society. sometimes quite literally. wants other true colors of universities in the u.s. . twitter publishes confidential information of how much this channel spends on ads as proof of alleged russian meddling and the u.s. presidential election. comes as wiki leaks reveals twitter's rival apparently did interfere in the vote pretty e-mails from a top facebook official appearing to pledge help to clinton's campaign. spain's catalonia is poised to vote on independence from madrid but the authorities increasing pressure by moving in thousands of police to the region un human rights experts are voicing their concerns. and there are fears of

a terrorist group is exploiting the fate of myanmar's persecuted were hinge of minority to save raise money for its activities. this is r.t. international coming to you live from moscow where it's just turned six pm. thank you for joining us this hour twitter has unveiled a report on how it battled against alleged russian interference in the two thousand and sixteen u.s. election taking aim at r.t. in the process according to the statement the social network giant revealed to the u.s. senate confidential information on artie's ad outlay twitter claims a little vaguely that over a thousand tweets quote definitely or potentially targeted the u.s. market artie's editor in chief margarita simonyan however noted all media outlets promote themselves. twitter has disclosed in congress a monstrous information we spend money on our own ad campaigns as all media

organizations in the world do now we have to go even further and honestly confess we also spend money on ads in airports taxes billboards the internet on t.v. and radio commercials were even on c.n.n. . artie's daniel hawkins joins me live in the studio with more on the story so dan it feels like every day there's a new story popping about about russia's alleged interference in the u.s. election so what is this new report saying from twitter just when you think there couldn't be possibly any more chapters in the saga new one pops up this time it's about social media if they can't find evidence through officials then get some social media platforms involved in this particular report by twitter they've released their report to congress which is of course investigating those alleged russian links to the hacking of the election in two of the sixteen. report really discusses a lot of detail troll accounts bought stuff that twitter calls malicious automate

accounts where they've managed to find a few hundred of these accounts out of the wall hundreds of millions that must exist in the twitter sphere. in the biological spectacle it would given that this story has a focus on russia then we can all safely assume that those accounts those parts have been officially leaked to russia while you're absolute think so of course given the title of the report the russian interference into any sixteen u.s. election misinformation so you could be forgiven for thinking about but actually twitter themselves are saying they were unable to verify any specific russian connections we can hear it from the horse's mouth right now we have not found accounts associated with this activity to have obvious russian origin but some of the accounts appear to have been automated. so of course our channel is never left untouched in these sort of reports what does our channel have to do with it this time but we do get a special mention among all the bot some trolls and malicious spam so we are given or replace as we heard there the chief editor in chief they describe how much

exactly what he spends on advertising and activity as we've said commonly done by main main channels now and social media marketing tactic but no specific allegation of any wrongdoing is actually mentioned to get started so quite why. the hell mentioned in the probably baffles a lot of people yeah it's no secret that everyone advertises that sort of the way of the game we're going to but it seems like last week we had a story about a similar story about facebook and social media just keeps getting dragged into this russian hysteria story right yeah that's right and of the facebook story was quite a big one as well i mean face to be actually filed out they linked one hundred thousand dollars worth of spending to three thousand that was between june fifth twenty fifteen the may twenty seventeen these out of place in the facebook sphere connected to russian linked russian linked troll for one hundred thousand pounds dollars are all that is a lot of money obviously but if you just put the two year over two years but also

just to put this these figures into perspective facebook. made about twenty seven billion i believe one or two years ago mainly from advertising and if you look more specifically at the u.s. presidential campaign over twenty fifteen twenty sixteen all the parties for their campaigns paid facebook's total of eleven point three million dollars now that figure of a hundred thousand for accounts for zero point zero zero eight of the total spending so hardly enough really to have a huge impact on swaying which way the election goes and hasn't actually been connected to russia in any way exactly the. link to accounts that may have originated from russia but this can't be verified you know. it's completely you know steadily that's the name of the game right now and the only comment coming from washington itself on these stories donald trump isn't convinced he's repeatedly called the whole thing a hoax in fact we can take a listen to his speech now and by the way folks just in case you like curious

know russia did not help me ok i russia. i call it the russian hoax one of the great hoaxes actually that's the thing i was thinking about and that's the thing that the democrats did best they lost the election and they didn't know what happened and they needed an excuse so they said russia. it also seems that the head of the kremlin has gone beyond influencing entire presidential elections now and it seems to be controlling even american society according to some at least from l g b t rights to gun control issues more recently the black gloves month of protests all those racial tensions in the united states some pundits like the one we're about to see on c.n.n. think that the kremlin this hand is behind all this let's take a listen. that was bought by this russian troll farm on

facebook was a black lives matter ad that was targeted specifically to the city's baltimore and ferguson missouri and is based on my conversation my sources is that the goal here was really about creating chaos and the shooting his sources my sources a lot of this information from. from official reports that new speculation to these reports by the social media platforms they have relied on unverified sources source which haven't made public and haven't been revealed really i mean how trustworthy are they would you trust anything i say from my sources i don't think many people would do that well of course that's only one pundit but it's nothing new for c.n.n. to see the kremlin around every corner but the allegations that we're seeing more often than not they're based exclusively on claims by u.s. officials like you're saying these unnamed officials source says but they don't always hold up to that and you know that's right the department of homeland security recently officially notified as many as twenty one states that they'd been

the victim of attempted attacks with regard to the twenty six thousand presidential election but since then a few of them of come back and said hold on a minute this is entirely right texas for example the state of texas for public office sent a letter i'm going to quote him directly here they've determined conclusively that it was not targeted and furthermore that their chances were incorrect information so they've said this is completely wrong this hasn't happened wisconsin there's another one here it was actually the state department of workforce development that was targeted for this hacking which deals with. people and benefits etc nothing to do with elections once again for any one of the biggest most important states as well they've said the system targeted by hiking attempt on there was a hiking attempt to acknowledge that but this is them targeted was the state's department of technology which they say doesn't actually. used for its services so how could the link. to the election anyway clearly not something the kremlin would

be interested in. boring to be honest but it seems that you know that a geisha is mount up mount up every week there is a new one but often if you just take a step back and look at these individually sometimes they don't add up questions have to be lost as to how valid these sources all these allegations or this evidence really is yet we have three states there one saying no meddling whatsoever to saying it wasn't russia has nothing to do with that but nobody talks about that do the exactly as you mentioned earlier if russia is appear in the main in the media headline news it's the breaking news story once those theories are debunked once the lack of evidence is revealed somehow and nobody's that interested anymore so it's very telling r.t. is daniel hawkins saying across that rather complicated story for us thank you very much. while western media and twitter have been busy looking for russian fingerprints around the u.s. election wiki leaks pointed out that a social network giant even tried to back one side of the presidential campaign the

whistleblower published an e-mail and which facebook's chief operating officer proposes helping hillary clinton's campaign chief sheryl sandberg added that she was thrilled about the progress hillary was making the e-mail exchanges date back to the u.s. presidential campaign of two thousand and sixteen now let's get more from our correspondent. wiki leaks has really put this on into perspective because on the one hand you've got the u.s. senate struggling to find that clear link between the alleged russian meddling in the u.s. elections and the kremlin and on the other hand you've got what julian asuncion is just sort of brought back to the surface from that trove of leaked predestiny emails and that's that we have clear evidence in these e-mails that facebook expressed an overt preference for hillary clinton in the run up to the twenty sixteen election in the u.s. i still want hillary rodham clinton to win badly i'm still here to help as i can

i'm thrilled at the progress he'll rees making. the first woman president of the united states while these e-mails beg the question is the u.s. senate intelligence committee going to be as interested in hillary clinton's campaign manager working with facebook to elect clinton as they are in russia allegedly hacking the u.s. elections and does the u.s. senate know for example also from these leaked e-mails that mark zuckerberg facebook c.e.o. wrote a personal e-mail to protest back in august twenty fifty saying that he enjoyed spending time with podesta and that their conversation gave zaka bug quote a lot to think about now infer what you will from that but that all read like text broke lobbying to a lot of people i think it's safe to assume that the silicon valley or the giant

tech companies that were all gunning for hillary in the run up to the u.s. elections. many viewers will remember was accused of calibrating their search results in favor of hillary clinton's campaign and subsequent leaks have revealed that eric schmidt who's the chairman of alphabet that is the parent come. me and google he had close personal ties with the clinton campaign take a listen to a memo written about schmidt by clinton's digital strategist i have been kept apprised of the work being done by eric schmidt's group and others working directly and indirectly with your team on the whole i am comfortable with where we stand and confident in our roadmap to launch day and beyond what to be interesting to see is that no one appears to cat about the links between these giant tech companies and the clinton campaign these are large companies that control so huge

flows of information but no one seems to have taken any notice of this clear preference that they found for the hillary clinton campaign rest assured for anyone who is kiss and we have got in touch with facebook and we are asking them if they're going to be reporting themselves to the u.s. senate intelligence committee for that alleged links to hillary clinton's campaign let's discuss this live with ben harris quinn the founder of conservative think tank the bow group so what do you make of this twitter report with its publication of r.t. ad spending and claiming of this proves russian meddling in the u.s. election. well i thing is it's no surprise to anyone organizations like facebook google or with an operative with a strong bias towards hillary clinton and the democrat party of course that's their right to do so is for individuals and and private companies the question is

what point is considered collusion in the election. point is. all the figures in the world other media outlets taking their own position on an issue considered to be more significant. as with. any political event or election there are a number of competing forces and this whole accusation of russian collusion has really been based on the to the projection that in some way directly colluded with with putin in order to steal the us election now these were the accusations that have been made no evidence is emerged to support that and now we seem to be getting into the real nitty gritty of you know we're certain people supporting certain candidates which is a long way off from the original accusations that there was some sort of high level

collusion between trump and putin all in the same day in the report the report admits that twitter has no evidence to back up these claims that accounts were even linked to russia so why post the report at all if there's just fragile sort of supporting theory is. well i think is your report previously described that the accusations get top billing in terms of the news agenda and the when the story then comes to nothing it gets nothing like the same level of coverage. i would be amazed if there weren't russian twitter accounts commenting on the u.s. election and there weren't indian twitter accounts of brazilian twitter accounts many of them potentially balts but again that is a long way off there being top level collusion to steal the u.s. election that's really just a reality of the social media markets and i don't think it

really suggests anything of any great significance is all there will be bought so that operate the favorable to the democratic cause of the republican cause and all sorts of different causes the way twitter works and sometimes facebook works. you know this is a this is a story of very little relevance to the headline billing of stealing the u.s. election and what do you make of these social media giants excitement to jump on the russian allegations bandwagon with these unfounded accusations do you think it could have anything to do with all the pressure put on them put on twitter and facebook in the aftermath of the intelligence report on alleged russian interference. well i think. zuckerberg of made no secret of the fact that they would have liked to see hillary clinton win the presidential election and if you look at the. logical map of california it's very

clear that silicon valley is by a huge majority a democrat voting region. as i said you know they're completely entitled to have a political view and facebook is completely entitle to be one hundred percent pro democrat if it wants to but then you also have to take anything they say as a pinch of salt these aren't public institutions that are beyond reproach these are organizations that operate with their own biases and those losses have to be factored into any investigation exactly ben harris quiney founder of the group think tank thank you so much for your time and your insights today thank you. u.n. human rights experts are voicing their concerns over the spanish government's bid to block the referendum in catalonia more on that after a short break. i

. think you're new to the game this is how it works now. economy is built around corporations corporations from washington washington controls the media the media over voters elected businessman to run this country business

equals. boom bust it's not business as usual it's business like it's never been done before. welcome back with an independence referendum in catalonia looming thousands of protesters have been taking to the streets of barcelona decrying madrid's tough stance against sunday's vote medina question of all is in barcelona for us with the latest. concha line is poised to vote this sunday despite some fierce opposition to this move coming from a treat now to prevent this referendum from going it had the spanish authorities have taking some harsh measures fourteen cats on us or it is have been arrested so far acts tripoli's have been sent into the city security services have been ordered to shut down all polling stations u.n. experts are calling these restrictions and these measures warring as they fear that

they may violate fundamental human rights but here in spain it really seems that the two sides are at the moment irreconcilable. what is being at some said next sunday has been declared illegal by the constitutional court and the courts are asking that it doesn't take place this is the law in this. absolutely determined to make sure the law is respected if you. understood by. anyone describing the current situation i would think that in catalonia they are hiding weapons of mass destruction a nuclear arsenal where the world's largest drug the description is quite apocalyptic in which the whole state has put itself into motion two out of every three anti-riot police officers and i mean canceling it to stop what something is terribly criminal is a referendum this is not only absurd but it isn't going to stop the referendum meanwhile as the first officer told word dros near the splits within the council

and society is getting more and more avid and with protesters taking to the streets both for and against the vote and castle and police are also laught caught between the two they have to obey orders coming from madrid but at the same time they want to stay and the good graces self local independent supporters. the commitment of the catalan government is very clear we want people to be able to vote but we also. you have to accept that we're a police force with legal responsibilities we have this order we cannot forget this and we must carry out our obligations without creating bigger problems than your ones that we're supposed to avoid. while this is the biggest constitutional crisis spain has seen in decades and neither sign seems to be willing to back track and meet one another halfway this all comes as pro independence activists even printed

out packs of ballot papers at a secret location and volunteers are handing them out to people who want to vote our correspondent went to one of the warehouses or papers were seized by police. the national guard the police has been sent over this morning to this area here as you can see probably behind me and they have been asked by the general attorney of spain to stop anybody to full going in or out with any material whatsoever this is obviously to prevent the material that is supposed to be used for the election to be handed over to all their voting send a spread all across barcelona so let's try to talk to the local people to see what the people around here think about what's going on with the police and for the referendum this sunday but i'm not i don't i don't think the problem is the presence of the police they're just following orders and. needed. an occupation force that we have right here continuously trying to invalidate the by trying to

confiscate the ballot boxes as if they work ok no heroin shipments but because of them this is worse than drugs spanish authorities have also been shutting down websites informing about the election but wiki leaks created a mirror of a website that helps voters find a polling station that is open we spoke to a member of the catalan part party which is also helping referendum related websites stay active they are doing the right thing because it's not a matter of it's a matter of them it's a. civil rights over rights are being replaced by government because they are prosecuted big all over again and it's good for science that they only hold information all the refrig in the rich and all well thought. the max. temple of professional couple has seen signs from here and frankly.

wiki leaks has been accused of meddling in the cattle and referendum but it isn't alone in that respect according to an article russian hackers are also interfering by ensuring certain calland websites remain active however the spanish ambassador to russia so that no russian trace has been found and that's also confirmed by the catalan pirate party member we spoke with. we don't know a lot and russia. or argentina helping a couple on you know for them to get into but we don't. think it's our money pollution from their spanish media i don't really know why i usually go back out. in the last election but they think it's sunny she escaped go to have you know why i fight against you. a humanitarian and human rights nightmare that is how the u.n. secretary general describes the ongoing situation and me and mar which has already

resulted in the mass displacement of the world hinges ethnic minority hundreds of thousands have fled to bangladesh to escape what is being described as ethnic cleansing by human rights organizations. the situation is spittle into the world's fastest developing graph huge emergency and they are many tears and human rights nightmare. for her. and now there are claims that the plight of the real hinges is being exploited by a terrorist organization no less the pakistan based militant group is distributing

leaflets asking for donations the leaflets have appeared in newspapers and mentioned mosques and houses destroyed in myanmar let's take a closer look at the terror group itself it's one of the biggest islamic militant organizations in south asia and was reportedly funded by osama bin laden it faced accusations of conducting terror attacks and was recognized as a terrorist organization by a number of countries including the us russia and the we spoke to paul cole co-author of the book pakistan terrorism ground zero he thinks the terrorists could capitalize on the crisis using any raise money for their own purposes. we have actually seen not only. should which is the charity front office. but the religious ultra right. has been given a new life time to the crisis in myanmar there is a possibility. me use this crisis for two purposes number one as i have

said believe me when you believe this crisis is to claim more. existence now but to me use these. for activities inside and outside. that's the wrap up of today's top news this hour head to our website r.t. dot com to find all of those stories and more all be back at the top the hour so do stay with us. the modern international border centers on two basic principles the sanctity of sovereign borders and self-determination in this regard the kurdish question is particularly vexing and even dangerous will some thirty million kurds ever.

just. get a little bit was. my son was on you but i. know both of you want to but i guess some kind of. sign of this yes or no but if you dump out and just you know she would be. who. is this a good area for immigrants it's this we've never really know for sure but this is been a. rescue so i. don't know if we're going to sort of go to.

the. time when the frances is broadcasting around the world from washington d.c. tonight money is set to roll in for that border wall between the united states and mexico if the house homeland security committee has its way and china's security is regulatory commission is set to deep in bad countries capital markets by speeding up the launch of crude futures trading also my guest explains how the new tax reform proposal affects businesses large and small and even those overseas stand by right now.