my responsibility there was 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 donald trump's election oh huge 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 right 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 to sell 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 providing 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 and some dumb intern said oh it's a social i was like no wrong right it is your personalized newspaper they basically feed you anything that you engage with but engage means likes comments share etc like their news feed algorithm is optimized for 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 on facebook like i think it all comes down to you know what psychologists call cognitive dissonance 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'd like to see it rather than it actually is to. day more than two thirds of americans get news on social media you think they spoke as a contributor to the polarization you know ok but i don't think anyone had any notion that we would reach a level where to reach today which you have democracy is a basic you can't fuck with any 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 decide its problems right. information about those exist but the breadth of information that an average person today holds is the largest in history because in ski is a psychologist at stanford did pathbreaking research on what you can tell about people from facebook likes we just look at likes that people have not we are 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 in the gauge went of people in politics it's great for the northwest but people can be engaged because a very narrow issues and who gauge meant within a narrow political point of view is not necessarily good for democracy is 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 chamber as we always occupy the universe of me now today. thanks to repeat the 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 shallower 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 if it does structure our habits and 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 an online 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 to close the loopholes and the whole effort took less than an hour so 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 is 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 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 he targeted people in three swing states key to trump's victory michigan pennsylvania and wisconsin i went with a demographic that is very likely to eat this stuff so 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 an 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 that you know it's kind of a ballad ation 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 huge 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 processes 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 right people say facebook has to 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 b. the companies they are zara i think that's right that's right. but one thing that might change is i think people might get just more savvy where 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's growing pains right now it's too early to tell but i don't think that that that society adjusts to these it's like 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 now we have an adjustment of 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 and i fear that that consensus is breaking down when that consensus breaks down our propaganda gets stronger. in the next computing episode of the special reports how russia and

the extreme right to use will to make the 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 dissent from ation and democracy part two on.

it was just ten years old when a devastating earthquake struck mexico city in one thousand nine hundred five the quake damaged her family's apartment and the government moved them to distant shack around seventy families who lost their homes in that earthquake still live in this camp say i'm going to be up at the gallop the government raised our hopes and then abandon us politicians have promised that they won't allow a repeat of what happened after the earthquake in one thousand eight hundred five but the cost and complexity of housing hundreds of people living in camps is

a major task and one that many people here think the government fail. every weekly news cycle brings a series of breaking stories to join the listening post as we turn the cameras on the media and focus on how they report on the stories that matter the most on al-jazeera. the u.s. secretary of state insist upon missing with north korea is on track as pyongyang calls the latest talks regrettable. maryam namazie in london with al-jazeera also coming up. two blasts hit somalia's security ministry in mogadishu killing at least eight people. along the border are going to be. movement on the march

protest as for migrants rights arrive at cal aof to crossing france from the italian border. and england beat sweden to win a place in the world cup semifinals for the first time in twenty eight years. my pump a.o. said they were productive but is given a very different account of how top level talks went in the north korean capital just hours after the u.s. secretary of state left the country north korea lashed out at washington describing it thoughts as extremely regrettable yong and also accuse the us of pressuring them to abandon their nuclear program but as far as bio is concerned the discussions were a success we've made progress on almost all of the central issues some places

a great deal of progress other places there's still more work to be done we've talked about what the north koreans are continuing to do it how it's the case we can get our arms around achieving what german human president proposed agreed to which was the complete denuclearization of north korea there is no no one walked away from that there is still it would be military became is documented. why the joke castro is in washington will not long after i made that statement we heard very different comments from the north koreans they've said that the u.s. is making unilateral demands of the what could this mean for the nuclear talks or the possibility of any agreement. that is the big question marian and all we know at this point is that this development is certainly disconcerting you basically have two sides of a negotiation that are describing their experiences of the same event using opposing terms with pump aoe saying that these talks were productive and

a north korean state media today spoke her son from the north korean government calling these talks regrettable the unnamed spokesperson went on to say that this was the u.s. betraying the spirit of the presidential summit from last month and that the u.s. was making one sided and in his in his words robber like demands that may rattle the willingness of north korea to denuclearize now the big question is how much of this is sincere and how much of it is posturing and certainly the u.s. side has been has done its share of posturing itself with the u.s. president donald trump immediately before the singapore summit canceling that meeting with kim jong un that was after north korea had made use similarly harsh language to criticize the u.s. vice president so how trump will react to these statements following pump ale's visit is still

a huge unknown if plan if plans carry out as they are currently laid out though we know that palm pale is playing to scale back his personal involvement in further talks he will be replaced with lower level u.s. officials was just adds another layer of concern of how productive these g. denuclearization talks will be going forward and do we have much information about precisely who might was meeting in pyongyang or if you had any direct contact with the north korean leader. all right so we are hearing he did not meet with kim jong un rather he met with his own counterpart there nor the state department the u.s. says that that pump aoe had not been expecting to meet with the north korean leader this was not the same a sort of public display of affection that we saw from last month's summit between trump and kim jong un that was a warm greeting between the two nations leaders followed by trump's tweet that

claimed that there the north korea was and in the president's words no longer a nuclear threat very quickly that assertion was contradicted by a leaked u.s. intelligence report in which the conclusion was that north korea had no intention to fully denuclearize and intelligence sources pointed to evidence that north korea was trying to conceal nuclear weapons and production facilities now trump has not publicly responded to that lead us intelligence report nor has he said anything yet about these statements made about palm pales visit in which it was a regrettable meeting in the words of north korea and knowing how unpredictable the leaders of both countries are it is anyone's guess where we are going forward very much castro in washington where now at least eight people have been killed and dozens more injured in a car bombing in the somali capital mogadishu the armed group says it was behind

the attack near the ministry of interior building. have a morgan brings a small. once again the city of mogadishu is living through the aftermath of an attack and once again those responsible are also fighters the armed group has been battling somalia's government for twelve years it has launched more than half a dozen attacks this year alone. i was close to where the explosion happened their car on through the checkpoint barrier into the ministry building then it exploded there was smoke everywhere many people died in there but i wasn't able to count them. is fighting to overthrow the government and was pushed out of mogadishu in twenty eleven but it continues to target both government sites and civilians so that the with the i saw ten bodies with my own eyes and eight wounded the car exploded inside the ministry building there was a lot of confusion screaming and lots of gunfire. three attackers

and at the ministry of interior following the explosion and exchanged gunfire with security forces inside somalia as government says all three have been killed but while those involved in this attack may have been killed al-shabaab remains a significant threat to millions of somalis and the future of their country stability people morgan al-jazeera syrian soldiers have been celebrating the recapture of the main border crossing with jordan government forces recheck the nessie a crossing point on friday following a cease fire deal for rebels to hand over territory in the province of daraa a russian backed government offensive has caused more than three hundred thousand people to flee the region in recent weeks well the nasi crossing had been controlled by rebels since two thousand and fifteen cutting off the main trade routes for syrian goods to jordan and gulf countries is around a deal has been brokered by the russians it's highly symbolic for the syrian government is where the uprising against president bashar assad initially began in twenty eleven and its myth has more from the jordanian side of the crossing.

russia's defense ministry confirmed the terms on which opposition fighters would hand over their weapons and be given safe passage to the north of syria and russia's involvement is significant and important ticket only for the jordanians it's the jordanians who are expecting the russians to supervise security on the syrian side of the border the jordanians particularly concerned i have made it clear they do not want the involvement of any iranian backed as ball or shia militias on the syrian side of the border near jordan those hezbollah has been involved in the fight to retake delta jordan does not want them to be establishing a presence on this border russia security concerns to the lay those fears of jordan and the russians also expected to keep an eye on syrian security forces and make sure there are no reprisal attacks on displaced people who fled the fighting in

data province jordan wants those displaced people to go back home they need to feel safe and secure that they can go back home and again the jordanians will expect and hope that the russian police military police patrolling along the border will allay any fears that those displaced people might have. hundreds of mourners have marched in gaza at the funeral of a palestinian man killed on the israeli border on friday. the twenty two year old was reportedly killed by israeli fire as he ran towards the border fence gaza's health ministry says twenty four others were injured more than one hundred twenty five palestinians have been killed since weekly protests against israeli land confiscation began in much.

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