it's so heavy. 65 years after the event, a monarch talking about her coronation — the crown — the real one. nicholas witchell, bbc news. and you can see ‘the coronation‘ on sunday evening, at 8 o'clock on bbc one. now it's time for newsnight with kirsty wark. the president of the united states uses the crudest of language to dismiss immigrants from haiti, el salvador and parts of africa before calling for more immigration from norway instead. today he went off for his annual medical exam as his alleged words quickly wound up in the wall street journal. we'll ask the african union's ambassador to washington if the president is just a straightforward racist. also tonight, guess who's had an epiphany? people will see more posts from people they are connected to and less content from publishers. facebook was built to connect you to the stories and people that matter most so we're going to keep

listening to you and working hard to make sure that's what you see everyday. is mark zuckerberg signalling that his all—powerful creation was actually doing more harm than good? we ask the content creators, the advertisers and a leading psychologist whether this will make facebook a happier, even more prosperous place. and this... now is the time to negotiate in order to obtain the best conditions possible. you cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth! we engaged some very special newsnight reviewers of the latest portrayal of churchill and his crucial decision in 1940. my parents were quite distressed because they had gone through the first world war. but i was quite excited, i thought it was going to be interesting. donald trump, no stranger to outbursts and inappropriate

and insulting language, has taken it to another level, and has been labelled a racist today by african politicians and diplomats after he was reported to have described some immigrants coming from africa and haiti as coming from "shithole countries" during a meeting at the oval office at which us senators were present. trump denies using such derogatory language but the african union said it was alarmed by trump's "very racist comments". so just how damaging is this to a president who has shown himself unconcerned about making enemies? a few minutes ago i spoke to our north america editor, jon sopel. to what extent is this the furore of a different order to previous problems with trump's language and his insults? well, i think, kirsty, in a way it is part of a piece, isn't it? donald trump has got himself in trouble with, kind of, comments that have a bearing on race before.

whether it be the fact that barack obama was not an american, allegedly, something he withdrew in the later stages of the campaign. his comments on charlottesville. the way he seemed to equate antiracism protesters with the, kind of, far, far right, ku klux klan, people carrying swastikas at a demonstration in cha rlottesville. and now this. but i suspect what's different about this is that this has an international resonance. it is as though, if you accept the accounts of the meeting, and they haven't been strenuously denied by the white house, that donald trump believes they are the nato countries, the asean countries, and the shithole countries. but that has huge applications, of course, for, as you say, international relations. the african union have come out tonight, various ambassadors from other countries mentioned, and also, of course, the haitian ambassador. to what extent does this do damage to relations, or is trump aside from the ordinary american politics as far as this case? well, i think it does damage in the sense of, you know, american leadership in the world.

but donald trump hasn't particularly sought to have american leadership in the world, except when it suits him. except when he needs the support of others to rally around him. and i think that you saw it on the, kind of, vote where the condemnation of the announcement of moving the us embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem. america found itself very, very isolated, and angry at that isolation. and that is the price you pay with, kind of, making these unguarded remarks. and it does seem that it has damaged america. america's standing in the world. what about america's standing at home? among his supporters i suspect if you ask people about what he said, you'd say was it presidential? a pollster would find that they would say no. were people surprised? people would say no. does it change your

view of donald trump? also, probably no because this is what a lot of people voted for, a president who can say what they're thinking, but dare not say. john, thanks very much indeed. we hope to speak to the ambassador from the african union very shortly. it's hard to estimate the impact facebook has had on politics and our lives. what finally did for facebook‘s rampant domination, some might say enslavementof the media? was it all the fake stuff, the political interference in the american election? or an increasing distaste about the mining and manipulation of the tiniest details of our online lives? now zuckerburg wants to take it back to a simple social network and slough off all the news feeds, the political propaganda and the viral diarrhoea, and make it good for our wellbeing. facebook a simpler, gentler world? here's our technology editor, david grossman. in the history of the world, as any successful company ever said, we want you to use our product less?

do other things with your time? because, well, believe it or not, that's what facebook are saying. we also expect overall time spent on facebook to go down, but our goal is that the time people do spend on facebook will be better. this is all about what facebook shows us in our news feed. from now on the company says it's going to downgrade professionally creative content from businesses, brands, and media organisations, and upgrade personally created content from people we know, from real human beings in our network. in a post on facebook last night, ceo of mark zuckerberg said, it's all about making sure that time on facebook is an emotionally uplifting experience. we are in a really interesting space in the tech community right now, which is to say, how do we harness this addictive nature, the technologies that we've built, but to contribute to something that's going to be a net positive

for an individual or for a society. we don't exactly know how to measure that yet. this is all a new and emerging space. but what today's announcement from facebook symbolises, to me, is that the senior management team is getting behind this and is trying to actually get ahead of a wave, a current of people, thinking more carefully about how they are spending their time online. it didn't take us long to find former facebook users who've left the platform. for me, personally, the biggest thing was how angry it made me. it's all a bit much. it's... once you have, i suppose, the ability to broadcast every single detail of your life to everybody you know, you do. if anybody is thinking of getting rid of facebook, i can assure you it's the best decision i ever made. it improves your mental health. it improves your social life. it improves your productivity. but there's also a strong

business case from facebook, showing us more of the personal stuff like this... and less of the corporate stuff like this... because facebook‘s value depends on what it knows about us. selling that information to advertisers. it's going to learn a lot less about us if we are just passively scrolling through professionally creative content. it's going to know a lot more about us if we're creating and sharing content of our own. but this could potentially have a huge impact on publishers of content, like media organisations. late last year facebook trialled a similar change to their ranking algorithm in six countries, including guatemala. when the facebook experiment began,

we saw a huge drop of traffic from 30 to 60% drop. we saw a huge drop since yesterday when they announced that they will prioritise content made by family and friends and reemphasise the content made by publishers. these will send a blow throughout the market. it will affect, tremendously, particularly young, innovative, independent news outlets. in essence, facebook is prioritising the future health of its brand and platform, and the future health of the companies and organisations that have spent the past five years building their brands on facebook. it's a big change for the company, and a big change, potentially, for how 2 billion people react with the online world. joining me now is peter heneghan, head of communications at ladbible group. i'm also with catherine becker, chief executive of the advertising agency vccp media. and daria kuss, a psychologist specialising in internet usage at nottingham trent university. good evening. first of all, who has got most to lose out of this? i would say the audience. that is the big winner in this case. but we see that as a good thing because ultimately, the audience

is what makes facebook and as a publisher, we have a huge audience so we have 62 million followers across social on different channels. and they see us as like being a friend, and as a result we will do well out of this. they will find you but you won't be quite so prominent? publishers will not be so prominent but there will still be a lot of space for publishers and publishers that do social in the right way and we are very good example of how to do social in a good way. and a variety of campaigns we can talk about. as far as advertising is concerned, you heard the contributor in guatemala talking about how that traffic was gone and that was problematic. there will be winners and losers and we have seen these algorithm changes

in the past and it is just about adapting and being fleet of foot and making sure we adapt to the new social engaging environment. you want a bloody good spin on this but the fact is advertising has had a very good time on facebook because you have a much bigger and quicker audience than you have a television. that is going to be separated? it is not going to be alongside the family and friends? there will still be advertising and the important thing is to have advertising that is socially engaging and that people adapt to and reactive. do you think that by doing this, zuckerberg has recognised that some of the content has a pernicious effect? yes and it is a short—term pain for the long—term gain and it is the interests of the advertisers that this is an engaged platform, it is about adapting to that and having that, companies like us, being fleet of foot and making sure we make changes. you have looked at the impact of sustained online usage and i wonder, do you think mark zuckerberg seriously looked at the

impact on mental health that facebook was having? that was one of the key drivers. when we considered the research at nottingham trent university into social media use and the kind of mental health benefits or potential problems that excessive use can cause, we would as soon the kinds of changes being proposed appear to potentially lead to really beneficial results for the user. on one hand, mark zuckerberg is trying to propose using facebook in a different way, to have a news feed that allows people to have more content from family and friends which potentially might indeed impact on mental health positively. my research has shown that when we are using facebook to connect with people around us, with our family and friends, this may indeed impact

on how your feeling about ourselves and improve our mood mental health and well—being and in addition, what i need to add is if we are looking into excessive use, which has been in the media a lot and is something we have researched for a number of years here at nottingham trent, we know that if people are using facebook and other social networking sites excessively, this might lead to a detrimental impact, such as feelings of depression, anxiety, stress and addiction but we want to do is try to counter this and potentially the new movements with facebook may lead to providing a way into how to improve the situation. and ensure users are happier in engaging with facebook. i wonder if that idea, interacting as opposed to passive viewing, is something that you take on board when thinking about the content you make for your website? do you recognise the problems that we're talking about? absolutely, and the example i can give is we asked our audience what was important to them and they told

us that the biggest issue for them was mental health. we launched a campaign which allowed us to talk in a really relatable way to the millennial audience and that was helpful because we explained that one in four people will at some point suffer from a mental health problem, not necessarily due to facebook but generally in life. for the first time, people came back to us and said, you are allowed us to sit with our friends in the pub and talk about mental health and facebook enabled us to do that. although there is negativity within social media, there is also positivity and we have experienced that. we still have a situation

where people they know their friends and seeing how much better they are doing, there will still be that element of facebook? but equally you have that outside of facebook, people will always look at friends, they have a better car while they seem to be getting married earlier and so forth. they'll always look at that in a way and maybe feel uneasy about themselves. ultimately, i don't believe that is the responsibility of facebook. this idea that david grossman was talking about is no use to facebook if people are scrolling and not waiting. presumably, that is what is happening in advertising so you will hope that people stick longer on a page? and the more engaged they are, we know the more effective advertising can be because they are participating with that brand and advertising works harder at that. that is what we have been advising clients to do. mark zuckerberg is not just in this as an altruist, he wants to make money. while? you have millennials, and many of them are on instagram and

other sites and how do you get them back? there are two factors, the audience of 2 billion, but is a finite audience and he has saturated that the other major is engagement and the length of time they are on facebook and that is what he is encouraging. encouraging a human being to be on facebook longer? what is positive about this press release is it is talking about making people more engaged and happy. we want a more positive outcome and that is better. mark zuckerberg was influenced by the impact on children. what's good about facebook if it is interactive and has children on them for even longer than they are at the moment, how is that good for mental health? when we are looking at children, their brains are still developing, they have a considerable way to go until their brain has reached full maturity, we need to be careful in terms of technology use.

american paediatricians are now really speaking of limiting the use of technology, including facebook, social media, etc, for children. especially at the years of two, three, four. we need to be careful. facebook is only allowed to be used by teenagers from the age of 13. this is for particular reasons. we need to be able to curb technology used to such an extent that the developing brain went been negatively affected. it's not really a problem. as long as we as parents and teachers are making children aware that there may be potential dangers associated with overuse and that we are very much aware of the benefits of social networking and social media use at the same time. it's always very important to be able to see two side of the coin. otherwise we would have a limited and one—sided discussion. briefly, peter, we talk

about mark zuckerberg as if he has had a great epiphany, but the truth of the matter is had there not been all of the problems with the fake news on the interference with the american elections, do you think this would have happened? i think he has looked at this. he realises the audience is the key. he's making the decisions that what is best for the audience is ultimately better for facebook. thank you all very much indeed. everybody‘s talking about the oscar chances of ‘darkest hour‘, the story of how winston churchill shrugged off the doubters and appeasers to lead britain against the nazis. the film, released today, has already earned a golden globe for the veteran british actor gary oldman as the wartime pm. the critics have been generous with their praise, but how well does the film stand up for those who were actually around when the film was set, in 1940? newsnight took a charabanc of chelsea pensioners — men in their eighties and nineties who served in the second world war — to see the film.

these distinguished old soldiers shared their memories with our still—surprisingly callow and jejune stephen smith. we are looking at the collapse of western europe in the next few days. how long have they got if we don't rescue them? maybe two days, we would need a miracle to get our men passed. gary oldman and his extraordinary prosthetics have been acclaimed for this story of churchill's struggle against the nazis and his own party. we must renegotiate peace talks. when will the lesson be learned, you cannot reason with a tiger! but we wondered how it would go down with britons who actually lived through the film's darkest hour, may 19 a0. through the film's darkest hour, may 1940. i'm 91. ijoined the scots guards in 1944. hello, i'm alan, i served

in burma and india. my name isjames little, i'm 87, and i served in the corps of royal engineers. my name's fred ruck. i served with the royal intellectual and mechanical engineers during the second world war. having got rid of hitler, i came out of the army in 1947. good afternoon, gentlemen, you must be the chelsea pensioners. very nice to see you. fancy a trip to the pictures? that would be very interesting. take us with you. we put our distinguished old soldiers on short rations of rosie lee and plain biscuits and settled in for the feature. where you are doing

your victory sign. in the poorer quarters that gesture means something else. what does it mean? i wouldn't like to say. i must catch it. up your bum, sir. up your bum? laughter. the way you are doing it, yes, sir. in my memory it was always referred to a cantankerous so and so. that's when we wanted somebody like that, at the time. what did you think of gary oldman in the part? very good. did he convince you? yes, very good. the other thing that was good was the relationship

between king george vi and churchill. the way that was portrayed. i believe we are to speak regularly. once a week, i'm afraid. how are you for mondays? i shall endeavour to be here on mondays. four o'clock. i nap at four. is that permissible? no, but necessary. he was the right man, at the right time, in the right place, and the public knew that, from what i recall. but i think, you know, the battles in parliament were once that he had to take on and thank god he won them, otherwise we wouldn't be here talking about it now. did you feel fear at the time ofjoining up? no. you are smiling. youngsters don't feel fear, it's all excitement. i remember when it was announced we were at war with germany.

how my parents were quite distressed because they had gone through the first world war, but i was excited, i thought it would be interesting. watch that film did for me, it conjured up memories of me as a young lad. a lot of very young fellows, with no experience, not knowing what would happen to them, went off. and a lot of them didn't survive. and you think about how old these chaps were, 17,18,19 years old. incredible. two trump stories make it to the front pages. the daily mail says he isn't coming to britain next month, partly because he doesn't like the architecture of the new us embassy. he is going to miss out on the royal wedding.

we were due to be joined from nashville by dr arikana chihombori-ouao, the african union's ambassador to the united states unfortunately she has been snowed in. today, trump flew to the walter reed national miilitary medical centre in maryland for his first medical since taking office, from which he'll receive doctors‘ notes indicating whether he is "fit to serve", which trump is under no obligation to publish. but this is a physical, whereas the speculation surrounding his mental health is swirling constantly, especially after the publication of michael wolff's book. president trump, of course, has self diagnosed — calling himself "mentally stable and, like, really smart." but such is one ivy league psychiatrist‘s concern about trump's mental state, which she describes as "dangerous", that bandy lee held a private meeting with members of congress to convince them that he is "unfit to serve" and has been calling for a mental health evaluation for more than a year. i spoke to her earlier. i've never met him and i'm not interested in making any comments that relate to things i cannot assess. so basically the goldwater rule

was implemented after about 10% of the psychiatrists who were surveyed returned with an answer saying that mr goldwater was unfit. that is not an assessment we can make from afar. and all that i am speaking to are the worrying signs of possible incapacity and therefore calling for an evaluation. if you haven't met him, if you haven't spoken to him, if you haven't been in the same room as him, how can you assert that he is dangerous? the information that is important for dangerousness is mostly not obtained in an in—person interview. in fact, a personal interview is not likely to reveal very important information. what you look at are patterns of behaviour, responses to situations, how the individual is evolving over time

and others‘ reports. people who work close to him. as well as written statements and verbal statements over time. so it's actually a vast amount of data that we already have on mr trump, far more than we generally do with most of our patients, in fact. still, that doesn't allow us to make a diagnosis but there is certainly ample objective data to be able to say that he is at high risk of danger. so tell me, in your evaluations and in your observations of data and indeed your observations of the president, what do you think are the key things, the key signs which lead you to believe that this man is dangerous and capable of acting dangerously? first of all, past violence is the best predictor

for future violence. he has shown verbal aggressiveness, a history of boasting about sexual assaults, a history of inciting violence at his rallies. a history of endorsing violence in his public speeches. and a continual taunting of a hostile nation which include impulsivity, recklessness, paranoid reactions, showing a loose grip on reality, having no empathy, rage reactions and a constant need to burnish his sense of power. there has been reaction from african nations, also highlighted, el salvador, and the un to remarks made also haiti, el salvador, and the un to remarks made by donald trump in the oval office

in front of senators and a bipartisan meeting where he apparently talked about african countries and haiti being shithole countries. we are joined from nashville by dr arikana chihombori-ouao, the african union's ambassador to the united states. i wonder what the african union's response has been to the office of the president. i know you said he has been racist. but what is the next step to deal with this? as the african union we were quite appalled. infuriated, outraged by the comments. for a country like the united states, which is a valued partner for the africans, this was quite a shock. president trump appeared to say today that fewer immigrants from africa, more immigrants from norway. do you think president trump's statements have been racist? his words will speak

for themselves and for himself. what i can say unequivocally is that our contributions to the united states, as africans who came electively, and as africans who came in shackles, and for the administration to disregard the contributions of the africans, through the continental africans, as well as the african—americans, i think that is just really u nfortu nate. will the african union be seeking an apology? donald trump has denied making derogatory remarks, but the white house has not been unequivocal in its denial, and i wonder if you will be seeking clarification and also if it is indeed the case that he used that language you will be seeking an apology? absolutely.

we will be looking to having a conversation with the state department. and requesting for clarification on that matter. but also it's important that there is a better understanding of the africans by the administration. that's my role, to make sure that our relationship with the united states is a power. and it is my responsibility to clarify any mistakes. i definitely will be reaching out to the state department for a conversation. it's interesting because you have said and are saying that there is a vast misunderstanding of africa within trump's administration. is that because there has been a change of administration? or do you think it is an ongoing misunderstanding? i think it is an ongoing misunderstanding of africa in general.