victims' families what that's going to give them peace that's going to give them justice and we come in and say. this isn't the way. in the fight against break news inbounds hundreds of pages and accounts. and it's all things in a warm welcome to the two astronauts who escaped death on thursday an aborted. as they crash landed in kazakhstan. and a special operation by the crown prince and us media reports. the detention of the saudi journalist to dissipate into ten days ago and that american intelligence was aware of the threats.

this is r.t. international and we're broadcasting live from moscow st you bring you the latest top stories of the day on a day or two to welcome to the program. google briefing earlier this week revealed how the internet giant and others like facebook and twitter are increasingly policing which content stays online and which doesn't and it seems they're wasting little time facebook has shut down hundreds of accounts and pages it accuses of being misleading donna hawkins reports. fighting russian bots and trolls tackling fake news the founding american democracy from foreign meddling social media giants have been at this for months what is facebook doing to prevent foreign actors from interfering in u.s. election we need to system privacy protections for consumers across the entire. ecosystem have you heard of total information awareness you know i'm talking about

. you know i do know ok would you be comfortable sharing with us the name of the hotel you stayed in last night. no. this time though it's closer to home more than eight hundred pages by and by facebook and these are not some fringe accounts conspiracy. some of the pages have been around for years and have millions of followers. among those to face the acts of pages exposing alleged corruption states of

violence and police brutality and facebook have explained the pages broke the rules engaging inspire and inauthentic behavior something we've heard before and what makes this purge different to previous culls is that this is no secret kremlin bot operation as previously alleged by the media some of the biggest pages of all run by americans in america for americans the accounts removed express the whole spectrum of views both conservative and liberal pro and anti trump and the page owners are scathing our facebook page with over two point one million followers has been published along with eight hundred other pages and accounts the purge of old media is upon us i've been memory hold from facebook three hundred fifty thousand followers. there is a dangerous precedent being set here where the big tech companies have appointed themselves as the gatekeepers are political thought an opinion this intervention

comes ahead of crucial midterm elections in the united states it's a sign of social media giants waiting even further into the minefield of free speech versus fake news and could be seen by many as a sign of meddling in itself the founders have to ban news have their faith or project on and dot com tell us that these latest developments and very worrying. we've been experiencing self-censorship throttling. everything you need if we can bear arms and band back to back thirty days small times so facebook is slowly but surely going trying to push us out. our ideology information that we're putting out there even though it's based in truth and liberty they're trying to eradicate it from their platform it threatens the status quo this is nothing more than fake noose on my facebook misleading statements under the clap the guy is. trying to actually clean up their platform quote by removing

spammers this is nothing more than political censorship and trying to eradicate certain political ideologies to me i think that's the most troubling thing is that companies are now able to control our cultural kind of dialogue they basically try to pass themselves as politically neutral facebook has caught a lot of flak for its lack of doing anything about supposedly election meddling in the two thousand and sixteen election but in my opinion this could actually be perceived as facebook itself meddling in the election because we're only you know a few weeks away from the midterms and they go and target eight hundred politically oriented facebook pages for deletion and you know coincidentally or not a lot of these pages happen to fall into a certain category which is a very anti-establishment anti-authoritarian kind of niche of people who maybe have a very different take on the upcoming elections than you would typically see young and liberal or conservative media facebook says almost thirty million news has had

that data accessed by hack has been the most security breach in that september. the attackers already control the sort of accounts which were connected to facebook friends they used an automated technique to move from account to account so they could steal the access tokens of those friends and for friends of those friends and so on totaling about four hundred thousand people the hackers started with a group of accounts totaling four hundred thousand people but harvested the data of twenty one million accounts they used an automated program to steal that it's ok's to keep you log into facebook so there's no need to enter your password fifteen million people had their names and contact details accessed and another fourteen million had more severe data breaches including profile information and check in locations well live now it's a legal and political analyst lionel to discuss this further lionel files are

coming into the program now facebook said the f.b.i. asked them not to disclose who's behind the attack who do you think might be the main suspect. they're their main suspect their negligence the fact that they're paying attention far too much to what somebody is saying then to the internal security of their system there to blame they're the ones here me to tell me that in the year almost twenty nineteen they have not figured out how to protect names yet this also screams out for the internet bill of rights all over the world you see that's what facebook should be paying attention to but instead all no no it's worried about shutting down sites and and pages that nobody would have even known about had they not done this let me explain to you the biggest problem we have here in this country we have this idea called the first

amendment and it says expression that talks about free speech freedom of expression but it only applies to the government there's nothing that prevents private entities private businesses from telling you or you or you shout ab we don't want your opinion get out shutting it is common but the problem is that facebook and twitter and some of these social media platforms are so enormous so huge so colossal in their size they represent ninety percent of all of the of the new sources of a lot of americans many people are suggesting lawyers and legal scholars are suggesting that this might be elevated almost to the level of the utility of acquires i governmental let me give you this much let's assume that i in the days of newspaper make nk i produced nk the ink that used for newspapers the

ink it turns out that ninety percent of all newspapers use but i'm just an incompetent but i decided you are going to be able to get a hold of my. because i don't like what you're doing now what i'm doing is i'm using my dislike of your political ideology i'm shutting you down by withholding something that you need to advance your position in this huge world's online government and i'm preventing you lot story you lie lionel that let's let's look at the who is behind the attack are you surprised that they didn't name russia from the very beginning as often happens when we seen it before in time and time again even before launching any official investigation well the very fact that russia was not mention means that russia is not in it because if there was any indication whatsoever to keep this team going this

means they would have mentioned it and also it sounds sure the f.b.i. did not appreciate facebook saying oh by the way they told us not to tell you who's behind it all thanks a lot facebook that's not the way investigations work now the rest of the world is saying well f.b.i. who is just lay should executive orders things that are recognizing social media platforms as not just some quaint little social medium that people used to send pictures of their doggies and pictures of your auntie no no this is where ninety percent of the people in this country are getting their news and if it's shown that there was an institutional structural bias they're going to find themselves under the protections of very very serious statutes designed to correct this immediately . complicated lionel legal and political analyst lionel thanks very much for your

opinion on the last. now facebook a previously went about blocking accounts with alleged links to so-called russian agents and while a growing trend has seen russia friend of a number of accusations lately foreign minister sergey lavrov says moscow can't take them seriously when the produce and the media are not diplomatic channels. russia is constantly subjected to this from western countries and the media including about interference in elections and cyber attacks from the un to do big agency for the prohibition of chemical weapons most recently the united states the united kingdom again and and the netherlands made similar dania security sions and they also provided information to the media six months ago what is this a planned effort to put pressure on russia and introduce new sanctions what do you think about the evidence presented. you know that which you will see it is very difficult for me to talk seriously about this topic because all the evidence is

provided to us through the media and with all due respect to the media in the journalistic profession we are serious people cannot consider the every accusation thrown at the russian federation of committing all manner of mortal sins without engaging in those legal norms that were specifically created for such cases but our answer is very simple if you talk to us through the media then we will answer through the same media but we will answer specifically and correctly that means that we were asked absolutely practical questions so if our western colleagues seriously try to make as mad with this hysteria then they must not read history books if this is all just superficial and this attack of political rabies will just naturally go away when they speak out in full then we are always ready to engage by legal means and so have a serious professional norm propaganda based conversation. and you can see the full interview with russia's foreign minister on r.t. dot com next thursday. the two astronauts who escaped

a near death experience on thursday when their rocket failed are now back in moscow safe and sound a booster rocket alfalfa on the ill fated soyuz just minutes after blast off for the crater aboard the two men on board were russian cosmonaut alexy of chin and american astronaut mike haig alexi of children is a forty seven years old and holds the rank of reserve left out colonel in the russian air force thursday's flight was supposed to have been his second journey into space his american colleague forty three year old nick cake is a colonel in the u.s. air force in his case it was to have been his and maiden flight following their ordeal a dramatic rescue and medical tests friends and family expressed relief as the two men were welcomed back to by colonel. i am

. i am. i am. i am. i am. when you've got more than half a million pounds of bending rocket fuel behind you and a booster that's going faulty you need to get away and fast for thursday soyuz crew

that meant relying on an escape system first developed in the one nine hundred sixty s. . each and every soyuz spacecraft is equipped with an emergency escape system that is designed to enable the crew safe escape in case of an emergency on board during blast off and the ascension phase the system has an evacuation capsule and powerful engines attached to it the engines are active fifteen minutes before launch if the flight gets out of control they propel the capsule away from the main body of the rocket sending it away from the danger zone at more than thirteen thousand kilometers per hour that enables the crew to reach a safe distance in about four seconds parachutes then open to slow the capsules descent and ensure a safe landing this is the only system of its kind to this so deeply integrated in both the spacecraft and the launch vehicle the emergency system has been deployed eight times over the history of soyuz launch is three of them were manned missions

and the crew survived every time i get most difficult of course i want to thank the rescue was and those who designed this cave system thanks to them came back to earth it's a very dangerous situation and i. am impressed of. about the design of how they built the scape system that it works so very well but you're in a very volatile situation with lots of rocket propellant around you going very very fast very very high so things could have gone much much worse and it's just great that the escape system works so well. i've been moment of the brief tenth flight was being closely watched from the ground to. take us through what happened. baikonur cosmodrome fourteen forty local time lift off in five four three two one engine. engine the next lift

up. the law and she is always the most nerve raking part of the energy and stress involved a colossal rise of the respects and dangers this time of everything proceeding as intended for today's plight near the two minute mark the first stage boosters begin to separate something goes wrong. right and there's no time to wait think of one hundred twenty one seconds and merge and see protocols engage automatically the mission is compromised there are a second stick get the crew away with. the families of the crew the heads of course morse and nasa watch on as the ejection system jettisons the crew module away from the rocket boosters the for the tons of high explosive

fuel detonate and we have plenty of scape tower for this really is now jettisoned the ballistic trajectory they're on is rougher than anticipated the crew is shaken and battered but stay conscious with room for a little humor. sixty. three minutes in emergency systems function as intended they begin their descent back to earth within minutes as search and rescue operation is underway. helicopters assume airborne powering towards the landing site while lexi makes families crazy and who . at first i watched the launch on t.v. but at a certain point i turned it off you can understand my feelings at the time there's no telling what medical condition the crew or even what we might call luck others

would cool professionalism the crew trained for years for this the technicians who engineer the safety overrides the rescuers and medics who arrived in record time ross cos most nasa teams wasn't that miracle but it was the next best thing whatever comes through space nothing is left to chance as contingencies for everything sail safes protocols and provisions as checks double checks triple checks and so is a track record the best in the world proves it says safe as can be but that only gets you so far space is after all the final frontier. astronauts we spoke to say crews are always well prepared for such emergencies and praised often and hake for their quick thinking actions. to the space station aboard that myself came back in the soyuz capsule my fourth question and so you

know kind of brought me back to what it's like being in that vehicle and imagining going through this kind of emergency aboard but as you heard from the transmissions the crew was very calm very professional and they did everything right and so first and foremost of course we're all very pleased that the crew is safe and healthy they're able to walk away from from the landing site and now it's just a matter of the investigation to determine what happened what corrective action taken in and then recertifying the vehicles for launch you just this was a situation that the crew were very well prepared for often it's almost impossible to believe that everything will go well however most of the time everything does go very well but we are prepared mentally things not going the way they're intended in this sort of event when there's an anomaly during the launch the crew reacted as they would in a simulator they practice their reactions multiple times in the simulator so they don't ask what's happening what do we do. the mystery surrounding the disappearance

of a sighted journalist in turkey has taken a twist as reports suggest riyadh was planning to detain him jamal khashoggi banished ten days ago after entering the saudi consulate in istanbul and hasn't been seen since u.s. media says washington has come into possession of intelligence that a special operation was ordered by the saudi crown prince saudi arabia tonight any involvement earlier i discussed this with my colleague jack lew the. it looks like the u.s. may have been aware of an imminent threat to the journalist well initially the trumpet ministration was rather slow in responding to the disappearance and this really may indicate why earlier in the the week reports surface that the u.s. had intercepts of saudi officials discussing a plot to lure him back to saudi arabia and detain him there now he's of course been living in the u.s. for about a year now at this point and he writes for the washington post he's a journalist and

a lot of his articles are rather critical of the saudi government now it's unclear when the u.s. may have intercepted this intelligence and if they may have acted on it but it does raise quite a few questions not least of which being whether or not they had a responsibility to warn the journalist that his life might be in danger in some way shape or form now on wednesday a state department official did come out saying that they did not have any prior knowledge of the incident though again it's gone just mothers i can see the united states had no advanced knowledge of the show his disappearance so while these reports are based on you know again unnamed sources more than one says to have confirmed them at this point and then one has to wonder whether or not this is a situation where the left hand just doesn't know what the right is doing then in the u.s. government because at the same time we have a group of almost two dozen senators who are up in arms about the situation if we find out that they were complicit or directed specifically. know that you'd like to

support this is serious and i think it's important in this situation that we we don't overreact or the react we need to get the facts and i know that's a startling proposition for the united states congress that we should get the facts before we act if this did happen it is increasingly likely that something bad happened to this man at the hands of the saudi government has contempt for us. disrespectful to so there we have calls for an investigation the word sanctions has already been brought up and there's even been a bipartisan movement to stop arms sales to the kingdom which would be a huge blow to the ties between the two powers of course but that's something that apparently trump is not willing to consider as of yet i don't like stopping massive amounts of money that's being poured into our country oh and i know they're talking about different kinds of sanctions but they're spending one hundred ten billion

dollars on military one of the things that we. like. others for this country so he did go on to say that u.s. investigators are looking into this situation but left it at that conflicting reaction of their own they walked kind of investigation should we expect jackie well on thursday a turkish presidential aide did come out saying that there is going to be an engine a joint investigation with turkey and saudi arabia and reports say that a delegation from riyadh has already landed in turkey but it's unclear how well that's going to work given the harsh accusations that we've had coming from the turkish side it's been alleged that turkey actually has audio and visual recordings of the incident that prove their claims that he was killed inside the consulate on october the second and certain articles quote people with quote unquote knowledge of the recordings recording saying that you can hear him being tortured and

question interrogated and then killed but these recordings have yet to be released previously turkey had claimed that there was a fifteen man hate group that murdered and dismembered the journalist while he was in the consulate and then removed his body from the site now there has been no concrete evidence of that yet and that's something that does need to be stressed this point and saudi arabia does flat out deny all the accusations saying that they are baseless their position remains that he left the consulate unharmed later that day. the saudi journalist jamal khashoggi has been missing since the second of october let's take a look back over the moments leading up to his disappearance and the events that have followed.

any survey has revealed some europeans are starting to doubt the necessity of the. really two thirds of the people that responded to the polls i things wouldn't be any worse without the blog the brussels based think tank we have a survey also found that forty nine percent consider the european union irrelevant the findings go on to indicate citizens want more transparency and are divided over the primary role of the blog but those in power and proselytize don't see it that way the foreign policy chief for instance said recently the world wouldn't survive

without the twenty eight state union. close your eyes and imagine for one moment the european union disappears from the global scene right now let us say for a month or week even for a few days the world will simply collapse the world is not in a good shape through much result the european union into a been a much worse situation.