top court has ruled that a law allowing abortions juta fetal defects is unconstitutional the decision means terminations are now almost totally banned abortions will only be allowed in the case of rape incest or if the pregnancy threatens the mother's health poland's opposition says the court is carrying out the political will of the conservative ruling party. the top stories on al-jazeera france is extending its curfew on 9 major cities to a further 38 areas this means about 46000000 people will now have to stay indoors at night france is now the 2nd e.u. member to surpass 1000000 covert 1000 cases nigeria's president has called for an end to protest the began 2 weeks ago initially against police brutality demonstrators have been defying curfews in lagos and other regions to hold rallies

how to do bihari has said his government has an obligation to protect citizens. who are on high heels to just continue the streets of this it's to construct a. government in decisions. as this road and as. a dress has more from the capital abuja. the president mentioned that they have heard the 5 demands of the protesters and they're addressing them gradually mentioning the fact that the. row police unit the special interest chord has been disbanded process is now on to run psychological evaluation of all officers and the solders and a new outfit is being put up to replace assad's as well as. talking about those other demands like compensation like. dialoguing with the protesters so lanka's

parliament has overwhelmingly approved an amendment to the constitution expanding the president's powers rajapaksa will now be able to dissolve parliament before its term finishes and has full immunity from prosecution if those are 12 days 10 no it's the nomination will be reported faber believed to the floor with a unanimous vote the u.s. senate judiciary committee has approved the nomination of supreme court nominee a macone barrett moving one step closer to being confirmed despite senate democrats boycotting the ballot by its confirmation will now go to a full senate vote on monday or you're up to date next the stream us or facebook is doing enough to combat contentious material on the u.s. election.

i welcome to the stream i'm femi oke a with less than 2 weeks before the u.s. presidential election facebook is again in the spotlight over how it is tackling misinformation and hate speech on the spot for today we look at the efforts of one pressure group holding facebook to account of what the company itself is doing to clean house in the run up to election day if you're watching on the cheap you can send us your comments and questions from the life chat having part of today's conversation and you could waste tweet us put a straight. us democracy is at risk old facebook to account that is the declaration of

a new group a social media experts criticizing the company's content moderation policies as the u.s. election approaches the collective of activists journalists and academics calls itself the real facebook oversight board here's what one member of the group said it's not sufficient. we demand comprehensive action to ensure that race cannot be weaponized to undermine the vote and with that american democracy ours is an emergency intervention are evident mr zuckerberg and facebook employees. now approach their 9 minute of the 11th hour in this democratic crisis and the time for excuses and political deals is. facebook's official oversight board announced it will start accepting cases

today joining us to talk more about responsibilities of facebook during the elections in london cowal cadwallader she's organizer of the real facebook oversight board and a journalist at the guardian and observe a newspaper this kate's clinic is assistant professor at st john's university law school i was researching facebook's own oversight effort she is in new york and d.p.i. at gosh is co-director of digital platforms and democracy project at harvard's kennedy school he joins us from cambridge massachusetts and everybody we also invited facebook to join us and they didn't offer up a guess but they did copy and paste a statement from earlier on this month so i will show you some of the highlights of that statement during the sheva it was really good to see you carol the real facebook oversight board of calling this moment and emergency what is the emergency

the magic. social me yet. of which there is absolutely no oversight or accountability is about to make absolutely critical decisions which are going to affect the outcome of the us election and also the chance we're a power and it's quite terrifying the amount of power that it has in this situation and how little it's done since 2016 when we know that it was used to facilitate and it's hacked on the u.s. democracy by russia and there are very many people who've come to get the experts who come together on the real place who are they in many of them are genuinely terrified about what's going to happen in the next few weeks and that facebook may be used to incite violence and in fact i say it may be used but we

know that it is already being used to incite violence undermine the election and to vote and you know that is something which i think the whole world news became attention to writing the moment we got the other costs not all the fire and at to create the not. well carol it's absolutely right and this is why i love the real oversight boards work so much. let's let's look at the actual oversight board for a moment it looks at a narrow set of cases. you know it's a very narrow set of opportunities it's not it's branded as an oversight board over the company and yet its actual oversight its actual or you are the company used almost non as compared to the to the. you economic social and political impact of the company itself. right and i i think i

think time has come for us to really pull those big feet to the fire certainly basements. as as a company that is having met in fact and is not doing right by by democracy. i think we are getting to. a just a few hours before we went live to all 20 doubt this starting today facebook and instagram and facebook at south canalis the forward to independently independent review content decisions that this is the official facebook oversight board not the real oversight vote just so that we're not sick of gays to have this is facebook's one the pressure quit so on and they basically tell me what any today is how they got to handle rests at top what to make of this this is this progress that we're seeing right here. yes so i kind of want to i was nodding before i was carolyn stand because i actually do you agree with the idea that these companies are way

too powerful and do not have good leverage points and that there isn't an effective means of oversight i don't have any disagreement with that in fact i think that like the real say or a group that like carol setting up like is going to have an impact and like i i'm kind of of the opinion that we should throw like everything at the wall and see what sticks and in the world of trying to figure out how to manage these massive corporations and their their control and their governance over our basic human rights. but i will say this which is that. it's kind of a fiction that dick pound just said to have i. like to say that he is a fan of the real over the real oversight boards that like carol set out over the oversight board when the oversight board which is independent from facebook which is made up of an independent group of experts which is funded completely separately

and has a mandate to hear court like appeals from users and how does actual purchase although narrow over the ability of facebook to make its policy decisions like that it doesn't have like impact like the real oversight board that carol set up has p.r. impact but that's the only thing that it has and that's no better than what we've had already let me just bring in here i don't rush. to. want. to marry him and then when you allan he's one of the board members from the official facebook oversight board guy i think i hope i'm not going to say they mean that i didn't say that it doesn't have no impact that it did it no impact but rather that it has very limited in it to repeat myself very limited internet as compared to the tremendous economic political and what was i think for me was limited to empower me doesn't you know it's

a more or less limited than like what the oversight board. yeah i don't even know what that even means are you going to take down 50 percent more tweets all 20 percent what does that even mean to fiat as they use it all the facebook wall what does little to mean i can't get almost like social media check to monetize a bit of it well what can you clarify i see that i hear the pushback but i don't understand what it means yeah. well kate mentioned that carol's. journals real oversight board is it is or isn't. as a p.r. . here i am i think that actual oversight board is actually if you aren't yes it has a charter yes it's financially independent yes they have a process and yes i think that it's been set up in a way that it actually does not really hold the company accountable you know you

know considerable way and and to be a little bit more specific here this because a mirror has a virtual monopoly it has a tremendous market power in social media it's that it's the dominant player through facebook and instagram and other other applications. and there's a huge amount of economic activity that goes through facebook and that narrow off already that the border has over certain pieces of content that that border has capacity to to take upon itself to review and which facebook allows the board to review. is just going to result in not that much impact when we think about the vast majority of. content issues that we have on the platform today on the company's platforms today as well as its economic calendar how can i get.

this idea that it's critical and you know i hope that it can have. issues around which piece of content came back up again that you can remember this is the seed green cool if you now did you mean cool it don't try to remember is that it's a supremes rule all of these numbers have been selected i think but then the people who own the real facebook i decided on the shoulder and also joined and i think i really do you question how independent at the moment and i. i know that there are you know it really feels you know very glad to. but how did it how can i bring in a distrust to your point because there's no no rush but i know you know and he's what in the party he's been the editor of the guardian. former editor in

chief of the guardian newspaper. he was asked this question how independent can you actually be and this is what he sure does have a lot of men there were quite a lot of face people on the zune call no no there aren't. no none of us. and we haven't as a board met anybody from facebook and i think we're very conscious that we don't work race but we're we are an independent. oversight board and now do you know i'm whether somewhere down the road we might want to have a dialogue with facebook but at the moment. facebook. are absolutely not in the room. so i think i was facing saying is that we don't work for facebook we are independent people as have a look at some of these independent board members here kowen just one more point in

this that we're going to move on yeah i know it's a really great point and you know and of course you know it's you know tomorrow and so many of those people are you know like real intellectuals huge reputations and of course they are independent but the thing you back to the reason is that we have seen in facebook's actions towards us as a group and what what they have tried to do in terms of trying to kill the project before it even started in terms of these different boiler moves that it's made in terms of in fact even getting our website you know the internet these are moves which have been made by facebook and we even when i sent inquiries to place the oversight board i did face the executives. so there is definitely a relationship there and that's not as i say it's not the cost of their actions on any of them and you know as i say they are all really individuals in their own

right but this is the structure which has been paid for sex established by faced with its terms of reference a set i base that charter that i face that i really hope that this rebel and this body that because that's and i hope that we help by giving them leverage and support in that way. but i think they have to i really do think that they need to go wrote let me push on a little bit because people are watching us and the commenting so look at size can i put this to you well other country have their own oversight board. as you know not one for having one there's one oversight board just like there is why and like set of community standards and policies for all of facebook we don't have a balkanized internet and terms of like these platforms the reason they comply individually with laws within countries and they do that they're geo blocking so for example holocaust denial is illegal or sorry holocaust denial is illegal in

france and germany and so they like they will geo lock certain types like speech in france and germany but it's legal in the united states and so they don't do it there. so there's not this isn't this isn't about geography it's but i just wanted to say something really quick because i think that like we're there is there are just small amount of like and i know that a 30 minute talk on live t.v. is never the best place to really like break bread and like make me feel like kind of like inroads on things but i do want to say that like everything that has been said so far by the other guests i agree with i just don't think that what there is yet is like a reason to be skeptical of the actual oversight board which is its own independent organization to carol's point i think it could take up the mantle that she kind of is like pushing for or that did not is pushing for i think that those that i possibility use i just don't think it has to come at the cost of that tool

necessarily like. my kind of just like dragging it all over the media like there's still a chance that the overs they. could do something really significant and i don't think it cost us a lot to put some hope in that town let me just in lighten everybody because. in a great position cause they already know what the real facebook oversight are asking for but here in a tweet very easy for everyone to access the demands facebook must enforce its own policy banning all paid advertising that mentions presidential election results or organic posts about presidential election results as untrue and premature until one candidate is the president elect and the other candidate concedes just so that everybody here is on the same page about what it is that you are pushing to have done carol may have put one more you to comment to you so that we're sharing our conversation without audience i'm sure you've heard this before simone smith says

facebook is free speech if you control facebook you have lost your freedom carol. great i mean. i should get somebody else through that when i mean the idea that your quitting 3 speech you're investing one man one billionaire mark zuckerberg with the power to start decreasing your home there is more than 3000000000 people across the globe who use facebook products i mean if that's your idea of free speech that an unknown algorithm we've got no idea how it works and certain messages and doesn't amplify other ones one of the things we see and find that's been a white supremacist we've got no idea how that works or what's going on inside the company and i that's not free speech that you know that's that artificially

enhanced and amplified and that's just one of the many issues going on but i mean can i just come back on something which is the thing that kate said about not be cynical about the oversight board and you know i really do wish them all the very best of luck and i hope also they don't get a good outcome yet but i think it's certainly wrong not to be cynical or facebook now as a journalist who's been reporting on these companies for 4 years you have had i have had the e.c. in a report in which they find facebook $100000000.00 they say that facebook like to journalist is one of your lists who is like you but it's the last week when are the really long launch the real facebook oversight board i had columns man coming out on twitter to troll me personally once using to pressing wineries about why our state our website had been taken down he came out to troll

me about cambridge generally sikka which is the story i wrote and which facebook was fined $5000000000.00 for using people. and corporate reaction was to. a spokesman to go out on twitter and attack me personally now i now read and sexily and shrum and it makes me really wonder what is going on inside what its priorities are and what its relationship is with the current white house guess i didn't mention the face but wouldn't send a guest to sit alongside you but they did send a copy and paste it statement it did have a spelling error in it so they see the spelling i it's not me it's facebook alright so this is what they said they have done ready for the us elections so between march and september of this year they've removed more than 120000 pieces of facebook and instagram content in the u.s.

they've displayed warnings they've rejected ads to missions before they could run about 2200000 times they've removed it announce certain networks and gauge and coordinating in authentic behavior they said they've done a lot we also wanted to bring a research record shot and seem who was looking at these all the things that facebook of everyday reacted really well shalen has a but let's have a listen. facebook is going in some things way in the run up to the 2020 alexion they put a lot of friction around the false information story that was in the new york post about joe biden and they also have finally removed the cuban armed groups although some myself included would say that came a little too late to be deeply effective what we still worry about or what i still worry about is that there is not going to be swift enough and decisive action on claims that we know will be coming from the president and his allies about a contested election and calls to violence at the polls or afterwards facebook is

still paying too much consideration to the political outcomes of their decisions instead of thinking about what is the right decision with democracy as the goal post. this is a lot for a social media platform to handle i am wondering d. hand is it even possible what the ask is what the expectation is because facebook is so huge is it actually possible for them to act responsibly for everybody who's using this platform. it's totally possible and let's be clear there are many at facebook and a lot of them are aligned you know around its privacy practices around its digital advertising practices around its algorithmic practices and carol through the real oversight board has made a lot of those demands or for policy suggestions clear as as have i and many others in various formats including when i worked at facebook. and so on

so i think that there are i think that the terms are very clear it's just a matter of asking the question do these demands align with facebook's business model and let's be clear again this is a business model that has historic profit margins. it's a business model that serves an entire financial infrastructure sitting behind facebook of shareholders investors and so com value that executive board of facebook and its executives and themselves and the company is going to do whatever it can to protect that business model even if it means setting up an oversight board that is facially independent. and then composed of 3rd parties 3rd party researchers and scholars to give the impression to the public around the world that yes there is oversight of facebook by these 40 independent individuals

or 20 whatever whatever the number might be when in fact there isn't this is that they bring this is the oversight board i mean come on this this board is going to be looking at a few pieces of content and you're content. so there is that it if i'm if i may defy and we've had this very robust conversation about the oversight board and how much oversight i will be doing on online on you tube conversation that's watching all of you guessed there's a lot of mistrust about facebook in the chat and i think probably because they've heard mark zuckerberg say things like this this is a congressional us hearing back in october of last year and he's talking about that saves lives online and the action that he would take this have a look so you won't take down lies or you will take down lives i mean that's just a pretty simple yes or no on this woman in my talk about spin i'm talking about

actual or yes there seems to me in a democracy i believe that people should be able to see for themselves what politicians that they may or may not vote for or do you really want to go out there for themselves or you want to you may flag that it's wrong but you want to take it down congresswoman it's a it depends on the context that it shows up organic post. so i guess i'm kind of squirming listening to that because it is a it's a lie would you take down a lie why not just say yes carol. because mark zuckerberg has no moral compass mean that is fundamentally the problem. i mean you know you started out i mean you know at one point we you know so many people loved it was like you know it was a word you know when your friends and your family and then you know when he was found to be still a traitor to gender star i in my own mar you know that's what

a united nations report said is that it played to determining role in the genocide in mind. and you know what i consequence was that absolutely nothing guests and you know maintain the company after that. you know guess this i'm saying well this is you know i live. across the word so many countries where you. rely on. many many caked deef i am. i'm basically going to say that this conversation has got so much more energy in it and much more time as kate pointed out about 15 minutes ago now text says maybe we should just suspend facebook during election to avoid confusion and the spread of lies by individuals thank you guess what a robust conversation. we shall see the election is just 2 weeks away thank you for

joining us our c.n.n. x. time. business leaders does vote to buy no bra spot.

business leaders does vote to buy no bra spot. a korean doomsday cult as would hundreds of followers to what tropical paradise. one i won a statistic gates the secretive sect accused of abuse and violence in fiji. on al-jazeera. pakistan's k.s.c. $100.00 assad's more than 36 percent we bring you the stories and developments that are rapidly changing the world we live in the water that is going dispensable to economic activity but industrial users worsening cuts us to fresh water counting

the cost on al-jazeera. i'm leave barca in london the top stories on al-jazeera france is extending its curfew or 9 major cities to a further 38 areas this means about 46000000 people will now have to stay indoors at night france has now followed spain to become the 2nd even member to surpass 1000000 cove in 1000 cases jonah hole has more on the situation around europe. these pictures filmed anonymously and leaked on to social media heralded ghastly return to the worst of the covert 900 pandemic in europe bodies wrapped in black plastic apparently filmed a week ago.