he centimeters are the effect of a storm lp, which has been blanketing athens and stumble in recent days, making its way south here. now, this is a rare experience and so this isn't a city that is particularly well equipped to dealing with such heavy snowfall. our people came out as it came down overnight and enjoyed the flurries and the real snow storm in jerusalem streets in the night time. but there were also municipal workers out trying to clear the main thoroughfares. many of the smaller roads, though, are still pretty choked up. i've seen people trying to dig their cars out of parking spaces and as well as that, the main motorway between jerusalem and television was for a time closed. and every way you go, you see evidence of the other thing has happened, which is school closures. so there are children on the streets in parks, building snow men throwing snowballs at the stuff in the air. now the precipitation right now is turning a bit wet. those are, this could be a fleeting, if memory will experience a rare,

proper snow day in the holy city. ah, hilliard is there with me, so he'll run the reminder of all top news stories. ukraine's foreign minister has reaffirmed cancer commitment to finding a diplomatic way out of the escalating security crisis with russia that despite the kremlin amassing more troops on that shad border every day, ukraine is absolutely committed to this to until preventing the conflict, we are not planning any offensive actions, we're committed to diplomatic trek, and we are ready to engage with russia at different levels in order to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict. however, if russia decides to fight, we'll find that this is our country, and we will defend the un and nato say that offering russia a diplomatic path out of the ukraine crisis and the written response to moscow

security demand both say they're willing to discuss arms control but rules, barring ukraine from joining the nato alliance. president biden is to get his 1st chance to nominate a new supreme court judge media report, se liberal justice steven briar is sent to retire at the end of the colts. current term. another energy firm has announced it's a drawing from me and mom because of human rights concerns. the straight and company woodside fall as energy, john, chevron, and title and pulling out from the army biggest source of foreign income. poland to started building a 180 kilometer long wall on its border with galleries in response to a stand off with the country the you accuses minutes giving coverage and thousands of refugees to legally cross into poland as a way to get into the u. south korea says north korea, as low as 2 suspected ballistic missiles that were fired from near the coastal city of ham, hold into the sea of japan. if confirmed the 6 launches from the all this. yeah, those were headlines, more news, the 3 and a half and the next on out there. it's inside story to stay with us.

ah. who should police social media, twitter reports, it's received a record number of government request to remove content. is this a way to maintain a safe and open internet for all? or is it censorship? this isn't i sort of ah, look, it's a program i'm around con. most social media firms have made the same promise to provide a free and open platform for uses to express themselves,

but they're coming under increasing pressure to remove content deemed offensive or illegal. twitter says it's received a record number of government request to remove tweets in the 1st 6 months of last year. just 5 countries made 95 percent of the demands japan, russia, turkey, india, and south korea. in 54 percent of cases, twitter withheld content or are you says to remove post. but the firm says the request revealed a deeply worrying trend against freedom of expression. the social media giant is had a rocky relationship with some governments to, to impose restrictions and warning labels ahead of the u. s. election in 2020 uses . received a prompt pointing them to credible information before they could retweet content labeled as misleading following the capitol hill. riots, lashire, twitter permanently band format u. s. president donald trump, after he expressed support for the rises and in february 2021,

india demanded the removal of content saying it was promoting violence. the height of the form is protest against agricultural reform laws. to the also deleted hundreds of tweets, but refuse to deactivate the accounts of media outlets. the indian government responded by threatening twitter employees with up to 7 years in jail. last june, nigeria suspended the social media firm after i deleted a tweet by president palmer, do bihari in which he promised to punish local groups. he blamed violence to said that violated its policy on abusive behavior. and 2 weeks ago twitter agreed to register nigeria and pay local taxes to indices month ban. ah, let's bring in our guests in london quinn, mchugh, executive director, article 19 human rights organization defending freedom of expression and information in maastricht. the glenda, a busy assistant professor of european lo, maastricht university and

a fellow at yale law school and also in london. melody pa, 3 advocacy direct access. now a nonprofit organization defending the digital rights of uses around the world. welcome all to the program. let's begin in london with quinn. mchugh, twitter says this is a deeply worrying trend against freedom of expression. but the government's saying that just clamping down on a legal activity his right i thank you very much for having me today. i think the truth lies more on the side of twitter, on this one we've seen around the world, a number of governments who are passing incredibly day laws that are designed. so use the purpose of allowing them to strength, online content. one about the way that they can use your content in often space or in the regular media. so we've seen an alarming trend of legislation being passed that allows countries to go back to twitter and say, look, you're in violation of law. you have to take this content down,

which is completely legal and appropriate under international theme of expression standards of the par 3 also in london is alarming trend. the governments during the indian government threatened to employees with 7 years in jail. we've seen trotter being forced to pay taxes in nigeria and register locally there. is that an attack on the medium generally, or just on twitter? i think there's an attack on the medium. i mean, you talked about an ange area, twitter was banned ring 9 a month in the country. and when we talk about threats, physical threats, actually against tutor employees in india, who faced similar threats who will employees in russia just a couple of months ago. so we definitely are seeing governments attempt at taking control over the information that is being circulating on the internet and taking lots of different measures whether they're legislations or other attempts at taking

control august of the glands. obasi of the legal side of this seems to be down to either the social media joins policing themselves and having a policy in place allows them to be the all because of what is free to reach. what is an or government's individually cracking down? is that a tenable situation? yeah, thank you for your question. and while i agree with the previous speakers, and indeed we're seeing both big lots by government whose interest is more to or rather constrained speech more so than potentially legitimate legal interest of the lawfulness. or let's say content against minors, or cetera other important interests or the fact that if you look at the data, the twitter has published, specific individual specific journalists are sometimes targeted or their accounts are requested to be shut down at the same time. the reason why this is such a challenging issue of content, moderation, else?

overall, a question of how do we regulate these kinds of platforms and what we've seen someone with expertise, both in us and european law, and seeing this from both sides of the pond. the challenge that we continuously see is also the disagreement around what is the primary value that we want to safeguard . is it really a speech or limiting speech? or we said guarding privacy. for example, a concern has been consistent in the case of the union. and oftentimes, obviously a lot of the governments cannot come to agreement with themselves. so, for example, in the us to, if we're taking privacy as a matter, there's so many discrepancies between, let's say, what happens in california with what happens in other states. and even so at the global level, and as we've often say, and when we talk about from a legal side of things that we can really speak of one intern, i, will we speak of many internet platforms because there's so many, it's a patchwork and the bits and pieces of regulation that is making it difficult was increasingly also hard as some of the traditional challenges that we're seeing.

whether that's from the side of lobbying in terms of the kind of regulation that should be in place. whether that comes down from lack of consistency and when it's in administrations and priorities and understanding the kind of technology that's a state. so in this sense, we're seeing your opinion taking, trying to take some bolder stats. whether that was in the case of content, moderation or privacy protect sense, but indeed, as a coming to an overall one global model, i would say that's extremely unlikely. taken into account that so many of the big countries actually have more of an interest to leave things vague and under their discretion, more so than to come to a more global agreement in terms of what kind of rules can we agree across the board? what would be generally con, to regulation, protecting legitimate interests, and what is actually purely an attack on freedom of speech or media, or other protections that are legitimate in a democratic society. quinn q in order to protect individual's rights in order to

protect the freedom of speech. one of the things that has been discussed for a very long time is almost a united nations charter of digital human rights. something that actually codifies and suggests that this is, was a defendable, and this is what is protectable and given criminal elements, that is something that governments can then deal with but all guessed in maastricht . as is said, that's going to be incredibly difficult to do. you think it's going to be difficult to do, and is it a good idea frankly? very easy to see all the reasons that are listed. it will be really difficult to do. i think one of the things we also shouldn't lose cita is that under the universal declaration of human rights and the international coverage and civil political rights as well as some of these more soft law decorations that have come from human rights council on the internet. there is a fairly robust structure out there that protects these rights, and these structures do not necessarily discriminate between an offline right and

on one of the things we've consistently call for it as an organization. is that the recognition of the race that are available to people in an online standing with their comes freedom of the media, freedom of speech, right, to privacy, he respected in the online context. that means there is some translation that needs to happen in terms of moving right from one place to the other. but we want a whole sill trying to create a new right framework. what actually the rates frameworks that already exists would provide robust protection to the sites. would you agree middle of the pottery, but there are already. busy systems in place that doesn't need to be codified centrally. yes, i would say that there are lots of protections and lots of stamps. safeguards, establishing international law that do guarantee those rights where the challenge comes is in the implementation of the, these fundamental rights that exist. but also in holding companies accountable,

because as much as governments have an obligation to support into enforce fundamental rights companies have somehow escaped and half of them. a c escapes scrutiny and accountability when it comes to, to implementing some of the regulations or even just and, and enforcing some of our human rights in the digital world. and it's been really difficult to find a comprehensive regulation worldwide, specifically applying to social media companies for example. but we know that a lot more mechanisms are possible for them to be more transparent for them to really be accountable to be more responsive. so there are definitely mechanisms that can be put in place. and besides, what would be like a global regulatory framework while, while some of these global rigor regulatory framers are necessary, we've seen the success in europe, for example, of the protection g, p, r. and,

and we can think of other similar initiatives that has been an, an advance for human rights and for the protection of our human rights online of the glenda. often we've looked at social media companies as conglomerates as businesses, as corporations, which means they've escaped the kind of scrutiny that site public broadcasters come under. like, for example, you have off come in the u. k, u ab regulatory laws in the u. s. and in the u. k, the govern, what can go, an air will, can be printed, et cetera, because we view them as being corporations. now, is it, is there a need to change the definition of what a social media company is? yes, so that's a contrast. the question actually very well with what i was going to reply and since what already was fact, let's say for the g p r. so just like to take a moment to go back to that point because while, for example, that particular law was welcome in the sense of its emission to regulate and to put

the interest in the consent of individuals and privacy of the forefront itself and mentally does not challenge the business model under which the corporations work. and actually i have many scholars and myself have argued that is at the heart of a problem. and this links with what you're asking, which is, is it just a question of design or is lying itself away? has it's, are it's tools outdated to actually deal with the kind of problems that the current technology and the crown corporations are presenting. and that's precisely what we're seeing also in the us and some to some extent in, in europe as well. when we have discussions around using anti trust laws, competition rules to try to break down sort of, if we think of data as the new oil. so to speak, or can we apply the older mechanisms, those traditional legal framework that we have in order to manage differently. and this is actually where in a way the regulators fail because they're consistently sort of falling back to potentially either not in normative or not bold enough reforms in order to truly

create a different playing field. because i fully agree with what, what was said in a sense, it's not about a questions of content. moderation were specific, right? do we have enough international instrument to say rather what the main problem is, the lack of understanding that we have right now globally, for such a mixture, between public and private power in the sense that we're lacking the kind of knowledge of this new accountability instrument and new accountability thinking in order to match the new realities in which we're face and with, and then fall in falling back down to questions. the person must be regulation or issues or unconstitutional rights and privacy, etc. those very traditional spain was which are useful enough course to be respected. however, i do thing right now. we need new efforts. and in this regard, i think a lot of colleagues that i'm seeing across the board are gathering data. there is a different kind of momentum which is much more promising that we're seeing in the

sense of understanding the nature of the beast better in order to see actually how do we really deal with regulation. because there's the lack of full regulation is not good by regulation, is equally not ok even if there's lack of compliance because we simply that even further courage the kind of and so that has been a little bit the challenge finding that nuance, finding the right tone with which to regulate this can and considering that it's not a national issue, considering that we're truly talking about. as you said, global corporations which are based in one country operate in another, have their data sets stored in another place. they are full for the internet and an entire areas of countries letting in mar, like you mentioned before, for a lot of people, facebook is anonymous equivalent to the internet in full. so there's a lot of also discrepancies across the globe in the kind of playing field. as i mentioned, that we're seeing with, between regulators, private actors. and what does that mean for citizens and for the legitimate

interest and values that we want to protect? quin mchugh, is there a, a collusion between the governments and social media companies that actually stops any kind of real regulation from coming into play soft roll. if they are corporations, then they get tax benefits. they get freedom to do whatever they want to do to make a profit, and they don't have to have the same laws that say public work houses do or the so a media companies do. so is there an advantage for this vagueness, for the social media companies on, for the government's i think one of the things that we all need to remember he pointed out is that at the end of the day, these are profit making entities who are private corporations are publicly traded corporations who are driven by the bottom line and as much as they attempt to protect freedom of expression or talk about freedom of expression. at the end of the day, they need to do what they need to do for their own perspective,

to protect their company, to protect their own staff, and to protect the process that they were just mentioned about how the number of countries, the distinction between the internet and facebook doesn't exist, the only internet is the facebook internet, the people are given access to. that raises question. as you pointed out earlier, do they need to be treated the same way that other corporations do? because corporations have their own interests and some of the things that we've seen a particular um, you mentioned at the beginning of this segment how india has threatened to twitter staff with the restaurant buyers with certain engine regulations or laws. we're recently seeing that governments have absolutely no option to, to basically hold staff hostage to require companies to hold offices to hold staff in certain locations. we see that with russia, with their landing law on that came into effect this year. we've seen it in turkey with the legislation,

a pass to try to require companies to how to have offices there. and those are ways of trying to exert pressure on companies. so it's, it's a little bit hard to say that they're in collusion with governments. they're in a space where they're trying to preserve their own best interests and we should never lose sight of that. but as much as we rely on them sometimes to help protect race, they also have their own, their own interests or threats. and that will not necessarily always be in line with the protection of human rights of the pl 3. let's just leave the, the corporation and the idea of social media joins just for a 2nd. this also comes down to individuals as well, at via personal case. whenever i flown to the u. s. certainly in the last couple of years. ah, why should, before the pandemic, the 1st year, i'm losing track of time. i've often been asked to give my social media passwords. i as an individual going through secondary immigration. there's been no compunction

to actually give those over, but the tone is, if you don't, is going to be very difficult you to enter. so governments are using this on an individual level. is that how alarming is that for you? it is very concerning. and if we put this in the context of increased surveillance online and also the targeting the illegal targeting of journalists, human rights, defenders and human rights lawyers across the world. i mean, in the past few months, there has been a number of revelations about such a surveillance practice. so it is alarming indeed because we are seeing that governments themselves have their own agenda and that their own agenda sometimes are not legitimate. as much as yes, this information is an issue, it has to be tackled because it is a threat to our democracy is likewise incitement to violence online sexists abuse, racist abuse. and so, and there are issues that need to be addressed. actually the need to be addressed

offline as well as online. we are also seeing a trend towards control towards surveillance, towards an erosion of our civic space and towards the erosion of our rights and of our democratic values. and some, some of the, some of that, that threat has come directly from some governments and sometimes even from some governments that are not so called authoritarian or that can push forward some, a well intentioned measure. so this is something that we cannot deny as much as we are facing lots of different challenges and, and we need to address and i think in this community experts are still finding like discussing to find solutions, appropriate solutions to these issues. but we also must recognize that attacks against the media attacks against the breast surveillance online targeting of human rights defenders and an attempt to censor the internet has, has become

a biggest issue in the past few years of glenda. but this is not just about the social media. jones is not just a belt, a governance. yes. because austin, google, facebook and instagram. all of their ceo's will turn around and say, actually we are trying to protect people's freedom of speech is leave it to us. we are best placed to be able to do this, but is not a bit like putting the fox in charge. the hen house. yes. so actually are good exactly what you're just saying in a sense, in particular for facebook, because the long for the longest time it was self regulation is the best kind of regulation. and obviously, even if it was a facebook effort, for example, with a so called oversight board, which tries to be diverse and sort of have these very, in a way esteemed individuals who are members of that board. and the thing is that i just want to correct something in the sense that they are some conflicting interest

that they have themselves. so when these corporations in the end, they depend on the trust of their users, their depend on their users liking their products and, and sort of being able to and that sense of people continuously feel attacked and save. or if it ends up being something that they want to use, there's obviously there this incentive on their side and not an interest to actually have. so there is an interest on that in their side to sort of say, hey, we rather have this bland on the regulator. the fact that we have to shut down your account rather than say, oh, you have to hate us for doing that. or this is something that we've decided in a way, it also provides a cover for them, so to speak, that you can sort of that and blame it or so to speak, to say that it's a question of compliance rather than saying it's a question of them deciding something, because in the end it gives them the buffer that they can host a variety of individuals. a, some more freedom of speech oriented, others maybe more privacy oriented,

human rights activists or whatnot. the challenge overall here in terms of the regulation, who regulates warren and how and how that should be done is that there is a question genuinely here of, as i said, also before, there is the state of just the kind of power than they have in, in the end of the day, a corporation can no longer to simply hide behind this corporate veil and say, we're only accountable to our shareholders when they're actually holding so much public power. and so much public influence globally, whether it's and elections, whether it's speech, whether it's progress, right? and so in that sense, it's not sufficient to sort of say bad, we're able to initially to, to limit our own power. but i have to say that there has been a shift in that direction from a lot of companies and what's going on. so i really, i'm really sorry we are running out of time, but there is a question i want to ask all 3 of you just very quickly i will begin with quin mchugh. i've had

a social media account for over i think 1213 years now. why's legislation taken so long or even the thought on the talk of legislation? that interesting question. i think the issue early on the global approach to these companies that they had, it was led by the way they were treat in the united states, which is basically hands off. we was this new technology, this new way of communicating to flesh. we want to treat these companies as just merely intermediaries for the free flow of information and therefore we wants to protect them as neutral intermediaries, right from adverse actions because of the content we should be on them, which is inherently speech restrict game. we're right. finally, to punish the intermediary or the content that's posted. so we already know, do want to come to the other guests as well. villains are just very quickly, does

a very quickly. what do you mean? my quick, my quick tweet, if i may say so to your question, would need that. it's actually not true that we're just talking about it now, but i think we're just talking with the level of alarm and urgency and widespread globally more so because i think many of us have actually expressed concerns. but of course, i agree with previous people that we've also expressed an excitement, but i think it's a fantastic, opportune moment to have more public awareness and to hopefully have better tools going forward. both from the legislators and public pressure to end up having better rules than what we've got now. or did you have a 140 characters you want to share with us? of course, and as you mentioned earlier in the conversation, did the cookies been demick? has effect as pushed even more people online at a time when we were also seeing some people deprived from internet connections because of internet shut downs or other issues. and so we, it's true that it is not an issue, but there is definitely a lot more attention to the issue. and i think that

a lot of legislators are also under pressure because we, we deserve more to be honest like we, we deserve more from our legislators. and we also deserve work from the companies and, and to platform that we use to exercise our rates. i want to thank all our guests quin mchugh, the glenda obasi and melody, pottery, and i want to thank you to for watching. you can see the program again any time by visiting our website out there a dot com for further discussion. go to a facebook page at facebook dot com, forward slash ha inside story, and you can also join the conversation on twitter. handle is at a j inside story for me, i'm wrong con, and the whole team, her life enough. ah ah.

february on a disease. shina host the winter olympics, but will diplomatic boycott and the corona vibrate, overshadow the event rigorous debate them unflinching questions. up front cuts through the headlights to challenge conventional wisdom, al jazeera keeps you up to date as mason tackle the over cranberry, amid continued vaccine inequality. one, 0, one east investigates how breakfast the pandemic and changing tastes are causing the great british curry crisis. the african union hope it's 35th ordinary session. the 1st with israel as an observer state with several nations campaigning against israel status and pressing issues across the continent. there is much disgust. february on a jazeera americans are increasingly saying authoritarianism might not be so bad.

there were several steps along the way where the chain of command, it seemed like try to cover what's your take on why they've gotten so long. that to me is political malpractice, the bottom line on us politics and policies and the impact on the world on al jazeera ah. ready this is al jazeera. i'm jerry and applegate, i will check on your world headlines. ukraine says it's committed to finding a diplomatic solution to the crisis with russia, but will fight back if attacked. the u. s. a. nato have refused moscow's demand to bar ukraine from the security alliance. rosalyn jordan reports from washington. on wednesday night, the u. s. ambassador to russia john solomon hand delivered the american response to

russia's demands were increased security guarantees. amid it stand off with the west over ukraine.