anthony beecher has come out against the us and dismiss the same, saying that these are the threat, such as i never really using. it's a technology very everyday problems. for example, when it comes to increasing or improving the health care system or improving labor intensive industries, for example, and addressing a shortage of work and i directly hop on the our on al jazeera, these are the headlines is ready as strikes, continuing across the gaza strip hitting to crowded districts during morning, right? that is despite the international calls for a cease fire, we've got you in general assembly convening on that later. these 228 palestinians, including 64 children, have been killed since the conflict began 11 days ago. here is suffered l car flute in gaza. we are like this morning to, to, to jamalia. we could see 2 huge closures or little big goal,

which is actually inside inside default we couldn't see anything truck bishop. we found some sewage networks, some water pipe destroyed or damaged demand. road is also damaged. we entered inside some of the houses that completely completely destroyed some others. i mean, damage that if the house is in the if the g comes, you are very simple houses and palestinian israeli officials of cold for a general strike. and a day of mourning in a fashion after the killing of a 17 year old protest by israeli police home and 2 died from his injuries after being shot in the head find security for israeli media report. he was sitting in a car with his friends at the time headlines and there has been fighting a long morocco's border with the spanish enclave of the sale to which lies on africa, north west coast. the broken security

force is trying to prevent people from crossing over into the spanish territory. police times the border controls. after more than 8000 migrants managed to enter a or 2 earlier in the week. some of them swam along the coast to reach that enclave . the number of new current of ours deaths in india's fallen after 2 days of record highs. at least 3800 people are still died in the last 24 hours from over 19 the number of new infections is slightly up and limping shape. so trying to reassure people that they will deliver a safe tokyo game. however, a group representing more than 100000 japanese doctor and dentist say they are still concerned about the very low rates of vaccination across the country. you're up to date with a news from al jazeera coming up next to me. ok. and the string theory,

english streaming live channels, plus thousands of our programs. award winning documentary. you do get new support described to you to forward slash al jazeera english. the hi, answer me okay to day on the stream we're talking about a social media streaming app called top house that he's growing in popularity and has a lot of bounce. 5 around this week because he's rolling out on android phones around the world, top house describes itself as a space for casual dropping conversations. but is it, is it a safe space for those conversations to happen here from a spokesperson for the iran guardian council? it is what he has to say. the whole song or the, the, the most very entirely new club house has made to be

a bit more direct. in my opinion, there is no issue with the essence of these apps. and if they are used correctly, they would work for the growth and awareness of the people and the youth. the father, i definitely did a double take when i heard that comment teeth on pat ca path is pros and cons and challenges. we haven't gone melissa. great, have you ok on the stream? they go, welcome back to the stream, remind our audience. see you all what you day? a nigger more tag. the journalist on political commentator based in washington, and i also host the pipe can lead to see. hello melissa, welcome back. to the stream. describe yourself to i guess who may not have seen you before. hi melissa chan. i'm a journalist based in berlin. i work on a lot of different kinds of stories, but among one of them, i look at the strand of looking at china beyond it's border. nice to have you. hello. welcome to the st. hello already and see you all what?

hi, i'm marco and jones. i'm an assistant professor of middle east studies and i researched social media disinformation and harassment. and i'm particularly interested in the negative potential of technology. thank surveying, hey, guess really nice to see you and audience. if you're online on youtube right now, you can be part of this conversation as well. have you experienced cop house? have your friends experience cop house? tell us what it's been like. is it a place where you can speak freely? all you consent? jump into a comment section. be part of today's show. now you're not supposed to record any thinking copout unless you tell people bhatnagar have sent us some screen grabs. so i'm going to show you some of these screen graphs and that kind of impressive nichol. when you tell everybody have perceived there, i'm going to kick for a couple of them. what, what are we seeing here? for instance, will this sharice what we've seen on the club have aside from a lot of the conversations that are by regular citizens and also some i see this on

journalists. we're seeing opposition figures in the country as well as government officials holding long. * conversations with a range of different users on various topics. and this one we're seeing there on in foreign minister there. ronnie and ministry spokes person dropping into a room with a 1000 people, taking questions from some journalist, some regular citizens. and this one that we're looking at right now, this is the daughter of the former president of iran flies hush. ne, who is right now considered an opposition. she dropped on the club house into her room for about 6 hours. being very critical of the current government of the supreme leader, which being critical of is the red line in iranian politics. and just being very frank and taking some tough and challenging questions from the audience. so it's definitely a new opening for political discourse in iran. melissa, i remember when you were 1st tweeting about what was going on in some of these

rooms in the policy, you can start a room, you can moderate room if you don't actually see the people when they got there. that little faces on the icons and i thought i was, i was in the rooms review. i have a lot of fills you post are in february, the 5th listening to mainland chinese in china, or the overseas home congress, taiwanese exchange ideas on top house. but one of them is the pan give the communist party has done this to us. melissa. it's really interesting to hear the description of club house and how people in iran are engaging because i see such parallels. there is this intensity and people log on for hours at a time, especially in february and march when there was a lot of access or at least easier access then the situation now because eventually as, as a lot of, you know, china just made it all the more difficult to access the app,

but there was that moment when you had all these chinese speakers from within china, in hong kong, those in taiwan. sort of engaging with each other in a way that i think audio really lends itself to the intimate speak where you do feel like during a room, you know, it is it, it is not private public very much though. and of course, people still act differently as it be, walked into somebody's living room and i think that's us. dillard hated a lot of the really intense conversations that you hear among chinese speakers. of course, in iran, in parts of the middle east as well. mark i had yeah, i mean i totally agree with the intimacy thing. i think there's something very unique and novel about the audio aspects of club house. i would agree. i think mcgowan melissa both expresses this general and use the as them that we've seen greet the advent of clubhouse in the region. and i don't think this is anything new . what we see every time there's a new technology that comes up,

whether it's twitter, facebook, a clubhouse, is this kind of quick uptake. there's a lot of buzz around and people want to be, you know, take and trying this new technology. there's a bit of fomo for those who don't take it up. and i think this can accelerate to that kind of use engagement and that immediacy with which people use it. but i think that's part of the problem and people need to be cautious. i think there's a honeymoon period with any new technology and this honeymoon period is that enthusiasm. and it's very easy for people to let that god down and say things that they wouldn't ordinarily say. and authoritarian regimes, which obviously dominant in, in the middle east and obviously in china, this can be problematic. and we've already seen examples that i will talk about later of how authoritarian regimes are trying to co opt. that space in which we see critical discussions and create space of surveillance as they have done with other social media platforms like switzer and facebook. and this is particularly true in saudi arabia. when you go up a wistful cycle in a rom,

our club house is being embraced in a, in a slightly different way because it always felt like 2 months point. once the authorities, once government officials realized what was going on in these rooms, then they were, i've stopped or infiltrated. but for ronnie, it seems like the conversations is still continuing and that they're being quite useful. natal that is true. we have to also remember, this is the interesting period and iranian politics there than going administration . we're about a month away from a presidential election, which will see a change of administration happens every 8 years of re to residential election. so it's a time that the state, the entire state, one kind of an excitement around this political and then more participation from the population. and that's one thing. clubhouse is helping both the government officials and the opposition in a way or other,

even if they're talking against participation in the election, even if they're talking about the limitations of the problems, the actions not being fair or free. they're still talking about the election of a lot of the political talk on their, on him clubhouses about the election, and that's creating an excitement that's one issue. and 2nd, as mark is saying, it's the honeymoon phase. i agree with that. it's been the case with most social networks that the state is still in the figuring out phase of trying to understand if this is good for them. if this is bad for them, weigh the pros and cons and also try to understand the ways that they can limited or control it or monitored or sense or at or eventually if they can't deal with it . or if they get too much out of han just completely ban it. so i feel like that they're ronnie, and state is still at that stage of trying to figure out. and there's also in fighting among the political factions. so we saw the foreign minister, we saw the i t minister,

the pharmacy spoke to some these are from the moderate factions of the iranian political system that are embracing more of this dialogue with the public, as opposed to the hardliners who have most of the control on broadcast media and all these other empires, where they can have the one sided monologue with the population. and this clubhouse in a way, is also breaking that monologue. melissa, this headline here, that you, you and the story that you file for foreign policy. china ends the cop how spring just a matter of time. i think you will tweak help in the spring even foster. it's because you want is going to want to hear what was a stories? what was the, can you, can you re tell one story that you heard? because you were so shocked that these conversations were happening and that will help us. i'm not. why chinese, this has, we are shutting this down. yeah, i mean you had conversations where ethnic con, chinese,

that's the majority in china, in china, we're talking to weaker is the ethnic turkic, muslim minority in china. that is, is experiencing a lot of suppression, right? there are detention camps you and has estimated that a 1000000 readers and other ethnic minorities have been put in these camps in china . and it's several legislative governments have called this and labeled genocide. so currently you are having people in china discussing genocide in china and some citizen saying, wow, i didn't realize this was happening. and that kind of intensity as like, whoa, this is like more than the 3rd rail, right? like this is just a kind of conversation. we wouldn't have in china, so it really was a matter of time. i think it's really important to, to point out a course that 1400000000 people in china. very few people were able to actually access the club house app. you're talking about only i phone users in february and

march. so let's put it all in context. but still, it was just an incredible moment where you had an engagement between groups that you just don't normally see in that way. mark, i want to pay something to you and this is, it is a, it's almost a very similar story. is what happened in turkey, the freedom of speech, and then suddenly turkeys officials, beginning to call her known to what was happening. come of the back of this comment mark and tell us what else is happening around the middle east with pop house that you seen festival in the case of turkey, social media platforms are under should be government surveillance. and people are routinely detained for their posts on facebook, twitter, instagram, etc. so in january, when students traverse the we're trying to expose the government's authoritarian interventions against university and mobilized grassroots resistance. corporate became a key tool for them. and for many weeks, it functioned over a relatively safe space where they could reach

a broader audience. but as soon as the government discarded of course, it also began to monitor and police those discussion rooms and flooded the apple, its own supporters to try to dominate the conversation. people still use clubhouse, but with other social media platforms. it's no longer really a face space for free speech. now, i would, i would completely agree with those sentiments. and i think it's very interesting actually seeing and comparing the different sponsors from various governments. i would say the turkish response is similar to what we've seen in the middle east in places like saudi arabia and the united arab emirates. i mean oman, for example, as a different response entirely. and that blocked past from being used. it was rumored that you a bumped from being used, but that wasn't never fully confirmed. but i think what's very interesting about this space is that in the gulf, in particular, we've come on the back of a long series of social media platforms being used in very high profile

surveillance cases. and i think despite this, there was this kind of opening that we saw, but we've seen some really bizarre things carrying on ca pass that again, show how different platforms used in different ways for surveillance. one of the things that i saw early on was a saudi us base. saudi activist set up a group that was talking about racism in saudi arabia, which is obviously a big problem. and then as soon as you set up this group of people who supported the government, anonymous accounts to support the government. they took the screen recordings of the club house. they highlighted who was in that room, and then they broadcast on twitter. and although, you know, allowed to record obviously on class with the app, there's no into platform agreement that stops people recording something. i'm a clubhouse and then putting on twitter. and i've seen that happen several times in similar rooms were controversial issues being discussed. and other things are bizarre. i remember i was participating in a panel that was discussing the human rights record of from been so man, the conference of saudi arabia. and what would happen is that you'd have these

planted people in the room who were supporting the government. and they'd eventually get on the speak a section to ask a question. and then in several instances, they started attacking individual members, the panel. you know, and also giving a kind of very pro government very, you know, having the line should be in a very kind of aggressive and accusatory tone. and i've seen this happen so soon this happened several times to i think one of my one final example, like i said, was my favorite, the. but that was very alarming. i went into one room where every speaker and it was about 40 or 50 speakers in that room. all had the same identical profile picture had been so month. so it's like a very much, a big brother is watching. you kind of live. i mean, i took a screenshot of my personal use and it's just bizarre seeing the same image of the countries will over and over again. so these messages which are then publicized, remind people that surveillance of the carrier. and you have to remember the trick with surveillance is surveillance, doesn't have to be continuous in its action. the whole point and effectiveness is

surveillance, is when there is a fear of surveillance, right? so if you can convince people on a number of occasions that there is a dangerous surveillance, that can be sufficient to convince them that there's always some opportunity and chance of surveillance. and i think that's really what's happening. we're seeing in the middle east. there's something interesting if i may add about the case of iran because clubhouse i feel like it's occupying, or it's carving a space between broadcast media which is television, radio or even more traditional media and social media. what happened on iran, social media, or persian social media, twitter, facebook, where especially twitter, where it was supposed to be hosting the national dialogue, that it's become very much weaponized by various various political groups, interest groups. you see massive, massive troll armies by supported by their on, in government, by the saudi government, israeli group. and also the u. s. data apartment funds of some of these groups.

and it really years the conversation away from organic dialogue among citizens, to the point that it's become very radicalized very toxic and ordinary people. when you talk about president twitter, it's just something that people don't want to get involved and they may go on to read. but everyone talks about how to talk, the club house has broken that sentiment to some extent. one is that it's hard to have set of armies on club house, or at least they haven't figured it out. you need a working phone. you need an actual wife. you need to pretend like every were a real person. it's hard to have one person sit at a computer and 100 twitter accounts like they do on twitter, on clubhouse. and it's also voice. so even in the real people who are at each other's throat on twitter, just because it's over a text and sometimes anonymous accounts, it seems like when they're talking to each other, when they hear the other person, when after use their own boys, there's just an element of more civility that is,

that is prevalent in the conversations, not that is changing. to some extent, i see people and salting each other, talking each other even becoming vulgar. but it's less prevalent that what we have seen on twitter, although the armies have had about a decade to mobilize on twitter. so we'll have to wait and see what happens. i guess. let me just bring a map, the bought pay, who makes a point that you are all talking to, which is you can't really have like your in your own country. if you're uncomfortable, i wouldn't like you to say these things out out his mind. so when attorneys you there use is reach at which is a major social media app and china, most users know that their text, their audio, their video will be accessible by $0.10. which as parent company and by the chinese government if necessary. now a clubhouse because it's an american company because it's audio only. and because

to access it, a user had to have an app store location outside of the mainland china. users may have thought that their behavior on the app was more private than their behavior on which at and our research really sought to emphasize that chinese users should expect that their behavior on clubhouse is accessible to the chinese government and take precautions accordingly. yeah, that's really interesting and it really kind of aligns with what i report on which is looking at china's impact beyond it. borders. i think we tend to think of that and very rudimentary terms. you know the whole way thing with 5 g, but you see the long arm of authoritarianism, sort of reach out and impact a u. s. at right, which is what clubhouse is and includes the behavior of people who are beyond the borders of china in terms of modifying their behavior. they could be chinese

citizens working abroad. but also, you know, the fact that china did eventually then even block that access to the app for those who are international, essentially made it so that the chinese diaspora, which was having these conversations suddenly couldn't. so it was heartbreaking when, when that did happen, i believe in march and i think it really does emphasize how. 7 authoritarianism can creep into democratic societies in the most unusual, unusual way. them in a ways you don't think about mac, i'm just wondering about the safety aspect of being on comp house as i have the apple my things off being you this to me and for our global community. i so makes this point, have a listen and then come with the back of what she say. cla, post the things. so some other social media for it's for dialogue. estimates you know, penetrates to folks who their stories and voices. unlike the case of trees,

for example, yet challenges are many, especially in rooms that control bank, public and the machines often exciting to such as 20 climate and to push forward discussions favorable to their regime. something like that that affect human rights activists in clubhouse and beyond i think this very much ties in with, with the, the previous comments about privacy. well, there is no guarantee that what happens on clubhouse will stay and be trans in the room. and i'm not, i'm not talking about whether or not for how long the company, $0.10 or not 10 cent clubhouse in this case, retain data for i'm talking about. for example, if you are an authoritarian government, it is trivial for you to, for example, have a group of people who might ordinarily be tasked with trolling all harassing people

who are spreading propaganda on line to search for rooms and just record the content of those rooms. on a database. yeah, it's trivial. so regardless of the terms and conditions, the stated and the official agreements and download something from the apps though, you have no guarantee what's going on on the other end of this conversation. so you have to assume, especially if you're a political decision or in a precarious position in a specific country, that there is a high likelihood that whatever you're things being recorded, that's, that's i think that's the bottom line. you can't fully present, protect yourself, your privacy if you're using clubhouse. i'm just looking here at a, at a post on trip is that the team? so in the past 24 hours, it's from make a mo, hand in a top house beat power screen. and his rainy's room has been going on for 24 hours . actually longer than that, cuz i popped into it just before the show. people from all of the world and a few on the ground, sometimes voice breaking office, the exhausted, disagreeing over language, but so far not interrupting each other. talking for 24 hours. i'm really

interested in your take a because this is where we always hop house to day. what is it vi, you know, god, what do you think? while the so far and mostly looking at the case of iran and the united states, persian and english are the 2 rooms that i drop. and i think the pros, the benefit of this, you know, adding to the discussion has been a lot. people have been able to talk about topics that are considered taboo or red line, or even everyday life and lifestyle. there are groups about parenting. there's groups about fashion, there's. i even saw an actual funeral held on club house. so people from various parts of the world dropped in there was koran recited, there was some speeches and memory real more memories of the person being told which wouldn't have been possible if,

if without this up to be made. so easy and convenient. so i think it's adding to that. it's also helping a small group of iranians. we still have to remember, this is an elite, a lot of them, probably based outside the country. and also i phone owning iranians in the country . and now some with android, just joining what it's created, a platform for more of a national dialogue on these issues. it's very political when it comes to writing in conversation and also it's a very much centers around the election. and then after that, the cool, big issue because of cobra, people are still on the choir and teen election campaigns are not really happening . there are no real rallies in person. so a lot of that is also transferred into the online space. and it seems like the club house is now become the platform for that. and i feel that you help break clubhouse china because sharing orders, those strawberry stories that people were and those moments that were people having

online. but now now the top house, china has gone, but what was its value? it, it was like drinking out of a fire hose in terms of emotions. and i think echo what the nigger and mark have had said about that. and i think people aren't. i mean, they do forget that it is not as private as it feels, but after you use it for a while, you do realize that yes, there is a potential that people are listening in. and i think that quite a number of chinese decided take the risk regardless of sharing their feelings. thank you so much, melissa. mark and nick, are the packing top out for us. present you very much. i'm sure you here on my laptop where you can find them. mark here on twitter. melissa, hey, on twitter. nick guy, hey on twitter. and if i sent you an invite, you have to ask me nicely off me on printer. you can also find them on comp house as well and have these conversations, but remember, it's not as point, but as you think,

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