this is deja vu news live from berlin europe moves to disrupt this information campaigns targeting the upcoming european elections there has been a massive push to get out the vote but efforts to stop the spread of foreign and e.u. propaganda may prove too little too late. also on the show the president declares a national emergency banning business with foreign telecoms that pose a risk to national security the directive does not name any specific company but is believed to be targeting chinese tech giant wall way.

i'm brian thomas thanks so much for joining us we start here in europe where a massive vote gets underway next week with 28 countries and 400000000 voters people across the you will be deciding who represent them for the next 5 years of the european parliament here's how it works the number of seats each country gets is roughly proportional to its population germany of course is the most populous and has about 82000000 people it will be getting $96.00 emmy pieces called while the smallest country in the e.u. guess which country that is a small to well be getting 6 m.p.'s for it's just less than half a 1000000 people now once elected the members of parliament join trans national groups with similar political views at the moment there. 7 such groups representing

the center right socialist greens euro skeptics and others the m e p's will be voting on new laws and they will approve importantly the e.u. budget they also helped choose the president a very powerful position of the european commission the current president is this man called younger the favors to replace him are the german conservative m.e.p. mancha veba and the dutch politician timmermans of the european socialists now ahead of the vote the e.u. has made a major push to boost turnout already stung by the brics referendum bloc also faces growing euro skepticism and there are concerns about online foreign disinformation campaigns trying to confuse voters last year the e.u. commission launched a task force to step up its response to that but critics say its efforts may be too little too late whoever you are wherever you are you can get involved the european union institutions have poured enormous resources in to get out the vote campaign

but have they invested enough in stay out of the vote efforts in ways to prevent malicious meddling it's not like there was no warning 5 years ago the kremlin's internet research agency in st petersburg was revealed estimated to spend more than a $1000000.00 a month pumping out anti western spin 3 years ago u.s. elections were the target of that russian troll farm yet the european commission waited until just 6 months before the european parliament elections to launch its action plan against this information we should have been doing much more kalinski spent 3 years in the european commission's east dot com taskforce a communications unit created in 2015 to counter russian efforts to smear the e.u. now with an independent think tank kalinski says brussels is way behind expecting that we will solve the problem in the last 2 months before the elections or even in the. last month of the elections when the russians have been working on it for the

past 5 years i think it's very naive to facebook google and twitter have a role in the commission's plan pressed to better verify users' identities and remove fake accounts faster and to make clear who's paying for advertising and content facebook has just opened its own war room in dublin to target in authentic activity ahead of elections let's go in or from the e.u. is external action service says there has been progress it's not as much as we would have liked to but we have seen in terms of transparency rules are things are really moving and i think the platforms understood that they also need to take a much closer look at what is happening there but not everyone is counting on bureaucrats and big tech to lead the battle out in the quiet flemish countryside is what you might call and i am tightrope farm with a staff of one. martin to a welcome sight martin shankly debunks false online stories on his own website lead

stories dot com and also as part of fact check e u a collaboration of european media outlets working to keep the record straight ahead of the elections anything that looks suspicious take a closer look at the. smells funny. especially the kind of story that makes people angry or upset or. firms people in their bias like i knew. this or a new throw up after shank brand speak content with a big red banner on his website he also formally notifies facebook which immediately reduces the items visibility in its news feeds shank is convinced even small doses of dissent from asian can be dangerous for democracy if you can swing a few 100 votes in the certain district or in a certain state. my balance and you cannot make this coalition or that coalition because of one seat that's moved so it will undoubtedly have an

influence with so much at stake across $28.00 countries experts say we're likely to see intense just information campaigns right up until the final votes are cast. let's bring in the correspondent now put that report together for us terry scholtz good morning terry terry can you tell us what's what's the kremlin's and game in this what does it want to achieve with its this information campaigns what the kremlin wants is for voters to be confused it doesn't necessarily need to convince them of anything in particular simply to make them doubt their leaders doubt their media doubt each other even to not know exactly what their future might hold and in that situation the kremlin thinks perhaps they'll be more likely to install authoritarian leaders who are say they'll keep them safe and maybe more amenable to the kind of tactics that moscow likes and remember it at e.u.

level it only takes one vote in many cases to block things like sanctions or energy projects so as martin shank explained i mean sometimes all you need is a few 100 votes wave this way or that way to make a really big difference but to be fair it's not only moscow doing this i'm big big hacking campaigns have been traced back to iran to china to north korea and of course extremists in in europe and the united states are all using exactly the same playbook it's just that we happen to know perhaps the most about the russian efforts because they were so successful in the 2016 u.s. election and in the exit campaign as well ok terry your report points to the powerful internet players facebook and google being enlisted in the effort to prevent a foreign political meddling but there are plenty of reasons to ask of silicon valley corporations of the right partners or europe to help protect the integrity of its elections. sure there's a lot of discomfort about who would decide what stays up and what's gets taken down what's a lie and what's the truth and nobody really wants google or facebook to be making

that kind of decision about political content but you cannot do this without them and that has certainly been proven by the fact that there are millions and millions of fake accounts floating out there who are reaching just untold numbers of of voters and so what has been done is that the big platforms the social media giants have signed a code of conduct with the european commission that says they're going to be more proactive about taking down fake content about making sure they know who paid for ads who paid for articles and importantly there they need to change the way they put fake stories in their algorithm so if you've got a fact checker saying that they've proven a story is false then facebook in working with some of these consortiums will then drop that story down so it makes it more difficult for people to see the fake content and make it go viral and hopefully that's having an impact churchills for us from brussels thanks so much terry for your report for coming in this morning and checking out all this for us. president trump has signed an executive order

declaring a national emergency giving us administration extensive powers to ban the activities of foreign telecoms white houses the measure is not directed at any specific country or company but the move is widely seen as targeting the chinese telecom giant or way. the u.s. government has long viewed the chinese company as an espionage threat and has sought to keep while way from playing a major role on the u.s. telecommunications infrastructure market. this new move is likely to prevent it from supplying the equipment being used to set up cutting edge 5 g. networks donald trump's decision has come at a key moment in negotiations with the chinese government about future trade relations between the countries where having a little squabble with china because they've been treated very unfairly for many many decades for actually a long time and yet have been handled a long time ago it was then why handle it now. the executive order makes it easier

for the u.s. government to directly regulate foreign telecoms which could theoretically exploit back doors and systems to pose a threat to communications and national security in addition the u.s. has placed way and 70 associated companies on a blacklist firms on it have to be granted licenses from the u.s. commerce department to use components made by u.s. firms in their technology the restrictions will come into force in the next few days however while we executives are taking the pressure from washington him stride . so. you put up early on that our business in the united states is not that big due to our global operations any change in one country has little impact on our global business me me me or your face of the possible challenges of cyber security in the future. way is a positive contribution not

a destructive force someone to kill for the one we are looking forward to the future willing to continue to invest more from innovation to cooperation as usual jackal but i want to. but for now it seems while way won't be cooperating with many of its american partners. aaron tone from the business desk has been following this for us good morning aaron what does this mean does this mean that all u.s. communications technology will now be coming solely from domestic providers well we can't exactly make that claim you have to remember only 2 of the top $55.00 g. producers are actually based in the united states and while hallway may no longer be in the game in terms of the continental united states it'll really be kind of one of those things the market decides many of those other producers and also local american producers produce the components in the switches at a much higher price and that's always been hallways big argument that they produce you know the fastest and cheapest versions of this 5 g.

technology so to really be kind of one of those situations where the market will have to decide but for their part 4 way maintains will actually do a lot of damage inside the united states not necessarily in the big cities but rather out in the countryside a lot of the smaller internet service providers have to go with much lower cost and devices in switches simply because they don't have as many clients and now those internet producer internet service providers rather are cut off from the cheapest solutions out there ok and they'll have to scramble for domestically made alternative weiwei 1st part was to become a global player a major player in telecoms how much of a setback is this executive order against them well they maintain right now that it's not that big of a deal for them specifically because they do most of their business outside of the united states where we could actually see it having a lot of impact as in terms of their supply chain because you have to remember their supply chain is global they buy components all over the world and now any partners of theirs in the united states who could be part of that supply chain will

have to get government approval to actually work with huawei so in that aspect it could really impact their supply chain over when it comes to you know just how much money they're actually making the united states it's a smaller part of their overall global picture ok that's an important point too aaron thanks so much for coming in for us and told the business this thank you. let's preview on some of the other stories making the news this hour rescuers have polled 11 people alive from a collapsed building in china's financial hubs shanghai at least another 9 construction workers are thought to be still trapped in the rubble the building was being renovated when it collapsed. a leader of the basque separatist militant group has been arrested in france after 17 years on the run your suit and. use of involvement in a number of eta killings the groups responsible for more than 800 deaths during his campaign for basque independence disbanded in 2018. if you're

a minder of our top story for you this hour campaigning has entered its final stretch for parliamentary elections set up again next week there is growing concern that the block is unprepared for foreign disinformation campaigns aimed at the scourge boat. and president trump has issued an executive order that bans american companies from doing business with foreign telecoms deemed to pose a security risk it's all to be aimed at the chinese tech giant while waiting. for don't forget you can always get the song thing go download our app to do that from google play were from the apple store that gives you access to all the latest news from around the world as well as push notifications for breaking news you can also use the app to send us photos of the us. coming up next we have the story of a young woman fighting for justice and freedom for young girls in the fall that's the subject of our doc film did have you news will be back at the top of the hour

with amrita i'm brian thomas from the entire news team actually being with us. shifting powers the old order is history the world is reorganizing itself and the media's role is keep the topic in focus of the global media forum 2019 today one out of 2 people is online who are we following whom do we trust to beijing and shape the future at the touch of the live global media for 2019.