it is. what you. think. it. was and. facebook suspends the pages of several highly successful altie linked to news projects without warning if we go over the rules and check what may be behind the move. and adding to the pressure on the social media platform british lawmakers accuse facebook of not reigning in political advertising and leaving people open to online data breaches. a c.b. a french military officer could be sent to face punishment after he penned

a damning critique of the u.s. led coalition's campaign against islamic state in syria. a very warm welcome you are watching r.t. international broadcasting from our studios here in moscow i'm neki aaron great to have you with us now our top story a burning based media company has hit out at facebook accusing the platform of unprecedented censorship that's also they suspended a number of my fake media's pages which produces online shows and which c.n.n. is accusing of a deliberate attempt to hide ties to russia one of those shows is in the now viewed over two and a half billion times on the social networking platform and produce their own

presenter filmed this message for facebook. what i would say to you is i understand that you're under in men's pressure from various forces to suppress this or that content based on political reasoning but do not succumb to censorship do not succumb to complying with various government funded outfits regardless of what government they're funded by to censor let your users decide what's good and what's bad well early in my colleagues you know neal you need to trying to discuss why muffet media is being put under the microscope. it began with c.n.n. shedding light on the fact that a number of media pages with posts of snappy videos have links to russia but what people watching these videos may not realize is that the russian government is paying for this soapbox waisted that them are three new facebook pages and all part of

a growing brand of russian backed influence campaigns maffet runs for pages they are indeed very popular with billions of views as their creators are saying but it wasn't indicated on the pages themselves where their money came from and so just as the c.n.n. came out with their bombshell report as they're calling it the magic steam noticed that their pages were being blocked even though there is no such rule that makes revealing the funding a must i've spoken to the math and she told me what she believes could be behind this kind of unprecedented punishment by the social network there's a very sensitive divisive. noxious policy taking place right now in terms of venezuela we don't know if this is the segment that triggered it the timing is convenient when someone calls out what's happening in venezuela

a blatant coup it ruffles the wrong feathers ruffled the feathers of think tanks that spend millions and millions if not billions of dollars to persuade. and to lobby their interests and so when someone there's a video that goes against that and that videos gets hundreds of thousands of views on a platform that has millions of views people start to notice and they get upset and i believe that's why we were targeted but it was the question is here how does my fake at any point attempted to hide information about its links about its shareholders even well let's just make it clear matter. does get some of its funding from the russian government and it is partially owned by an r.t.a. subsidiary but they were never trying to hide this in fact when they employ someone they always tell them everything about the parent companies so that people know who they work for and the companies officially registered in germany so anyone

can check out the company registry there and find out all the necessary information where the owners the founders are the funding where it comes from it said true well going back to what facebook did to my fake you'd expect the social network to come up with some sort of warning before taking the pages down well none of this happened and here's what else we heard from someone else from management but they haven't even gone as far as having any kind of policy articulated about it at all so we were fully compliant with all facebook policies at all times and there is no requirement whatsoever to display any type of funder information on facebook pages and it is common practice to not do so c.n.n. weren't the first ones to start digging into fakes links to russia germany's marshall fund got involved first which drew the attention of the likes of glenn

greenwald the journalist was disturbed by what he called a trio that could have been behind this kind of censorship so not bloggers and journalists were impressed by how facebook was dealing with the situation and by how c.n.n. was spinning it the pages pushing the videos do not disclose they're backed by the russian government. ok all right i didn't know you had to put who funded you and when you put you put up a video i didn't know that because we have lots of different funders at this show we have over three thousand people who voted us through patriot and we have probably another couple thousand people through pay pal so we have a lot of people that fund our show to have to name every one of them every time i put up a video so quite a few people in the online community and the journalist community have something to say about this however when it comes to facebook the math fix team hasn't heard from them yet even though they sent out numerous appeals. let's

discuss this further now and go live to journalist martin some as mr summers thank you for joining us on the program now as we just heard mastic c.e.o. believes that they may have been targeted for their coverage of the venezuela crisis how likely is that do you think. well off it's the whole thing stinks really doesn't it i mean it's censorship by any other name there's been never any secret about these online videos source all or who's put iraq there or why on the basis just been said in your report they can't put everybody's links in who's funding things and things should be on the internet if you're going to have net neutrality if people want to watch stuff that should be allowed to watch it on this is part basically of information warfare and facebook are under attack supposedly for aiding and russian interference in the us elections and for other

so-called offenses that they've committed and of course there are questions i mean with just a commons report here about facebook's extraordinary power to decide who can and who can't be seen on the internets and stephanie questions to answer there but this is straightforwardly political censorship because place book or under pressure from the u.s. government. it seems that these pages will be in plain allies because they haven't listed their parent companies but how it interested do you think audiences are in the parent companies of the pages they follow. well they monitor some interest but if there's going to be some good to say who's funded what they're looking at than then than everybody's got to be included not just to the russian government's let's i mean is the russian government allowed to have a presence on the net or not i mean does the b.b.c. have a presence on the notes yes it does does the australian broadcasting corporation have a presence on the net of course it does and for everybody involved in journalism

has a presence on the net why shouldn't the russian government or rather the russian television it's not directly the russian government why shouldn't they be allowed to have their follow up stuff on the net as well it doesn't make any sense to slow the wars does it where do you see facebook going with this do you think it's going to force everyone to list their backers on their facebook pages and do you foresee any dangers to that kind of role well if that's the way we're going to go than what's in the should be a discussion about it and that's what that's what may be decided this is an arbitrary decision taken in very extreme political circumstances and as your contributors suggested the main thing that they're upset about is presenting an alternative narrative about what's happening in venezuela when the us is backing an attempted military coup it's psychological warfare. but there's no other word for it is that given we can read into the fact that facebook is coming down on these pages that are affiliated with r.t.

why isn't facebook coming down on harder on other sites like al-jazeera or daughter velour for not publishing details of that back as for instance. well it says so it's politically partisan isn't it you either do you have the same rules for everybody or you basically pick and choose what you want people to see and hear and i think there is a question whether facebook should have the power to decide what people see and hear i mean the theory beyond the internet was if more people wanted to see something than they should be allowed to see it and the of the when you do internet searches the things that come up when you put a question in he's supposed to find the thing that most people are looking at but of course they've now started talking about changing the algorithms by which they do this to try and pick and choose what people should and shouldn't see which is of course a break with the way the internet supposed to operate and it's largely because what happens in that circumstance is that governments like the u.s. government in this case simply can't control the narrative in the way they used to before the internet came along and they're getting worried about that and they're

trying to trying to stop it not in some of those journalists thanks for joining us and sharing your thoughts on the ac. facebook is also facing pressure from the british parliament a hard hitting report from the house of commons accuses facebook of failing to protect its users from data breaches as well as from alleged russian descent from a nation reporting from westminster has on the set. well facebook is under fire following a damning over one hundred page report following eighteen months of work by a u.k. parliamentary committee now this is a report that looks at a handful of issues including alleged foreign and russian interference in elections but it's really facebook that gets a mouthful in this particular case from u.k. lawmakers described as a digital gangster that's ahead of and beyond the law it's accused of misleading parliament treating it with content and quote intentionally and knowingly violating

data privacy and competition laws and more facebook continues to choose profit over data security taking risks in order to prioritize their aim of making money from user data it seems clear to us that facebook only when serious breaches become public and making it even more personal here is what the committee chair had to say on mark zuckerberg specifically mark zuckerberg continually fails to show the levels of leadership and personal responsibility that should be expected from someone who sits at the top of one of the world's biggest companies well zuckerberg despite refusing to appear in front of this committee as many as three times really infuriating them for refusing to show up. basically respond via facebook statement saying that they believe they have contributed enough to the work that the committee was carrying out. we share the committee's concerns about fox news and election integrity and our police have made

a significant contribution to their investigation over the past eighteen months on three more than seven hundred questions and with four of our most senior executives giving evidence well accusations are very well but in terms of what specifically this committee now wants is a code of ethics to be introduced as well as a possible legal action in case of breach of that code they want a reform of electoral laws in the u.k. and these platforms such as facebook being forced to take down distance from asian and harmful content as well as having to take to pay taxes in the u.k. well now it has to be said that this committee before has previously been unhappy with not enough reaction and action from the u.k. government following their suggestions we'll have to wait and see if this time will be any different. a prominent french military officer who helped coordinate the fight against islamic state in syria could be set to face punishment after he

published a startling critique of the u.s. led coalition's anti terror tactics here's our paris correspondent. damning criticism from a senior french military official this is the guy in charge of french artillery aiding could forces on the syrian a rocky border he's criticized the u.s. coalition tactics saying that it's actually putting civilians at risk the battle of hygiene was won at least on the ground but by refusing ground in gage meant we unnecessarily prolonged the conflict and thus contributed to increasing the number of civilian casualties we have massively destroyed the infrastructure and given the population a disgusting image of what may be a western style liberation leaving behind the seeds of an imminent resurgence of a new adversary hundreds of people have died as thousands of forms have a rained down in those attacks alleged by the u.s.

coalition and it comes this criticism as president trump is about to declare an outright victory against eisel in syria but the colonel doesn't think that's the case we have a no way won the war because we lack a realistic and lasting policy and an adequate strategy how many how genes will it take to understand that we are on the wrong track colonel made those criticisms in the national defense review which has since taken down his article and it seems that the colonel is about to face sanctions for not getting permission to publish that article before his military forces it had a chance to look at it but his testimony adds weight to what we've already heard from groups such as amnesty international and for action against armed violence who's talked about the high cost of civilian casualties in syria as a result of the u.s. led coalition's actions and the way that it operates in that country now that's

despite the fact that the u.s. says it doesn't target norm coleman buttons the question is now as president trump is about to declare this victory over eisel it's a victory many are saying including this colonel at what cost at what cost for the people of syria. well french political journalist and commentator on elizabeth new table leaves the article with the late it because military chiefs didn't like it if you are in the army you are actually screws not to write anything but you know where does that leave this magazine and other magazines and websites in which officers do discuss this defaulters general is written by muesli serving officers and they give a sort of considered opinion it was deleted because there was a feeling that this officer. of revealing tactics. was not mandate to do so and also i think basically because some people got angry

because he was saying this is not the right tactics for the french army and i think somebody was annoyed because it looked like it was not the exact line of. the chief of staff and as a result that given to the city to an article that would have been practically unknown. don trans told europe's leaders they should repatriate militants wanting to return from syria we'll tell you how that's going down across the atlantic among our stories after the break. thank you.

but politicians do something to. put themselves on the line. to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to express interest. some want to. achieve right. that's what the. real people. interested in the why. should.

welcome back with i still militants in syria facing imminent defeat the u.s. president has called on european countries to repack trade over eight hundred afghan nationals who joined the so-called caliphate so they can be put on trial otherwise donald trump says the extremists will be released from detention in syria the comments come as washington looks to dramatically scale back its involvement in the conflict because donald reports. for a while it seemed the british had the whole of leave or remain clash monopolised in the news which didn't last long though the americans are now somewhat piggybacking on this leave remain rao in their own way however over troops in syria it is time to give our brave warriors in syria a warm welcome home bring our troops home u.s. troops will be withdrawing from syria we have won against isis isis has been defeated the fight against isis and violent extremists is not over our goals are

the same and we will maintain forces yet the generals who are openly grumbling about their commander in chief's order seem to be missing the point syria has become a whole potato in a game being played out in the highest echelons of power in the us and the new united states will begin to hand off the fight to our partners in the region no glory and no media friendly war victory potential just a burden so why not let others do the dirty work and to eat others mean europe of course europeans in turn say a they're not janet has to clean up after washington there is no prospect of british troops go in and to replace the american troops living and therefore be this is no way the us should be leaving a possible power vacuum is the stanwood is it a good idea of the americans to pull out of syria immediately and so swiftly

doesn't it make the possibility of iran and russia increasing their influence there . how can you be very firm on iran and at the same time abandon north eastern syria like that we know very well that might end up boosting iran's presence in the area for me it's a mystery to washington tosses the potato right back and up the stakes to not only the use should fill the void the u.s. leaves behind on. the ground but also take back hundreds of nationals who once left to join i saw a trump a mystery thought he was pretty convincing openly scaremongering europe into submission twenty fifteen one hundred thirty people were killed in paris twenty sixteen eighty six killed a nice twelve killed and christmas truck bombing of berwyn twenty seventeen thirteen killed in spain so does it matter what happens over there he'll yeah it matters he was serious it's not some dark joke senator lindsey graham spent

a whole minutes meticulously going through a list of all the horrendous terrorist attacks that have left europe scarred the thought that this could have the absolute opposite of fact never crossed his mind apparently these attacks you have every do we do way that we handled the situation there i'm not saying that this justifies the terrorist attack in the country i'm just saying that to put these attacks as an argument to really engage militarily this is just putting more pressure on the flames and is not going to solve the problem the only thing that you're going to have by more military engagement syria is more terrorist attacks it's as simple as that. this whole rao though makes one truth glaringly obvious neither trump nor europe each

for reasons of their wrong do not want to be serious cleanup crew on or in this case has no gain so why not take credit for all that is done and run away. is a fierce debate ongoing in britain over the possible return of a nineteen year old i still members wife to me a big erm is a british origin and has spent four years in syria she was to return to the u.k. to raise her newborn baby i think a lot of people here have like sympathy toward me for everything i've been through they never did anything. and i never carry. serious if you run away to join isis likes i mean i'm a big room i will use all my power to stop you coming back it is the case we can't make people stateless but without getting to drawn into the specifics the approach that we take as a government which is the responsible one is to ensure that we protect the british public the girl left the u.k. in two thousand and fifteen along with two other teenage girls she was fifteen at

the time pictures show they met in istanbul bus terminal seeking china's it to syria she said one of her friends later died when her home was bombs back then had previously given birth to two children who died from malnutrition however she says she doesn't regret fleeing to syria and that her experience made her a stronger person we asked people in the london neighborhood where back i'm used to live about whether they think she should be allowed to return home. the teachers ship it out for life under supervision if any one of. the dangers of many countries offering to meet only. offering this is something that's really really serious and are going to turn on people who have children or it's not just the teachers are to be monetarily followed on this show is a very tight ship it really should not just because she's at home a once this is a real class. how would you feel if she was to move into your neighborhood or next

door to. the wouldn't be to solutions to. probably wouldn't talk to going so much on markets. but we discussed the can control the same with john moody who is depend vies the u.k. home office on counterterrorism and former military intelligence officer philip ingram. he's an individual who chose to leave the u.k. of room free will swear allegiance to a false state of terror organization terror organization wanted to destroy the very way of life that she had run away from and that terror organization has stated and have killed people in the u.p.a. she still remains loyal to jihad condemned she hasn't felt any remorse for what she's done so the british government's choices with liquid any effort in to bring your lack of my personal views of them think there should be real difficulties when she came back she would be

a burden on society i believe she should be allowed back because she was groomed as a child not as an adult she was brainwashed with fully aware that the ashes are blind propaganda is remarkably powerful so should show some level of mercy in tendency and i think it would also be advantageous for us if she were to come back because we could perhaps bond pick the influence that they were able to have on her and possibly divert or at least you know obstruct other people from going in the future new mysteries of the why we should better back in still you cases and can become stateless then on that basis she should be allowed back in safely we don't know of any crime she's actually i think we have the capability to ensure that she is fully integrated back into somebody's life. one of the world's greatest tennis legends has reignited around whether transgender athletes taking part in women's competitions just

a few months off the being called out over an incendiary would see any retreat at tweet us both corresponded to like the r.s.s. gas story. you cannot just proclaim yourself a female and be able to compete against women there must be some standards and having a penis and competing as a woman would not fit that standard this tweeted by one of the greatest female tennis players ever eighteen time grand slam winner martina navratilova set off an explosive backlash last december transgender activists namely transgender world cycling champion rachel mckinnon from canada lashed out forcing the tennis legend into an apology and a promise to read up on the subject now another dealer has broken her silence in an article for the times in britain she says she has researched the issue and that her beliefs have only been strengthened a man can decide to be female take hormones when everything in sight and perhaps earn a small fortune and then reverse his decision and go back to making babies if he

still desires it's unseen and it's cheating never to have a specifically stressed that in order to achieve fairness in a competition by reducing hormone levels and method that many sport organizations have adopted to accommodate transgender athletes males would have to start that treatment before puberty something she branded as thinkable she also stressed that there should be a clear distinction between transgender and transsexual athletes with the latter having no competitive advantage due to the surgical nature of their sex change having cited several examples of both the tennis great also condemned what she called the vilification of athletes who want to be different recounting her own experience of being one of the first high profile athletes to come out as gay back in one thousand nine hundred one even so never to have a slam toward twitter rival transgender world cycling champion rachel mckinnon and pulled no punches keenan who says she received more than one hundred thousand hate

messages on twitter after winning the world championship has presented herself and other transgender athletes. victims of prejudice that can be no excuse for such ignorance and nastiness but i also deplore what seems to be a growing tendency among transgender activists to denounce anyone who argues against them and to label them all as trans faults that ideal of a perfect preempted the fresh wave of criticism aimed at her with mackinnon and several pro transgender activist groups immediately branding her as trans phobic the renewed spat comes amid a legal battle between south african runner caster semenya and the international association of athletics federation the athletes challenging the acceptable to start their own limits for female athletes which were introduced by the i last year it's an increasingly complex and emotional subject and the battle which looks unlikely to subside anytime soon. r.t.

reporting from moscow. and if you have something you'd like to say we would love to hear it so you do get in touch by following us on social media and if you call your comments that will back at the top of the hour with the latest see that. after the previous stage of my career was over everyone wondered what i was going to do next the multiple different clubs on one hand it is logical to set off on fields where everything is familiar on the other i wanted a new challenge and the fresh perspective i'm used to suppressing and that's all. i'm going to talk about football not the or else you can see it go.