best. business of the many governments and medical organizations are waging a secondary war against misinformation and a deliberate decision from ation. that some countries are using claims of this information as an excuse for suppressing legitimate reporting and to suppress the spread of accurate information domestically and abroad. using the pandemic to ramp up censorship and secrecy legislation that's having a chilling effect on journalists and the spread of information and accurate timely information is essential to saving lives. but come to be 19 special here in the daily news i want to get johnsonville and good to have you with us it is the job of journalists to uncover facts and share them with a pop like but what if those facts support the official line a democracy should be able to handle that now during the pandemic some governments

think otherwise and that's often puts journalists and public health at risk. behind the mask of coronavirus censorship spreads journalists around the world have come under attack for reporting on the pandemic it started in china where citizen journalists dared to deviate from the official narrative. images of overstretched hospitals in which the virus is right in front of me china's criminal prosecutors are behind me i'm not afraid of death do you think i'm afraid if you come in this party of china or polish gold i don't know. chang she should wear disappeared in february and was only seen again by friends in september fung been another reporter remains missing he had released secret videos of coronavirus victims. she. reporters without borders has documented coronavirus coverage restrictions in

nearly half of all u.n. member states those who are jailed are at risk of infection. al jazeera journalist mohammad more near died in july from coronavirus after being arrested in egypt as did reporters. jailed for documenting corruption in saudi arabia the deliberate targeting of the press has worried the united nations human rights commissioner across the world cup in 1000 is also being instrumental lies to limit people's rights to speak to express opinion and to participate in making decisions that affect their lives in the russian federation china course of only qatar where many other countries i'm not reports of threats and intimidation against journalist brokers and civic activist particularly at the local level with the apparent aim of this courage in criticism of the oil for this response is to call it 19. at a time when information can save lives press repression can fuel the pandemic.

i'm joined now by ali funk a senior research analyst for technology and democracy and freedom house good to have you with us your freedom on the edge report states that the pandemic is fuelling digital repression worldwide how does that work. hi thank you so much for having me so freedom has found that 2020 was the 10th consecutive year of decline in internet freedom and this is that a time when i've been dimmick has really accelerated our reliance on digital technologies so what we found is that governments around the world have imposed broader share chance to expression and access to information political leaders are using the pandemic to scapegoat ethnic and religious groups since around favorable news and arrest critics so you know in at least $45.00 of the countries that we study we found that activists journalists and members of the public were arrested or charged with criminal offenses for their speech relating to the 19 and then we

found the governments of at least $28.00 countries censored websites or social media posts to suppress unfavorable helston that mistakes and corruption allegations and then we also found that there's been increased surveillance around the world they've been using the pandemic as a cover to expand data collection i mean we also on the other side see a lot of protests small more protest against corona virus make their messages i mean how do you differentiate between authorities using coal with 9000 to curb freedom of speech and those genuinely trying to flatten the code of. it's a great question i mean during times of crisis certain restrictions to freedoms can be justified these restrictions just need to be grounded and laws they have to be the least intrusive as possible on include independent oversight but restrictions to press freedom and free expression really only undermine government's ability contain the virus as we've mentioned you know information can be the difference

between life and death restrictions to free speech limit people's ability to access accurate information and keep themselves safe and then in order for people to be willing to take these drastic measures such as closing their shop staying at home not going to school it's really important that they trust their elected leaders and government officials can only gain this trust by being transparent and keeping our free and open information environment right and of course what you mentioned very important accurate information of the internet social media suddenly is sadly a perfect breeding ground for fake news and conspiracy theories especially now during the pandemic we've seen that how can journalists help expose those lies without putting themselves at risk. our research has shown that there's been a concerted strategy by state officials and their supporters to promote these conspiracy theories pseudo science and that really aligns with their nationalistic or instant f.o.b. goals so what journalists can do it's more important ever that we expose the to

these distant formation campaigns including where they're coming from to do to stay safe really they can use encrypted communications platforms such as signal to stay safe from you know government censorship virtual private networks are going to be really important to be able to continue their reporting and it's really through this reporting now more than ever journalists and their work are more important it's a life and death issue. you mentioned in one of your previous answers and many studies suddenly agree with you namely that 19 is pushing digital technologies ai the internet what needs to be done to use this development to promote freedom of speech and democracy. so your great we're really sleepwalking into the world in which our most sensitive personal and biometric data our face our fingerprints are going to be at the mercy of private companies and state agencies so that's why freedom house

is actually calling for a freeze on the use of biometric surveillance such spatial recognize facial recognition until we know how these new technologies really us chaps human rights and democracy any new surveillance programs are encoding 1000 also in each strip safeguards we need to prove 1st that there you have fact even limited disease spread and then it public expert public health experts agree that they are we need to ensure that data is deleted after the pandemic there's independent oversight and also that any program is transparent and that's really the only way and it's going to take collective global action to ensure that the pandemic doesn't create a long term deterioration and internet freedom of the human rights of privacy and great expression and the funk there from freedom house joining us in new york thank you so much. thanks for having me. and sometimes even the experts don't agree head

that's making it harder for us laymen to grasp complex issues luckily we have our very own scientific correspondent to turn to time to ask derek. what are the risks of the focused protection approach on it out in the great barrington declaration. since the very earliest days of this pandemic there have been those who believe that our responses to cope at 19 so the lock downs and all the other measures that they have actually caused more damage than the disease itself and they believe that we need to look for other options even without access to a vaccine since really wide scale and for. action would be at least theoretically a pathway to what we want which is herd immunity the concepts laid out in the highly controversial declaration that you mention was proposed several weeks ago by

3 scientists from the u.s. and britain and it's been signed by others it says that we need to only focus on protecting groups that it classifies as vulnerable especially the elderly and it urges a return to normal life immediately for everyone else that means basically not trying to limit infections among those that it says are at minimal risk of death so what would be the dangers of going down that path there are some pretty major ones and the big flaw in the declarations reasoning a lot of experts say is the fundamental assumption that people who appear to gain at least some immunity after surviving that disease will keep that immunity for extended periods we've already seen some cases of people who have gotten coated 19

a 2nd time though those so far they've thankfully been few and far between them still the coming months could see many many more another big question how exactly would you go about protecting vulnerable populations effectively in societies where the virus is basically raging unchecked is that even possible and in aspects that the declaration doesn't address at all is the potential long term damage they had 19 could do to many younger people even those who survive then of course at least some people who aren't classified as vulnerable will turn out to be very vulnerable took over 1000 after all and they'll die from it. eventually even millions of people worldwide and people who wouldn't have died if social distancing measures remained in force until effective vaccines are available.

well derek williams their answer in one of your questions and he'll be back again tomorrow so keep posting your questions on our you tube channel and if you'd like to keep up with the latest developments on the. do subscribe to our newsletter just log on to the dot com slash corona dash this letter. and i was 19 special for today for me and the team in berlin thanks for giving us company to stay safe and healthy.

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and in the much and i. did up. the be. this is here with news live from berlin tough new rules as the 2nd covert week washes over europe germany plans new measures to slow the search officials warn dealy cases could near 20000 a week said we'll see which restrictions are on the horizon as chancellor angela merkel prepares for crisis talks with state leaders also coming up.

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