in the u. s. a trial a started for for men charged with conspiring to kidnap the governor of michigan because of her corona virus laws. if convicted, there could be jail for life. lawyers for the men say the alleged plot was never serious. prosecutors say they plan to break into government. gretchen whitman, vacation home, take her away at gunpoint and force her to face a treason trial. ah, i have a quick check of the headlines here and i'll just hear a russian forces are continuing. they're pushed to in circle the ukrainian capital cave intelligence report, se rushes military has edge to within 25 kilometers of the city center. and a large scale attack could happen soon. the u. s. is announced, it will rush another $200000000.00 worth of weaponry to ukraine and bills on the significant shipments it sent in the run up to the war. rushes military says the

situation in some ukrainian cities is catastrophic. but during as late as briefing, it said ukrainian fighters at play. when you 3rd, unless you go out so no green you, the humanitarian situation in ukraine, unfortunately continues to rapidly watson. and in some cities has reached catastrophic proportions. armed ukrainian forces mines in the residential areas you're destroying bridge is an infrastructure a little as a result of those criminal actions against their own people. this is the action of the ukrainian authorities. those people are forced to survive without eating food, water, or medication remodeled. russia continues to show the port, city of mario pole, the mer. bear says 1500 people have been killed. so far. ukraine says russia wants to capture the city at all costs. mario pole is crucially important for russia because he sees no control over the city. they will establish and direct land, quarter or 2 to crimea from russia. and they will also cut us off from

access to as of see, this is why we still fiercely and heroically defended. and this is why russia so ruthlessly trying to destroy the sea and capture it. at any cost, the kremlin appointed a new man cranium, city of municipal security, video released by ukraine's reported to show russian soldiers the ducting, the cities elected mer. ivan federal italians took to the streets of florence on saturday to call for an end to the war. thousands gathered holding banners, calling for peace ukraine's president. let me, as the lensky addressed them via video link, saying the war isn't just against ukraine, but the values of all europeans. so those were the headline. the news continues here now to 0 after confess story section. thanks so much and bye for now. we understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the world. so no

matter what you see, i'll just bring you the news and current affairs that matter to you. in europe, some facebook uses cannot call for violence against russian soldiers. they're even allowed to call for vladimir putin is death. that's up to the company, tweaked it's hate speech policy and response to the war in ukraine. but what are the consequences? this is inside story. ah, ah, hello, welcome to the program. i'm adrian finnegan. matter, the company that owns facebook and instagram could soon be banned in russia as an extremist organization. the kremlin announced that it's blocking instagram

a move that will affect some 80000000 users. now this is all in response to meta announcing a change in its hate speech policy, allowing violent posts in some instances. that's now a partial exemption. when the targets a russian soldiers in ukraine matters decision is part of a wave of corporate action against the russian invasion of ukraine. a spokesman for the company says that it's platforms will continue to ban violent posts against russian civilians. will his part of the statement from matters global affairs president nick clag. he says our policies of focused on protecting people's rights to speech as an expression of self defense and reaction to a military invasion of their country. to be clear, we're only going to apply this policy in ukraine itself. we have no quarrel with the russian people. ah, so much to discuss, let's bring in our guests for the day from london, which went by massa alley madonna,

whose an internet researcher of the oxford internet institute from preston, lancashire, amy bins, is senior electra and digital journalism at the university of central lancashire. and in london, tim squirrel had of communications and editorial the institute for strategic dialogue. welcome to you all muscle. let's start with you. are matters changes to its hate speech policy. here, a perfectly reasonable reaction to russia's actions in ukraine or something chilling, be dangerous. i mean, i would answer that question by looking at what kind of precedent matter has and applying its policies consistently. i mean, we have other countries where we have had russian forces in bait. we have the same thing occurring in syria. however, this exception has not been made for syrians. i mean, there's a host of countries that can make these kinds of calls and faced. these exceptions are armenia. ukraine, poland, lithuania, there's

a host of these countries. none of them include syria. so, and this is part and parcel of a lot of policies, we see inconsistencies in the application of these. another, i mean, frightening thing to consider is the fact that why do we want to be calling for making threats against russian soldiers? there is, and this is something the former united nation special repertoire said, which is you would want russian soldiers to have a culture where they can just a fact and withdraw from this war not to be further demonized. so it's very concerning what kind of implications is, can have and what kind of evidence for the benefits this kind of policy can have. a me mentor is effect free decreeing that some people are just so terrible, but it's okay for us to say violent and threatening things to that. it has the power to decide who we can use such language against, isn't it?

yeah, and i think that's really interesting point that for very, very many years on facebook and the other big social media companies have avoided regulation on the grounds that they're just, platforms are not heavily says they're just platforms where people go and say wherever they lie and facebook or instagram, or twitter, and not responsible what people say. but what we're seeing here is facebook is making an editorial judgment. they're behaving like a publisher. just the same way is a nice paper. essays will publish this read this letter. we won't publish that readers letter and i think in the long term, what we can see is more evidence that these are not maybe just platforms at all. they are very large, powerful media businesses and they are publishers making editorial judgments term a to you, you nodding the matter matter effectively doing here, but it's,

it's perfectly reasonable. it's ok to single out people from one country on one country alone and gives them the green light for what amounts to hate speech. what are the implications on flat? the difficulty here is that this is being reported a result of a single league of a single combat and facebook has historically been extremely consistent. ready invoicing it policies across different regions and they've recently become a little bit better in the western world, an english speaking world in both new policies. but if you look, for example, my organizations research in the mean. ready region, you can see that when it comes to non english speaking spaces in 5 into violence is one of the things that happens quite a lot. but there are a multitude of sins which is unchecked in the spaces. so it's not necessarily the case that this is the only exception. and also what we know is that the more

complicated policy, and the more comp hours they create more temporary measures they create, the harder it's going to be to consistently enforce that in a way that's actually faster all this uses. so much of picking up on, on what tim was saying that what's to stop people in other countries who are also victims of war calling for them to be allowed to use hate speech against those they perceive as their aggressors. i mean, that's a really good question. and i mean, i have worked on a particular case that is similar in iran, in july 2021. we saw protest breakout in various cities, especially in the previous province of who the st on. and we had hundreds of cases from instagram. the most popularly used platform in iran, of take down a protest footage of people saying death to harmony, who is the supreme leader in iran. and this is very much a ritualized call. it's not a credible threat. of course,

against harmony's life by it's more a chance of dissidents amongst the people. and so facebook was removing these posts . and so after going to them with receipts with evidence of the hundreds of these cases, they came out and they made an exception. they said for a 2 week period, we will allow iranian users to post deaths to harmony. and i mean, as advocates, we weren't totally on board with this change because death harmony is kind of an evergreen chant amongst iranians. but it was interesting that this was the reaction and what i do want to know is what were the, you know, like whether advocates bringing evidence that this was a needed policy where they're actually ukrainians getting their content removed because they were making these calls. it's interesting to know and of course,

like much of the policies, there isn't very much transparency for that. your own case. i know about this because i worked on it myself, but it would be interesting to know and to question why it is that facebook or meta has been so proactive on the crane case, but they had not been proactive in other crises. we, we were seeing the crises in may. 2021 in palm stein when the gaza strip was getting bombarded and there was no cracked reaction. it was weeks of activist digital rights activist palestinian active. it's coming with evidence of hundreds of take downs of hundreds of different ways that users are being stimulated and documenting evidence of human rights abuses. and it was after about a 2 week period that they came out and said, we are going to have a crisis center for israel and palestine for, for the situation. but with ukraine. it was almost in media. and there should be

a lot of questions about how mehta is prioritizing what it considers, crises, and who's, you know, human rights and who's freedom of expression that they seem to value more. maybe i want to explore for more the implications for, for free speech here. and control over who can say what and when this power that the social media giants yield and what are the implications for free speech should social media space as just be a free for all? should you be able to say what you want on restricted, unregulated, or should it be highly policed with penalties for those who abuse or the social media spaces in and use hate speech on which could be one or the other hasn't heard. yeah, it has really and these company all really started are very naive play in california in the home and free speech with the idea that people are going to be

allowed to say whatever they want. and over time, what they found is that that leads to all kinds of problems. it needs to bullying. it leads to all kinds of terrible things like young people, seeing images of anorexia, all kinds of things. and so it's become a more regulated space. personally, i am is favor of it being a more regulated space. i think the idea that free speech is always a good thing is a peculiarly american idea. and i think that inevitably it leads to 2 problems. as i say, of bullying of increased hatred. i think in this particular case, it doesn't actually matter that much. we talk about inciting hatred while these people already hate each other. they're already with each other. they're already shooting each other. and i think allowing people to express that is actually going

to change very much at but generally speaking, i'm in favor collection. okay. but maybe that but who, who is going to regular, we're talking about giant american corporations. congress isn't good, isn't gonna legislator against them again, it comes down to them being allowed to self regulate and as we're seeing, that just doesn't work. yeah, i mean, i think ye say congress isn't willing to regulate. but actually, what we're seeing, even in the merrick her and here in britain and in australia, governments are starting to look at regulation, applying the law to the social media companies because they simply have too much power into, in a very, very small number of hands. and so i think what with what we in seen for a number of years nap strange for years is patients running out of government bringing in regulations against tim and

a guy. i can tell you nodding that perhaps you want to come in on that but, but let me put something to you here. donald trump remains banned from twitter and facebook for inciting violence out of the capital riots in washington, d. c. and january 2021. and here we have facebook and instagram, so it's quite, it's fine to incite violence against vladimir putin, russian soldiers. i'm an outer we explain the double standards there. i think the crucial thing here isn't necessarily just the old standard, but again, the lack of scrutiny and lack of regulation that facebook and other social media companies are subject to here. so we know that there are enormous problems in these platforms, misinformation weaponized hatreds, disinformation and extremism calls for insight into violence. these are running around across the spaces and that's just from the rest of the limited picture. the information that we do have. the fact is that matter and other social media platforms, just all subject to the same degree of transparency regulations that they should be . and so we don't get to know the extent of the problems and therefore we don't get

to know why they're making policies in one space and not another. so we don't know what this particular. ready is a response to and really what matters is the, in the regulations are for coming in the u. k. in the year in australia, we need to have the client's full facebook instagram for all of the other companies to be transparent with the data allow research as access to it. so you can see what's actually going on, how they're affecting society. they have massive power and they have basically no responsibility to go with. most of these double standards, what are we to make of social media companies? something moves to take down russian state content and channels. actors who, who long been allowed to use their platforms to spread propaganda and dis, information without sanction. and now suddenly found, just gone. right? i mean, and again, like husband said, a lot of what's missing is,

what is the, what is the transparency behind the decision? what are the actual costs and benefits? because we're seeing a lot of discourse, a lot of policy, a lot of private companies, not just facebook or meta. and, you know, trying to put sanctions, you know, either lawful sanctions or just some self initiated ones on different russian entities. and the question really has to be, what is the benefit in banning these organizations are we, you know, losing insight into what these you know, institutions are thinking about, or are we really putting a stop to rampant misinformation? and i mean, we've seen companies stop providing internet services inside of russia. we've seen, you know, a lot of things that can potentially have a lot of repercussions for ordinary russians, who in

a lot of cases might not be supporting the war or, or putin's regime. and so when you bought these, you know, these institutions from having platforms on facebook, what are the repercussions, you know, we saw immediately when sanctions were put on these media companies? you know, we saw like b, b, c, have sanctions. we saw a lot of western media that could be valuable, be blocked for russian people. and so i think it's very important to see what the actual costs are for ordinary civilians when you are doing these kinds of when you're putting these policies in place. and right now, the biggest cost we're seeing is the fact that as of monday and russians are not going to be able to access instagram and other western platforms, have been similarly banned in reaction to these policies. so is it worth it or are these policies actually worth the cost that the russian people are going to have to pay a me?

to what extent is the is the kremlin, which over the last decade has become a master of disinformation, an online subterfuge? to what extent it it is it now finding itself with the table's tongue, but it, but it seriously risks losing the information war over it's war in ukraine. i think the criminal is tracking down extremely hard on their own state media, which is where most or very russians get their information from. so i think in bass and they're winning by essentially disconnecting from the rest the world. and i think facebook has given them an excuse to accelerate by saying to the russian, p, o r, these people have these people one trans, i hatred against you. you can't trust them way get rid of them. so i think, yeah, you were in a sense were playing it into the trembling hands there. and i think is quite

cynical what they've done in that, or what facebook has done in that facebook knows that if they keep taking down people's content in ukraine, those people and people embarrassing people in the rest. poland will start moving to other platforms. and if they move to other platforms, they probably won't come back. so i think in some ways this is quite a cynical news, a profit motivated to mentor, to agree with that. it may well be the case that facebook is a cynical act. but i think the more cynical act is critically the crime. this is probably a policy that they want to pursue anyway. they've been trying to essentially militate against facebook from the early days of complex with facebook by fact checking. so that state media organizations. and so this is given them absolutely

an excuse to do it probably earlier than they would have done. but they were already looking for a reason to shop facebook and, and, and similar outlets where you can gain access to information which doesn't calling from for kremlin sources in russia. so they are effectively trying to win the information was on the ground with their own people by suffering independent media by restricting access to social media platforms where you might be exposed to some other ideas that are kind of narratives and allowing to continue operating places like telegram r t a and other russian stay owned media operations, have a massive footprint and with the able to spread this information without much fear of regulation, i want to get your thoughts on, on that to with this band on will mainstream social media then twitter, instagram, of the introduction also of stiff penalties for anyone declared to be spreading. false news is the kremlin basically trying to outlaw information and

will succeed. i mean, it's part and parcel of a lot of their efforts for a sovereign internet. i mean, we've been seeing leaks of potential regulations that are going to be nationalizing their internet in reaction to a lot of this and reaction to potential a fears of sanctions, stop it, stopping actual internet international internet connections to russia as well. so, and these, like was mentioned, are, have been policies the russia has had long standing, has been discussing for a while. i mean, the role of telegram here is very interesting. it's a very controversial platform, both in terms of you know, what exactly the security guarantees are for its users. but in terms of, you know, it's content moderation policies and, and by that i mean, it's lack of content, moderation policies that allows for

a lot of actors that have been the platform by the mainstream platforms to come and find their voice in their audience there. so i think as we go forward, it's going to be interesting to see how telegrams roll in this conflict is going to shape up. i mean, we've already seen the founder come out and say that he guarantees security and a place 1st, ukrainian users, despite the fact that there has been rumors that you know, telegram might have interest to cooperate with the, with kremlin. and so, and as of monday, it will be only for social media platform that won't be banned in russia. seeing that most facebook platforms, mehta and twitter will be banned. ok, maybe it's just for ask you as a digital journalism lecturer about how you think that this war has been covered online. it is being played out in real time online. you can follow it 24 hours

a day, 7 days a week, and things like the open source intelligence gatherers who had heard debunking russian claims. for instance, you can watch all of that going on in real time. what do you make of? it's fascinating to watch. i mean, all you said distressing to see her was what we're looking at here. but the way the information is flowing is absolutely fascinating in the way we're seeing. also, the clock being rolled back so we can actually see the previous digital footprint of some of these people. so thinking here about are the pregnant lady who is photographed in the maternity hospital. and immediately russia is saying, she's a crisis actor. she's an instagram star who runs beauty business. now the interesting

thing was that was actually true. her she had previously been honest grandma's name and but she wasn't a crisis actor. she was an ukranian woman. he blogged about being pregnant and who now within that maternity hospital. and when i, when that bomb hit, so immediately then people will debunking and saying, well, yes she is the this beauty blogger. so i think what we're seeing in is this is happening, the place is already very switched on to me. and so we're seeing things responding very quickly and maybe i'm sorry to cut you off. i want to get one last word from, from tim, here on, on that note to him about the switched on population. i just want to get your thoughts on how you cranes president is doing with his use of social media. to what extent is he leaving president brewton looking old and out of touch with the fact that he's valadez left his everywhere on social media right now?

i think we have to bear in mind that landscape may be everywhere on social media in west, but it isn't the fight that is just being one or 4 in the west. it's also one the crucially in. ready for domestically in russia, because this nation can only continue so long as treating remains popular. and so long as you know the body baxter and start turning back in such a high level that russia has to think again about what it's doing. so it may be that so wednesday is very popular and the social media game is pretty strong. but in addition to that, we're seeing. ready that peyton is continuing to create stranglehold information in russia. i also think that the rational propaganda game or criminal probably got in the game here is again, also quite strong. so you can see, for example, in response to this latest thing for mess up. russia rated. currently is pushing the hash tag russian, my master, which is a cynical repurposing all of a social justice logan from, from the western social justice movements to try to make the claim. russians and

russians because of being victimized both in ukraine and elsewhere. and that was part of the narrative, all of the, the, just the patient who gave for the war in the 1st place. so it may be the case. ukraine is, is putting a pretty strong fight in the propaganda war. but i wouldn't count the kremlin out. yes. ok that i'm afraid we're going to have to leave that fascinating discussion. really appreciate you taking the time to be with us today. muscle, donnie, a. bins. and tim squirrel. thanks very much. indeed. as always, thank you for watching. don't forget, you can see the program again at any time. just by going to our website, you'll find that al jazeera dot com. and for further discussion, join us on our facebook page will at facebook dot com forward slash ha inside story . and you can join the conversation on twitter or handle at ha, inside story for me, adrian finnegan, for the whole team here. and so how, thanks for watching, i'll see you again. ah. from

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last generation on al jazeera, a diverse range of stories from across the globe. from the perspective of on networks, journalists on al jazeera. ah, hello, i'm darren jordan in dell with a quick reminder. the top stories here on the al jazeera officials in the besieged ukrainian city of mario poll, says 12 days of russian bombardment of killed 1500 people. the cities been cut off from the rest of the world with no one allowed in or out as fighting rages on the hot reports. dozens of buses stand ready to enter. mary, a pull filled with food and water. they're trying to reach one of the areas hardest hit by russian shelling there are only protection sign.