and show rebuilds are still. close to being a rock or drilling company. we've heard that there were 2 rocky local that were injured another coup. to exxon mobil. exactly where to what you describe is 24 story. of donald trump has officially launched his campaign to be reelected president of the united states at a rally in the key state of florida tampa trump attacked his political opponents and doubled down on his campaign promises from 2016. we're going to keep it better than ever before. and that is why tonight i stand before you to officially launch my campaign for a 2nd term. i with the u.n. has demanded thora independent investigation into the death of egypt's only democratically elected president mohamed morsi security was high as he was buried

in the cemetery in cairo rather than his hometown as his family requested journalists were kept away from the burial service a day after he collapsed and died in court aged 67 u.s. secretary of state mike pompei o has stopped saudi arabia from being added to a list of countries that recruit child soldiers it goes against the state department recommendation based on user force and rights groups assessments they say the kingdom hired sudanese children to fight for the u.s. backed coalition in yemen as always there is lots more on our website dot com and the news continues here on al-jazeera after the listening post. sri lanka is easter sunday bombings reverberated around the womb with religious and ethnic tension rising one a one investigates it is the new front line in sri lanka. 0. or.

less i'm not sure. i quite like this. here and think such a house. and or. story. hello i'm richard disappeared and you're at the listening post here are some of the media stories that we're covering this week now you read him now you don't iran dissin from ation and the curious case of. hong kong and why journalists are among those who fear a proposed new law that could land them in a chinese prison the youtube or chronicling and powering the protests in algeria plus the me too movement and the voices that have gone on her we begin with iran and 2 stories over the past 10 days that show that when it comes to the coverage of the islamic republic all is not as it seems 1st the online opinion writer who was

it. was one cited by the white house as a credible commentator on iran but he'd have far more credibility if he actually existed it turns out he's a fictional persona reportedly created by the ne k. mujahideen. a shadowy group opposed to the iranian government and supported by washington then there's the iran dissin from nation project funded entirely by the american taxpayer a stand simply to counter iranian propaganda it trolls and sometimes smears iranian american commentators and journalists online the government in tehran is no innocent player in all this it also tries to engineer what gets said and read online. as the tribe administration continues with its hawkish talk on iran dissecting this debate and figuring out who's driving it is proving more complicated by the day our starting point this week is washington d.c. .

a self described human rights and political activist with 30000 followers on twitter a critic of the iranian government advocating regime change and a remarkably prolific writer widely published his columns appeared on the websites of the american business magazine forbes as well as the hill the federalist and the daily caller on the saudi owned. on the voice of america's persian website until the american news outlet the intercept published this story saying that hash. did not even exist that he was a creation of the m e k an iranian opposition group schooled in the black arts of propaganda and that all the news outlets that had published all of it in forbes this case 61 times had been gained. what was shocking

was dark force magazine daily caller federalists the hill published a person who did not exist were talking about someone who they thought existed but never bother to verify in any way shape or form and i don't think you would ever see that happening on any other issue i think this is an iran specific thing in which the standards and the bar in the us media particularly on the right is essentially non existant and his content wasn't very subtle if you go back and see the record label as. you can see where he's coming from but the fact that nobody realized just shows. a lot of responsibility on the part of the media and he really utilized that and he had a track record of published articles that then made his audience on twitter believe that he's a real person and he's a credible and published author for failed on so many levels if one journalist

could discover. that. a fake fictitious character an entire organization as well funded as forbes could have challenged him at several times and the misinformation that it was propagating online and never never responded so naturally i you know at your unit that to. join a list with gigantic ego or someone who is very busy but now we know. that those media outlets the end ek should have been well known to all of them the us considered it a terror organization until 2012 and since that classification was dropped the m e k has cozied up to american officials who share its hawkish views on iraq one of

them president trumps national security advisor john bolton spoke at the group's annual conference in 2017 there is a viable opposition to the rule of the. opposition is centered in this room today. any case a sizeable troll farm in albania where it's all part of target online voices who express support for the iranian government the iran dissin from ation project does a lot of that too only it's based in washington and is paid for by american taxpayers its brief is to counter dissent from ation from iran but the project has gone much further than that among the people it trolls iranian american journalists and in geo workers like. of human rights watch she landed in iran descend crosshairs after sending this tweet seeking information from iranians on how economic sanctions are affecting the availability of medicine there. was

a purely research base to. and it was in persian it was intended to towards the iranian audience to help me find some evidence that i could use for my research they retreated my tweet and said something along the line of this by the fact that hundreds of protesters have been killed since 2018 human rights what the researcher is working hard to prove iran's right any moderate or nuanced view or reporting of iran has been triggering their attacks i had been called a mouthpiece a lobbyist for the regime other people had been called apologists or lobby just for simply voicing their criticism against president trump's policies or a nuanced view of what is going on inside iran that was seen as hardline enough by

the iran disinfo group here you have an entity that was supposed to fight iranian propaganda online instead it was actually spending almost all of its time attacking critics of the trumpet instructions iran policy to make it worse the fund that came from the state department was actually designed to fight isis propaganda and russian interference in the united states instead the trumpet ministration diverted that money to fight critics of trump's iran plans. including jason rezaian a washington post writer iran disinfo went after him which was ironic because just 3 years ago the same state department that funds the project was lobbying to free resume on from prison in iran the authorities there are notorious for their treatment of journalists this past week they revoked the credentials of the new

york times as bureau chief there without explanation tehran also invests in its own . online dissent from asian campaigns setting up fake news websites generating spurious articles and creating online personas that was what iran disinfo was created to fight against before it turned to trolling critics and lobbying for regime change and is just one of the many players in washington lobbying on one side of this story or the other some iranians accuse the d.c. based national iranian american council. of in fact being the unofficial lobbying arm of the iranian reformist movement. in the end make a pushes of their own political agenda by creating fictitious characters such as the. brands of people who do not agree but as of war mongers iran this info engages in similar tactics so what i'm trying to say is

everybody is engaging in those tactics iran has multiple diverse voices and for certain groups with more financial resources to be able to monopolize this space is doing them the service certain positions are much more marginal and certain viewpoints are much more mainstream and the viewpoints that nyuk has represented you know holding iran responsible for its human rights violation but at the same time engaging in dialogue rather than and war is vastly supported by the iranian american community if there are any campaigns by anyone to manipulate the debate manipulate social media then obviously that should be shut. iran disinfo has avoided being shut down so far but it has taken a big hit over its rude behavior so the family does remain suspended.

and they're with but there's a review process that's ongoing right now. together iran disinform nation project and the m.e. case hash mat deception provide lessons for anyone news outlets included dealing with the iran story with talks in the trump white house flexing american muscle and placing maximum pressure on iran iran has been a very dangerous player very bad player there a nation of terror and we will put up with it the times call for extreme caution in separating fact from fiction legitimate voices from paid trolls and credible commentators from virtual ones. for analysts reporters policymakers anyone who is trying to make sense of iran these days if there. isn't what's happening on social media they should think twice before publishing it as

this is how iranians feel about this things one thing that these 2 seemingly unrelated stories that have come out at the same time prove is that this space is highly manipulative and it's far from reflection of iranian public opinion. we're discussing other media stories that are on our radar this week with one of our producers johannes joe hundreds of thousands of protesters on the streets of hong kong this week demanding that the government scrap this proposed new extradition law journalists were among those protesters why is that well primarily because of fears among press freedom at forgets that this new bill which would allow the extradition of alleged criminals from the semi autonomy city of hong kong to mainland china will be used by beijing as a way to target political enemies and critics including journalists and their sources once in china they say those extradited would be at the mercy of an opaque justice system and at risk of serious human rights abuses according to reporters

without borders china currently holds at least $111.00 journalist under law. threatening conditions in an open letter sent to carry law who is hong kong's head of government 23 human rights organizations including the committee to protect journalists and penned hong kong urged the government to scrap the law and what are both news outlets on the chinese mainland how have they been covering this story well they've either completely ignored the protests china's state broadcaster for example that not mentioned them at all or they are parroting the communist party's line on this in some cases blaming the unrest on foreign interference and collusion with the west the chinese edition of the global times was one example of that saying quote some international forces have significantly strengthened their interaction with the hong kong opposition in recent months the english language paper china daily also played down the story it said that more than $800000.00 people had backed the new law in an online petition in but titian countering

a protest by about 240000 people which clearly is a very conservative estimate of the numbers out on the street online searches for news on the demonstrations on china's twitter like way bow or the messaging app you'll get no results at all nothing and well no such answer ship currently exists in hong kong activists are warning that those liberties are slowly being eroded as beijing moves to tighten its grip on the city ok thanks chad. for 4 months now algerians have been hitting the streets demanding political change while they've succeeded in toppling the country's long time president abdelaziz bouteflika they are done there demanding a comprehensive dismantling of the ruling elite there rallying cry they must all go many algerians are far too politically aware to trust the state owned news media which initially under played the protest story and continues to spin it long before the demonstrations began a generation of youtube people like garage. and nest tina emerged as unofficial

spokespeople for algerian youth and as yon is a musician now living in exile in prague and tina is a comedian still posting material from his home in the algerian capital both get clicks in the multimillions we spoke with the 2 of them about the grievances they articulate the political and social changes they advocate in the videos that they've produced that are now part of the soundtrack of the algerian revolution. nationals on

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