yeah. this is a. better than. a c. heard of. the. president of the world bank he. sent us an email. breaking news this hour twitter targets are to see blocking all verbs from owned by this channel in the latest russian media the move twitter included r.t. in its report to congress on alleged russian meddling despite earlier offering to. pain ahead of the us elections also coming up. as future in the balance there in barcelona calling for the regional government to

. create what happens next. wherever you're tuning in from right around the world this hour welcome to moscow and to our to international i mean and good to have your company we begin with breaking news on our t.v. twitter has blocked this channel from advertising on its platform in denton down on of the blue move let's get the details because we're joining the tease. down the social network giant the alluded that this was to do not alluded they were pretty direct what they said was the reason for this election interference what do we know about it or it's a story where the proper you think develops almost on a daily basis we received notification today from twitter positively saying they respect believe. in freedom of expression and in speaking truth to power and

ironically enough ended with the news that r.t. is now banned from advertising on the twitter platform advertising anything any of its content whatsoever the justification according to twitter was the inclusion of r.t. in a u.s. intelligence report back in january seventeen which stated that r.t. may have on behalf of the russian government attempts to meddle somehow in the us presidential election last year again no clear accusations really of wrongdoing misconduct or breach of policy but there you go now this turn of events is almost comical really given that last last year twitter offered to deliver got a quote here an unbiased point of view of the us elections through the use of an exclusive social media package which they offered to our aim to promote artie's election coverage and reach a broader u.s. audience of the. absolute do you work in negotiations with them as early as april twenty sixth in fact negotiations went on for a certain period of time this offer which they negotiated included lots of special

features i've got a list here customized him oh do you have tags analytics research even a whole dedicated team of twitter experts to help us with our media strategy that was the offer on the table pricing package it was indeed and that's the reason why all of negotiations r.t. didn't take up that off oh it simply went over our social media budget. now what happened over the last year and a half you know quite the question is how did artie go from trusted media partner to being put on par effective with bots trolls fake accounts kremlin agents which by the way the channel has never been involved with or used then indeed as our deputy editor in chief said that if you had ever used such methods been involved in violating policies or spreading misinformation r.t. would simply have been banned from social media platforms now we've seen a wave of very thinly veiled accusations against r.t. over the last few months against. about election meddling by russia something not

yet backed up by concrete refutable facts and somehow he's managed to become mixed up in this again with no real evidence torture of fact included the shuttle in their september report you may recall it was called russian interference in the twenty six thousand election and misinformation that came out just last month it even released confidential information about r.t. spending on marketing on twitter giving a figure of two hundred seventy four thousand dollars i believe spent over the whole year on marketing but this is obviously something used by most international news outlets to market their content online. again no proof no allegations of real violation of terms of conditions or misconduct was given there now in the venda twitter official officials will actually go to congress to testify before officials there on russian election my leg and no doubt he will be part of the central theme again part of the political motivate the pressure as many people view it the

channel has faced over the last period of time this is what editor in chief had to say ok well honestly i didn't believe that tweet was controlled by american security services it looked like a conspiracy theory to me but tweeter has just come fast it's bt especially because american news outlets operate in russia will now feel the tenderness of russian teach for tough measures these measures by r.t. are unprecedented measures against international news outlets and of course very interesting to see them go from a platform that offers us collaboration to give us an even wider reach to audience to black listing us effectively from marketing it will be very interesting to see what they do saying congress and if they actually do also tell the truth about our previous partnership there again in the wider picture chris and media freedom of course comes into this doesn't it done hawkins bring us right up to date with a thank you. a russian official have been quick to fire back up twitter to take

a. look consider this as yet another aggressive step in take t.v. to freshen channels. it comes as a result of pressure from the us establishment and security services the tenets of a measure this will follow. these is a clear violation of freedom of distribution of information on social media and i do not see any indication that sputnik abused 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 you know lots of reaction to this on a wider scale as well a journalist from the interests of magazine sales twitter would do nothing if a u.s. based agency provoked complaints from abroad and he was echoed by other people in social media some expressed anger twitter itself slamming it for being connected

to the white house and for locking a news item that's not contradict its views others called the move on and morris meant ok let's bring in ted say ted's a former u.s. diplomat for his take on today's developments very welcome to the program what do you make of this move to block all artes odds on twitter. frankly i'm puzzled because twitter says that they're basing their actions on an intelligence community report from january which has been largely discredited not only did it appear with its timing since it was released a few days before obama left office and trump was sworn in to be a parting shot to try and discredit the trump administration before it even started going but it doesn't represent a consensus of all seventeen member agencies of the u.s. intelligence community in fact it only represents three and not even all of those

three because the analysts that were chosen to participate in that report were handpicked by former director of national intelligence james clapper the same fellow will remember who was caught lying to congress about just how much spying the n.s.a. was doing on american citizens now there are also intelligence veterans out there including the former technical director of the n.s.a. william binney who say this is nonsense that the e-mails from the democratic national committee were not hacked that they were leaked from inside so there are multiple reasons to doubt the veracity of this report and so we have to ask ourselves why is twitter doing this now what can i bring that up they do you think this was a move purely by twitter for their own motives their own values except for whatever way they're leaning. politically or was there some political interference into this decision. i find it fascinating and remarkably coincidental

that twitter has chosen to take action based on this old and discredited report just at the time that the so-called steel dossier the so-called russia dossier that people have been attempting to use to blacken the trumpet ministration and to tie it in with the ferias russian activities since again before trump was even sworn in that this comes to light this twitter action happens just as it turns out that that steel dossier was paid for by hillary clinton and what it says to me is that twitter knows that that dossier is vanishing into smoke into the thin air and that the intelligence community report which sort of goes hand in hand with that dossier will be useless to them to use in the future so that they're using it right now just looking at some of the share prices twitter share price has been a big issue on the markets over the last few years it has plummeted over the past number of years but today the shares route was sharply big gains is this another

coincidence i'm a big believer in not believing in coincidences so you can draw your own conclusions insider trading on top of political dealing like that it would never happen not in america. twitter made a major u. turn after calling our tea at ted a trusted by a source in the past not very far past as well we're talking about over the past twelve months or so why is that in your opinion such a turnaround and indeed what do you make of the timing to that saying basically you're a trusted partner on one side and we want nothing to to with your adverts. well again this this stinks to high heaven quite frankly because we've got the facts now that's being openly discussed that hillary clinton the democratic national committee funded the steel dossier that this was a concerted political effort to discredit the donald trump as

a candidate and then as a president and that there were at least elements of the intelligence community that were willing to play along with these efforts so for you to tell me right now that twitter is suddenly magically decided to change its mind about r.t. says to me that someone at the very top level of twitter has been leaned on heavily probably by people like hillary rodham clinton and like the chairman of the d.n.c. to change their mind to do something again before all of this so-called evidence just goes up in smoke there has been a reaction to this twitter users actually going beyond saying this is bigger than our tea that actually press freedom is being impeded if you if we don't agree with what you have to say on a certain topic we're going to shut you down and we're not going to listen to it is not a big factor is that gaining traction that kind of thought in the u.s. . oh absolutely absolutely there's a very strong libertarian streak in american thought going back to the foundation

of the country it's only getting stronger these days and i'm pleased to say that it's young people that are displaying a lot of that libertarian thought these days now me personally i get asked all the time why do you appear on r t why do you want to taint yourself by linking to the russian you know. official propaganda channel and i tell them this i'm willing to talk to anyone that will listen to me i've got an open mind i've got an open mouth and as long as someone is willing to broadcast what i'm thinking and saying i'm happy to appear on them and i will not change my mind about r.t. in that sense just what we have you on we're happy to have you as you're just saying do you think that this is part of a coordinated attack on russia nightlights as you said we saw this dossier so much effort so much resources being put into finding some kind of link with the trump team moscow no proof has been fined it's the media it seems is in the spotlight is this coordinated oh absolutely and the thing i'll say all of the objections i

raised before about that intelligence community finding back in january all of the sort of spurious nature of the arguments the fact that of course they can't release any actual evidence that's all classified that's not the real problem i have with this whole business the real problem i have is that all of this anti russian hysteria that's being pumped into u.s. domestic politics that is being pumped into european and e.u. politics is all designed in my opinion to play into the hands of neo cons and globalists who want one thing and that's war and that's not something i'm ever going to cooperate with ted thanks very giving us your take this hour breaking news ted say former u.s. diplomat. well this channel has been under pressure since a u.s. intelligence report on alleged russian meddling came out back in january yet as we said no solid proof of artes alleged influence on the twenty six thousand u.s. election has ever come to light. propaganda machine contributed to the influence

campaign by serving as a platform for 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. i'll give you some background and substance to those statements similar account joins us live on the program. this is not the first attack in recent days on our channel. well it's not just twitter it seems that every social media giants joining this anti r t campaign even earlier this month google actually told r.t. from you tube's premium advertising service without any notice even the r t has been the most viewed t.v. news network on you tube first few years now and of course abiding by all the

platforms rules but unfortunately that's not all seems that the us media has also placed pressure on the company they've even attacked google and youtube for having a quote cozy relationship with r.t. even going so far as to shame one of its top executives for appearing on r t a few years back now to add some context last month both twitter and facebook turned over reports on russian activities on the platforms to u.s. lawmakers which apparently contain information on the mysterious bots and trolls authorities have been after and somehow connecting them all to r.t. and it should definitely be noted that this is all being done without any evidence of russian influence in the us election let alone proof of ortiz role but despite the lack of evidence u.s. officials have continued to pressure tech giants members of congress have even reprimanded social media giants for not doing enough senator mark warner slammed

twitter's efforts as inadequate and representative adam shift when it went even further urging twitter to conduct a more quote robust investigation but it's also worth mentioning this is all happening only days before twitter testifies along before congress alongside facebook and google so it's pretty safe to say that twitter is legit latest decision appears to be a move just to satisfy the lawmakers on capitol hill. live from washington d.c. this hour thank you well arty's head of media relations told us he was very surprised by twitter's the. been a close partner for this company for years. the band effectively blocks all members of the ecosystem so that's the arabic french german english russian and spanish channels from campaigning on nine hundred seventeen live other ways as well from campaigning and you know getting out there and kind of trying to reach. your followers or reach new audiences we had

a great relationship with twitter you know through. the partnership that was basically set up in twenty fifteen. twitter changed a lot since then as well and america has changed a lot since then so you've got to give you know you've got to have the context in place to try and understand what's actually going on 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 and everybody will tell you any news that breaks happens for us 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 us 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. they're whole we got the opinion of former u.s. diplomat jim. the host of our going underground program option. 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 and 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 in the scenting voices at all this is a very ominous development it's not so much even r t 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 outlets 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 are tea 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 heads 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 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 team because

and as twitter says this decision is not being taken lightly it believes that you the people in that studio there in moscow the people here in the london bureau let alone bureaus that. france they are so so powerful now that they can change the results of elections and change the democracies and civic societies all around the or around the world so powerful is the journalism now at r.t. and other media providers with their journalism no doubt is powerful in covering stories giving a voice to the voiceless and trying to seek truth through all the powerful structures that tried to stop truth from being disseminated around the world they too presumably have reason to fear. moving on

british lawmakers have revived attempts to find any trace of russian interference in the outcome of last year's breaks at referendum with the details on the list to see if. well the anti russia hype continues now here in the u.k. following the brave but quite futile example of this we've seen in the us of trying to implicate russia in election results that were seen as a unfavorable now we do know that here in london a committee within the house of commons had sent a letter to the c.e.o. of facebook mark zuckerberg asking him to provide details on russian ads linked to not just the bracks it referendum but also the last u.k. general election now this is part of an investigation being carried out by this committee and inquiry on feek news trying to determine whether or not foreign actors are getting involved by using online platforms to interfere in elections now the russian ambassador to the you can exonerate prevent go said he was surprised to

see this kind of reaction from the u.k. given that the brics that referendum was called of course by the previous conservative government he's asked a question of it's not clear who the british government is if russia is able to influence these kinds of things now this comes just days ago we saw a labor m.p. within the british parliament also say that it's important to enquire into any participation by russia in terms of interfering in western democracies and really all of this is seen as a sort of repetition of this having been carried out on a also quite wide scale in the us facebook had said that russia linked accounts had bought one hundred thousand dollars worth of ads but obviously this was seen as largely seen as very little proof of anything given the multi-million dollar of budgets when it comes to the election campaigns in the us so really all of this despite the lack of any tangible proof really showing us that the show must go on

considering russia has become everyone's favorite bad boy it seems to see if you're going to pull russia's ambassador to the u.k. was on or to your discussing them. once there was a decision to make this a referendum for brig's it it was done and the country is still divided because half of the country is for braggs it of the country is posing this i'll tell you even the government is this divided the parliament is divided some newspapers and even the officials they're saying that one way or another russia. meddled this decision of the british people but for me it doesn't look quite convincing it's looks even funny because in this case definitely it looks like the right insulting for both the british government and the british people that was their decision we don't have any effects from any single

publication in the british press and most of them are very negative every day that russia interfered i mean almost everywhere and but the key question is where are the facts as the reagan said where is the b. and we don't have them so basically i'm quite sure that there will be some ill again. but no facts this will be the outcome. staying in europe but moving to catalonia where 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 catalan president instructed the m.p.'s to decide he also said he would not call a snap election a move that many had predicted he would make. you more than willing to put forward an election as long as there's a go and see that the vote will be validated and treated with respect and it's been

such currency to date. well further of the speech left many people confused the supported by the apartment in the action of the region's government as we can see central barcelona is a watch with the flow numbers have been building there right throughout the day people are demanding that the government deliver on the results of the independence referendum and break away from spain and certain they are to show dubin skiis in barcelona for us with the latest there was much speculation that call a speech moon would use his speech on tuesday evening to class not election here 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 even the tweet that is opposed to the article one fifty five now if

senate is in spain quote full article one fifty five essentially a good move to regional autonomy that catalan has held for the last fifty 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 future of this country since many people millions went to the polls at the beginning of october and food yes even a referendum on independence now the president old cats in the new colors talks about why he didn't call that snap election he said that he attempted to get the warrantees food 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 north spooled that snap election he did going to say that no one can say that he's not been willing to sacrifice he has been

a deadlock to looks pretty much through. the day in fact he canceled this announcement twice because he's been talking to people from all sides of the spectrum here in catalonia before he made that announcement that they will not be a snap election however what he has said is that through the measures in the goldstein this crisis between which way to catalonia will now be in the hands of the council moving in parliament and there is a chance that the catalonia parliament itself could decide on whether it should declare outright secession outright independence from spain that would be something that will happen we 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 vote tomorrow 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 catalonia we could see people who are rich in the unionists who wanted to stay in spain actually deciding to change their vote because the way that madrid has handled this crisis. after news for the latest op it's go from twitter's clumped on an hour to an all the rest of the news making global headlines with me in thirty minutes time in the meantime more r.t. programs right ahead. so if anyone and you go there resist the american design is a federalist you may be a terrorist it can be. a model that has been happening to you and then the thought of bond and now with the mules the other one says. i'll go.

get me no it's this sunday i'm not to run. it would be theo i didn't notice. it. yeah he was in the school for the. whole thing to go much but i feel a lot of the behind of the out. on the she just accounts you don't need to know this recovery will. kill them all into it is the food out of this not so be this not to be but i mean. look young.