activists say there were hundreds of airstrikes in the few hours following the breakdown of talks missiles and barrel bombs battered what's left of opposition controlled territory the rebel held areas have shrunk since the almost three week long russian backed syrian government offensive began but the opposition says it will defend the remaining thirty percent of the province under its control. the revolutionaries managed to prevent assad's forces from advancing into toughest on salmon for the fifth consecutive day this will be the graveyard for the regime and

the russians we tell bashar al assad that the revolution started here and his end will be here. there is defiance but there is also a reality the opposition is surrounded. by its allies people are afraid of what happens. people are afraid of returning to their homes if the regime is president they're afraid of being forced to join the army in a risk to join the opposition rusher in the regime accuse them of terrorism there's a lot of fear the offensive has created a humanitarian crisis hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced the number is growing with the escalation in the fighting the opposition says it is afraid to hand over their heavy weapons without security guarantees from a third party they fear reprisals from syrian government troops if they enter their towns and villages those who don't want to live under president bashar assad's rule are demanding safe passage to rebel held areas in the north and opposition to go

she does want the u.s. and involved in talks about the fate of southern syria all those requests were rejected. the intensity of the bombardment is being described as the heaviest since the offensive began just like in previous military campaigns the pro-government camp is hoping to bomb the opposition into submission then. they root. or for more on this child stratford is in the israeli occupied golan heights but first birth and smith is that the job of crossing on the jordan syria border and so byrne of the collapse of ceasefire talks can't be making things any better for people at the border where you are. certainly not here some in the evidence of those strikes you can see behind me first over my left shoulder white smoke rising there from what a soldier told us was an airstrike on a syrian industrial zone area and some is going to pan over to the left for me and you'll see some black smoke on the horizon to the left of that you'll see some

buildings and some structures in front those are where refugees are staying so the airstrikes coming in very close right along the jordan syria border that is coming in very close to where those refugees are the u.n. estimates now there are some sixty thousand syrian displaced internally displaced syrians along its border with syria some three hundred twenty thousand people displaced in all as ever the problem is getting provisions and supplies to those displaced civilians the jordanians were desperate for this sort of. peace plan to work somehow this giving up of the areas under rebel control they wanted it to work because the jordanians are going to see many many more thousands of people come to the border a border they're not going to open but the jordanians will be giving medical assistance right on the border fence that of those who need it sami all right thanks for that they burned over the new continues to talk about what's happened to

people stuck at borders now let's get the view from the israel syria border child strafford is there on the occupied golan heights so we have white smoke on the border with jordan what are people facing where you are. well earlier this morning sami we heard what we believe were either all tillery or airstrikes relatively close close by to my left around ten kilometers to my left is dead off and to my right is coup nature and we know as we've heard that the military operation is ongoing now with respect to what the israelis a doing here. they all to see whether where this unfolding crisis but they have some very real security concerns that's not to say that they haven't been involved in some sort of relief it but it was last week that the israeli military the i.d.f. . in a special missions supplied what we understand was three hundred tents and around seventy tons of food medical and clothing aid across the border as an organization

here a local organization the golan heights council that is organizing an aid collecting efforts appealing to people in this area across israel to donate eight they tell us that they will be delivering that aid to the i.d.f. to the israeli military and there's a hope that that will be delayed of an across the border hopefully as early as next week but then of course the u.n. is saying that this is no way near enough. we don't know how many people exactly are in what we can see around three makeshift camps behind us but we do expect that in the house even the days as long as this fighting goes on for the numbers to increase the question is being asked is why have the refugees come to this border when he has never opened the borders before to them and said that it won't in the future will the main reason is we understand is that they feel safe a here because this area is at the militarized israel occupied this area nine

hundred sixty seven and one nine hundred seventy full disengagement zone agreement between israel and syria means that this area is monitored by the u.n. and there is a u.n. base very. close to where we're standing so you begin to understand why these refugees have come here despite there being no indication of being let into israel but as i say as this fighting goes on we expect to see many more people arriving in this area potentially in the hours and days to come. right charles stratford there thanks for that. german chancellor angela merkel is said to meet hungry prime minister she tries to sell her migration plan to e.u. member countries victor audubon has signaled his willingness to strike a deal with merkel that would limit the number of asylum seekers arriving into europe on monday merkel reach a compromise agreement with conservative coalition partners to set up migrant transit centers in germany's border with austria germany's interior minister is heading to vienna to try and get the support of the austrian chancellor. live to

dominic cain now in berlin she's got a a few more meetings with the e.u. leaders she got to thrash out some common positions right. yes absolutely but quite how she trashes our common position with byron given the fact that he has used his parliamentary majority in recent weeks to criminalize giving assistance to illegal immigrants and to insert into the constitution a reference to the need to keep hungary safe from an alien population is quite hard for angela merkel given her humanitarianism with which she cloaked herself in twenty fifteen to find an accommodation with mr or perhaps but of course the two did sign up to the e.u. summit deal on migration which came back from brussels and so that perhaps is an avenue to explore that it's not the only meeting she's taking part in to be meeting the british prime minister to resign may later on that is discussing bragg's it and that what that represents to the e.u.

another challenge there and don't forget also sami that much later on today there is a meeting of the senior elements of the coalition the grand coalition so that's merkel's party of a very un-christian allies and most importantly the social democrats it's their support which will be necessary if the migration solution that she and her conservative allies came up with is to be enacted those are the things to look out for today and that final thought regarding mr zale for the minister the interior minister traveling to austria trying to get the support of chancellor sebastian courts and his far right coalition the point to make here is that fewer than one quarter of the illegal immigrants who were caught as it were apprehended on germany's borders were apprehended on the austrian german border so it gives you some sense of perspective about what's being talked about here but clearly as i say these meetings are very important for resolution of the migration crisis. thanks so much dominic kane. now british counterterrorism police say two people

critically ill in hospital have been exposed to the nerve agent navi chalk it's the same substance that was used to poison russian double agents so ghostscript palin's daughter in salisbury march so the go go reports from the neighboring town of amesbury were detectives are trying to discover what happened there. it seems almost unthinkable that the same nerve agent could strike twice in the same place and yet it did leaving two people critically ill and a town swirling in shock these two patients are in critical condition following exposure to the nerve agent novacek following events in march we have a well established response to this type of incident and clear processes to follow our priorities at this time are to care for the patients the couple in question dawn sturgis and charlie rally both a.