this is. better than. to see. the world bank. send us an e-mail. breaking news this hour twitter targets are blocking all. the move twittering included in its report to congress on the major russian meddling. offering. of. pain ahead of the us elections. also ahead the. future in the balance there in barcelona calling for the regional government to come up with. what is next. some

intriguing will in the u.s. will release. president kennedy's assassination after a fifty year deadline passes lifting the lid on one of the country's darkest. four in the afternoon paulo levon thirty at night in mumbai and nine in the evening right here in moscow this thursday october the twenty sixth i mean you know neil welcome to the program we begin with breaking news. twitter block this channel from advertising on its platform on precedented an out of the blue well let's get straight into it further with our. social media giant said this was to do election interference actually what we know it's a story you know where the pro. really seems to thicken almost on

a daily basis now or to you today received notice from twitter which began positively stating that twitter believes in freedom of expression and speaking truth to power and ended our own actually with the news that r.t. is now officially banned from advertising any qualms at all on any of their accounts on twitter as a social media platform the justification according to twitter was artie's inclusion in that january twenty seventh team d.n.i. u.s. intelligence report on russian meddling in the us elections now there's been no clear accusations of wrongdoing misconduct or breach of policy and this turn of events actually made even more ironic because of previous dealings twitter has had with r t which the channel has now decided to make public just the dispel some of those very untrue allegations that have been leveled our way over the last period of time back in twenty sixteen in the run up to the election twitter offered a package specifically for that event the aim was to quote here deliver an

unbiased point of view of the us elections now this special package included many features from customize the modes you have tags and a little research solutions even i've got the quote in front of me a dedicated team of twitter experts to help with media strategy so they really went all out on this this had the specific aim of having a bigger reach a wider reach to both few words viewers and us voters to expand artie's message how many people they could get across to why twitter would have offered such a fantastic package to a kremlin propaganda tool seeking to control or manipulate the election is perhaps a question best thoughts of my twitter themselves we have asked them for comment by the way now after the negotiations r.t. didn't take up the offer because of the have to price tag it simply went against all these social media budgets there now what happened over the last year and a half when r.t. went from a trusted valued media partners. being equated to trolls and bots trying to hack or

manipulate the election which by the way r.t. has never used or been involved with in any way your fault to use bot saw fake account saw you know violated terms of use or policies they would simply have been banned from social media platforms we have seen a wave of very thinly veiled accusations against both russia and r.t. with those allegations of election meddling which actually included those in their september water throughout with a title that russian interference in the twenty six thousand election misinformation again r.t. was mentioned there are some confidential information about how much oil to get spent on their twitter advertising but again no concrete allegations or real proof or or no real misconduct over the breach of any policies they're now in the vendor twitter officials are going to go before congress to testify on the issue of russian election acking twitter or rather will no doubt feature in that as well part of the wider pressure really the channel has faced over the last few weeks and

months as our editor in chief has also pointed out let's take a listen to what she had to say. honestly i didn't believe that twitter was controlled by american security services it looked like a conspiracy theory to me not twee to has just come fast. especially because american news outlets operate in russia will now feel the tenderness of russian teach for tough measures now as the scandal takes new twists and turns it will certainly be interesting to see what exactly the twitter presenter to do say to congress in every way i do absolutely if they do mention that previous collaboration offer to the channel which had we taken up on this is the comical part of the story if we had taken up on that offer all reach would have been a far wider far deeper and would've spent a lot more money than that two hundred seventy thousand dollars which twitter did quote in that september report so very they were to offer us this offer of collaboration and then include us in the report subsequent bias for advertising

anything at all. the testimony for congress or eagerly coming up in a few days or write down your hawkins' bring us right up to date with that story thank you. ok all russian officials have been quick to fire back twitter to are going to go to a live after this let's just listen to this first though. we consider this as yet another aggressive step to talk and think t.v. to freshen channels. it comes as a result of pressure from the us establishment and security service pretended to measures to follow. these is a clear violation of the freedom of distribution of information on social media and i do not see any indication that it could be used its use will not notice my absence but for me from this day forth does not present any interest and i will stop using its services. yeah there's also been reaction online with some

expressing anger on the social media platform it's slamming it for being connected to the white house and for locking to news of clips that contradict its views other something called the move on the print well touching upon all of the developments let's bring in joe is host of talk to me radio dot com and always a pleasure to have you on the program john he had just one of those points. just just to reiterate this is a move by twitter blocking all artes spanish r.t.r. a big international it's a wide reaching move in terms of the timing of this happening do you think it's a coincidence. no of course it's not a coincidence i mean the smear and the count smears showing clinton and trump i mean it's just another go not just of bashing but bashing russia as well i don't

lot of people they look at the social media accounts like twitter and facebook and instagram and somehow believe that these are the past year ins of free speech but we're increasingly seeing censorship if anybody dares to talk out against their mainstream narrative so i understand where this attack has now come on and i've got to say i'm not normally into conspiracy theories but it it does look very coincidental doesn't it that perhaps the american government are involved in this it it seems to me to be wrong i can see what r.t. have done wrong or to. the thought of you know influence on an election or something like that where you are from england john joining greg's it you know barack obama did he not speak on this trying to influence not you know there are a lot of different levels to this isn't there if you do it for one organization do you not have to do it for everybody. of course you do is absolute nonsense is meant

to be a platform where you can put forward opinions the simple facts are involved very heavily involved in the campaign the simple facts are everybody from barack obama to the world's bankers to the biased b.b.c. most of the mainstream media in the u.k. and indeed in europe and indeed in the united states did not want britain to leave democratically seventeen point four million people decided to ignore barak obama when he came over on behalf of his people his people not being the american public but being the bankers of course and the global elite they don't want to leave because they knew that he could be the beginning of the end of the and this is the same thing here we need free speech freedom of expression and you know what i hear the stories of r.t. and they approached them about you know working together and then suddenly this happens too much of a coincidence and i think it's wrong and i personally believe archie and indeed if

the russian government get involved they should go back at them however i don't really want to see tit for tat because it's much better if we're all talking isn't it yeah it's good to know that you where it's coming from though isn't it because it's do you put this down as a business decisions solely by twitter or does it go into the realms of politics an influence and somebody else having a say in this and that's really the information that has to come arts of people no . sure i think the problem at the moment is the the new age oligarchy run twitter and facebook and the other accounts the problem is they are all powerful all the advertising has gone away from print away from broadcasts a lot of it has gone to the site so they are all powerful and what you've got now is pressure to say for example of facebook where mark zuckerberg there's even rumors he might want to run for president of the united states we get this unholy alliance between the fourth of state between the press and the people and

politicians it's not a good and it's not a healthy relationship and it's got to be stood up to because we found recently on twitter anybody with the right leaning view or anybody's got anything to say for example about the islam ist threat which is a threat to the whole world order then that tended to have the algorithms it looks like so they altered so they don't get the penetration although i've been censored all the been suspended or you know i can off it seems to me to want to have it both ways and i don't think that's fair i think they are any of that of course is r t does try and show alternative viewpoints from both the left and right and just talking about something you brought up there john the odd offer that r.t. received for the u.s. election i want to get your take on this because twitter said that he is a trusted and on bias sore spot then a no there are endangering democracy and nazi in the space of less than twelve months it's an intriguing turner uno. it is an intriguing turn around and you

wonder why who that is speaking whether that is true it or as you say whether it's secret services or whether it's somebody just trying to wind up the ante the simple bottom line is i've been on our team many many times of it on many t.v. stations and radio stations around the world and i often say for my opinion how ironic that the most part unst t.v. station at the moment is hard to see because the b.b.c. is a boy's story isn't balanced when it comes to things like bricks i mean you have people out not so far on on the very left wing for i've run politician george galloway the b.b.c. wouldn't do that the b.b.c. would marginalizes so i think this is an attack of things that attack on freedom of speech freedom of expression and it's very odd that it's happened at this time and it's also i've never bought into this idea that somehow the russians either via r.t. or via other instruments influence the american election or indeed influence prexy

and when you look at the direction thing as to say the whole global elite the whole world order including barack obama definitely tried to sort out breaks it for their means so laura yeah there's a lot of hypocrisy far in the round today john thanks for coming on the program giving us your take this hour great as always john cole and host of talk to me radio dot com well indeed this channel has been under pressure since a u.s. intelligence report on the ledge russian meddling came back in january yet no solid proof as john has been saying of artes alleged influence on the twenty sixteen us election has ever come to light or. propaganda machine contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for kremlin messaging using russian government funded outlets russian propaganda media outlets like r t i think it's a propaganda arm of government that is definitely not on our side reports have it that russia not only wanted to weigh in in the election but they also want to

undermine u.s. confidence of citizens confidence in our electoral process and in our democratic values just expanding those remarks and what happened to run the time let's bring in our tease simular account he's been following developments heist in europe and what happened today it's not the first attack in recent days either on the china lisa tell us more about that. well of course it's not just twitter it seems that all social media giants are now joining this campaign against r.t. well earlier this month google polled r t from you tube prime list its premium advertising service without notice even though r.t. has been the most viewed t.v. news network on you tube for several years now and have been abiding by the platforms rules and requirements the company's under growing pressure even by the u.s. media who attack google and you tube for having a cozy relationship with the channel and even one of its top executives is now almost shamed for making an appearance on r t if you years ago not to provide some

context last month both twitter and facebook turned over the reports on the russian activities on the platforms to u.s. lawmakers those mysterious bots and trolls that the u.s. authorities are going after and in the company of which r.t. has somehow found itself in no solid proof of russia's alleged influence on the us election has ever actually come to light level in the protests let alone the proof of artes role in it and u.s. officials have been urging for more efforts for of the tech giants senator mark warner eve or even reprimanded twitter for not doing enough slamming their presentations as frankly inadequate representative adam schiff it also joined in and similarly urged twitter to dig deeper advising the social media giant to conduct a quote far more robust robust investigation but it's also worth mentioning that this comes only days before the company is set to testify before congress alongside facebook and google so this latest move by twitter to block r.t.

ads will almost certainly satisfy lawmakers on capitol hill. from washington d.c. with a specter of today's proceedings. but artie's head of media relations told us what effect twitter action could. the band effectively blocks all members of the r.t.c. ecosystem so that's the arabic french german english russian and spanish channels from campaigning on nine hundred seventeen live where there is a as well from campaigning and you know getting out there and trying to reach. reach you will have a great relationship with. through. a partnership that was basically set up in twenty fifty. two states a lot since then as well america has changed since then so you know you've got to have a context in place to try and understand what's actually it's unfortunate that some of these things get in the way but either way as a news agency twitter is the most vibrant platform in the world to be on the

association everybody will tell you any news that breaks happens first on twitter and you know that's why it's very very important to us at the same time it's it's really surprising. unfortunate that they've decided in this decision unilaterally to prevent this from campaigning but in my opinion it speaks it speaks more to the kind of level hysteria level of hysteria that in america the actual nuts and bolts of our relationships whether. we got the opinion a former u.s. diplomat jim just race and also the host of r t's going on a growing program tenzing i use twitter a lot i like twitter a donald trump likes twitter a lot and what is the alternative going to be and this is where the real irony comes in that here we are supposedly talking about russian collusion russian interference you know back during the old days during the cold war it was the soviet union that sought to protect protect its population from infection by any

voice that descended from the dissented from the official media now we have american media companies and the american government trying to shut down dissent and make sure we could only listen to the think news c.n.n. or the think news network and we see no defense that it's sending voices at all this is a very ominous development it's not so much even our tape but what does this say about what the american government the american agencies and now these social media companies are willing to do to compromise information coming to the american people i would say it's a coordinated attack attack on russia now let's it's a coordinated attack on freedom of speech and of the media and it's a core coordinated attack on the right of the american people to gain independent sources of information and to make their own critical comparisons let's remember not only r.t. was said to be some kind of a voice for russian intelligence but remember there were hundreds of other outlets there were put on some of these lists led by people like hamilton sixty eight well

like zero ahead at antiwar dot com and ron paul institute who supposedly are are simply following in the footsteps of these other russian troll media organizations this and this offensive is much broader than just against our t.v. but our t. is the tip of the spear this decision should send a chill down the spines of every editor of every newspaper every magazine every t.v. station in the world. even the new york times. james family own new york times has been reporting that this decision is without precedent twitter allows promotion of any other media on its platform clearly this is targeted directly at our t.v. it's about media freedom in the united states as well some people on twitter commenting to jack dorsey the founder of twitter about george orwell and animal farm. i should say there are other investors there is saudi elements of investment

in twitter but the multi myriad investment within twitter will do something to change this this decision which is obviously caused a chilling effect on freedom of speech as it is seen in the united states and all around the world and we'll have to wait with the governments right around the world will know retaliate not just against twitter but against the united states itself. twenty minutes past nine pm here in moscow let's move on to more world news in catalonia lawmakers have gathered in parliament to decide which path the region takes in a long awaited statement once again fell short of a decisive announcement the council on president instructed the m.p.'s to decide he also said he would not call a snap election that's a move that many have predicted he in fact would make. more than willing to action as long as there's

a guy. who could validate it and treated with respect there's been such currency to date as. well many people have been left confused and disappointed by the apartment in auction of the region's government these are pictures from today earlier in central barcelona as you can see there a warship with the cattle on lives and also other air and limbs and statements and cried numbers have been building throughout the day there are people coming in from work of course adding to more of their. they're pretty much the monday in that the government deliver on the results of the independence referendum break away from spain and then the uncertainty or to charlotte dubin ski is in barcelona. there was much speculation that colors put your mood and mood to use his speech on tuesday evening to the class not election in catalonia many people including many reports in the local spanish media had been speculating that the catalan president would

make that announcement because that would be one way of stopping a very crucial vote that's due to take place on friday evening at the spanish government in between that is opposed to the article one fifty five now if senators in spain vote full article one fifty five essentially you could move to a regional autonomy that catalan has held for the last three years that is of course something that many people here are unhappy about this comes a bit stout almost a month of tensions between the governments in the trade down the government in catalonia over the feature of this country since many people millions went to the polls at the beginning of october and food t.v.'s even a referendum on independence now the president old cuts of a new color speech won't talks about why he didn't call that snap election he said that he attempted to get the warranty's fool these elections to make them happen but he said he couldn't get those warranties and so therefore there was nothing

a new guarantee that the justifications he wanted to cool the election would happen that he has enormous pools that snap election he had did go on to say that noone can say that he's not been willing to sacrifice he has been a dead look to looks pretty much throughout the day in fact he cancelled this announcement twice because he's been talking to people from all sides of the spectrum here in catalonia the phone when he made that announcement that they moved north to be a snap election however what he has said. is that true the nation is in going to see this crisis between which we didn't have to libya will now be in the hands of the continuity of parliament and there is a chance that the new parliament itself could decide on whether it should declare outright secession outright independence from spain that would be something that will happen to be will find out more about that in the next few days if that is something they're trying to do but for the moment this puts the ball back in the spanish court which is they are due to go to morrow on article one fifty five now i

can tell you that we were at a protest on wednesday many people at that protest said they supported staying part of spain however they were unhappy with article one fifty five they didn't want catalonia to lose its regional autonomy so this could actually spoke even mood division here in atlanta we could see people move reaching the unionists who wanted to stay in spain she decided to change their vote because the way that madrid is handled this crisis. deal of uncertainty there in barcelona charlotte was explaining well let's trying i'm sure some of the issues here on cross live now to our a spokesperson for the european partnership for independence on a very warm welcome to the program as always. let's just pick up on the point about the president many expected karla's pujas want to dissolve the couple on government today call a snap election in

a bid to prevent madrid from implementing article one hundred fifty five essential taking away capital loney is autonomy why didn't he. well i think i think that in the recent european history in that on the many different strategies in order to succeed in constituting a new our newest state and that catalyst put him on the president's catalonia is just following out of one of advantages we just had to end up with the the question of is that from thence what he may have tried this morning is to call for elections jazz so the spanish state a stops then invention of control or political it or the different catalan government and public service at the do what has happened is that he announced the elections but nothing has changed from the spanish state they still

want to pursue they repression their political repression against catalonia so there was no point in trying to this once again try dialogue with a state that actually don't want to hear about dialogue or want to hear about anything at the moment and we know that the catalan parliament is debating the region's future we've seen a lot of passionate people take to the speech there is a feeling that something could happen do you expect any breakthroughs there tonight . any breakthrough anything to come out of this parliament meeting today in catalonia we've seen a lot of people speaking. oh well yes. i think that probably is going to be a war morning where the mandate from the referendum of philosophical sobber which was the same one offering that the burns to morrow the parliament will will

will take it and make it effective and basically we expect to belief that the suspension of the. the collaboration of independents that's what we use back either those tonight but probably tomorrow morning ok in the light of what many see and it's also supporters of course of truculently independence as the president pooja months in decisiveness what steps do you think that madrid is going to take next when it comes to catalonia. while the reality is that the spanish the state seems to be very determined to use any chance to control catalonia life and what they have said is that they will control the media and they will control the day with the school system the government the parliamentary activity but in practical terms that is just not possible because already the

captain and gentleman is the captain and teacher. they all have said that they will only hold their did mccracken's castle as government because it's our government and he has been elected legally and the kressley so all they have all the catalan society from the different areas they say they don't agree and there's enough of a the spanish intervention and i mostly because seems a referendum on the violence used outrageous violence views private funds upon the. population the city says they don't have any moral authority catalyzed so it's not practical. it's not feasible. and when the independence the place what we do is to protect ourselves from these the spanish repression unspun said nonis that it cannot be tolerated

inside within the european union one thing is for sure it's a it's a big week in the future of catalonia one way or the other on our case spokesperson for the european partnership for independence always good to get your take thank you very much. all the news for i'll be back with more global news stories in a row in thirty minutes time stay with us now though for more r.t. programs that.