hello and welcome to worlds apart the departure of donald trump from the white house twitter and many other social media platforms has left many americans ecstatic but astonished many more of just how much power of the big tech companies have accumulated over our lives love or hate trump it isn't his jack order executed

at such a politically opportune moment a warning shot for all of us not only in america but everywhere in the world well to discuss that i'm now joined by ramesh 3 of us and a professor of information studies at the university of california los angeles press is good to talk to you thank you very much for your time it's nice to meet you thank you for having me i know that you fully support removing trunk from social media platforms and yet you also find twitter is and the other big tech companies decision just as spanish is accounts somewhat problematic why is that you know we don't quite see that i support sort of a. trump per se i think long before we reach this point there should have been enough there should have been a set of guidelines and rules everybody technology platform followed around specific kinds of excuses by which people might be. maybe if not d.

platforms take into steps they're on the way to there and that is not what happens and i think those cases and just a kind of weird out should be for folks for individuals who have huge viral any meaning what they say what they share can go very viral it's for those kinds of individuals if they are stating information that is going viral that is obviously false and or heedful it is by these algorithms that are influencing the visibility of content that is heat fall and viral in those cases we need to intervene further process a and i'm sure you know better than i do that obviously false and hateful. and very very subjected to finish as in this day and age and i speak to you from russia i have covered a number of wars and hurricane leftwards before and i can tell you that you know.

there is almost never an agreement on what is good and what is bad when it comes to your highly politically sensitive issue is why are you comfortable with all your criticism of the big tech companies and we will go into more details later but with all your criticism of the big tech companies why you're comfortable giving them this right to decide what's good and what's bad what's right and what's wrong oh no no no that's actually the complete opposite of what i'm saying i think we need 3rd party regulatory systems in place i mean of course of the big if the tech companies themselves who are going to make decisions and disclose them to the public and we can all be on the same page and we can trust them and they'll do the right thing and so be it i mean that would obviously be ideal to be more collaborative and co-operative i don't believe in inherently trying to be imposition all however to the earlier point you need a. president trying to use twitter and other mechanisms as loughlin

mechanisms as well to incite a riot that took over the capitol building and killed multiple people ok and so sir it's these kinds of conditions that we have to be extremely careful about and that's not just anybody i'm all for the unit being a supporting free speech that is the foundation of our country actually just one sect it's also the commission of the country and the best parts of the country and it's the foundation of the internet its content that directly leads to violence that is likely to go viral which are clearly is where we need since your but professor you know that the united states has a pretty solid legal system this is one thing that many countries out of me and your definition of hate speech is also. very well tested and there have been legal precedents before and i think if you actually study those legal precedents i'm absolutely sure i mean like oh pretty confident at least that.

comments could not be qualified as hate speech and that's that's that and that would be a decision harts up to him in legal means don't you think that it's a big dangerous substituting the law with tweeters own guidelines let them see you trying to lead them find him liable for what he did and then proceed wouldn't that be a better course you know my put my point really is is is that in cases where the content is likely to go viral and i understand he speech is an interpretive act and anyway these 3rd party these are private corporate platforms they're not governments they don't have to necessarily completely follow these free speech guidelines because of section $230.00 which is part of the name of the communications decency i just want everybody to understand this it basically allows these tech companies to not be liable for content that might be hateful or or false and i don't have an issue with

that necessarily i just think in certain cases we're content is going to have real world effects that lead to violence we need to have some sort of system of governance or collaboration that's what i'm getting at but i think a much larger point which we agree on is that you know you can't just you can't just accept that private companies are just going to magically do the right thing i think what we're talking about are private companies and their decisions that are now when we look at their ratings and the profits other half are they get i think it's a good it's very clear that trump and the media have benefited lastly from one another because i sleep because as you often talk about that and your interview as many media business models based are precisely on amplifying the conflict what i don't understand is how taking somebody off especially somebody with such a huge following not. in the united states but around the world how is that going

to solve or even reduce the problem and yeah i mean i don't think that i don't think our long term solution to these issues are about the platforming or censoring i'm not we're not actually in much disagreement on this i think the much larger issue is that we have a parasitic system a system that is very dysfunctional for democracy or the health of any society anywhere including in russia and that system is one and this is not just social media this is also our television networks as well there is a relationship between. you know whoever can get people kind of going crazy in their mind get their attention it's you have already received yes absolutely but and if x. is noam chomsky's authorship and manufacturing consents which basically makes the argument now our media networks are governed by corporate private agendas so my point is that my point isn't the isn't to negate that existence but to realize that

there has to be a public private balance in every system and mediation or one thing suffers versus the other professor when you agree with everything he says that this is essentially a parasitic system that. uses. the public for its own commercial interest and perhaps even ideological interest and never get used to poor you know cases when it does it for its own purposes like when it's separate diplomat from somebody like donald trump because it feels you don't really write wait because you think that it makes the system even more parasitic i mean like it's it doesn't i double of the car my position is that there is a much larger parasitic system at play here and that is the system that we need to have some balance within in a vacuum the platforming trump this point i guess is is is the right thing to do i

think that there should have been pro practices that were in place long before we reach this point and here's an opportunity here's the i'm going to tell you the optimistic vision around us there's a huge opportunity i believe right now for us to get these things in a more balanced relationship so i don't you know it was pretty irrelevant at the point when trump was deep platforms i mean it was like the last few days of his presidency i'm fairly sure as the years that equally symbiotic relationship between . twitter and trump that's and the media more generally. now 2 you said that it's pretty much irrelevant because he is on his way out his alibi actually but there are lots and lots of people here not if they 74000000 in fact who have voted for him and. you've started communications are also started communications in the united states i sense that we may grieve that they will defy him not because of his great task admittedly grotesque style but probably because of some of the issues

that he represents and. let's be but you know honest in terms of political science here he has raised some of the issues that they at least have never at times before him d. d. industrialization of the economy the loss of jobs the ever growing monopoly of the big tech companies aren't you concerned that diplomat for it depart from him at this point of time will also silence those very very important things yes i mean you're right the resolution to the to the challenges that you're raising which i completely agree with you around which led to the rise of president trump does not come from the part for a minute this point or another point that's just like you know like a little ants on an elephant's or something like that it's not not the real issue present it very effectively gave voice to people sense of alienation and in a classic neo-fascist playbook he played the race card in combination with people's

notions of economic and other forms of socially an issue because quite honestly you are correct. people are really needed because they're i mean look at this country right now the life expectancy is decreasing. the this generation in this country for the 1st time in history makes less than its parents and there are a lot of things we can do about it trump gave voice to that but his resolute his solution to that was to pass the biggest tax cut in the history of discovery for billionaires. i worked directly and was honored to floor senator bernie sanders there was a whole other vision in there and the one thing i'm very grateful about and i'm an optimist and progressive optimist is that we are seeing movement already on day one from president biden. that resonates with some aspects of what our champion was about and i agree let me also ask you have about president biden because one thing that i was pretty surprised by is the softening of the tone bible trump and biden

towards one another trying to wishing the new administration all the success by then acknowledging that he received a very gracious and general letter by trump and what it suggests to me at least is that there may be some. efforts to reach out behind the scenes. because i think biden thousands and is that is that if they really want to bring together the country as they have promised trump could aid them in this regard and i think trumbull also understands that if he wants to stay politically active or politically alive he needs biden not to go after him with the you supported this unholy alliance of biden and trying for the sake of you know uniting the country and what do you then support reinstating the social media comes because he still has these immense influence within the. aggrieved parts of the country

this illusion will never be to permanently the platform anyone including trump that's never the solution as far as the this sort of trump biden thing as we both know. it's a soap opera. as far as some factions trump an ministration or maybe even trying consult having back channel conversations with president biden and his administration that's entirely possible but to me the resolution of the issues that led to trump. and are and based upon the experience of ilion nation working people in this country those are issues that president biden must take extremely seriously and i believe he will be let's see what happens and i believe he will be because i think he recognizes that this is a different time in 2008 when president obama was elected people know better people know that you know promises by elites corporate elites liberal elites neo liberal

elites. you know can often be hollow and you know as and so the real question for me is will try and do things that are actually needed to how. to help people feel less alienated professor string of us and we have to take a very short break right now the people the back in just a few moments stay tuned. so we were dissenters you'll tell us who. are just going you would know there's a well. known.

given those who just came up with a ticket did you hear that oh. and how to cut is a very international community it. can be used to try to. do just. that as the. need to eat. so the position of the world is through the brazil so their new course we're going to go is everything because he was the leader with the concepts to do with the above the. back to go back but i decided not to take the place. with my get you that.

welcome back to worlds apart a bit but i mashed it in a bus and a professor of information studies at the university of california at los angeles a professor you know openly called before for regulatory intervention and perhaps even transformation of those big tech companies once the bast possible way to do that as far as your concern if you for asking that question we have bipartisan agreement actually and for his own reasons president trump himself supported doing something about the oversight just outside of our big there are many to last the way he is one of the very few high ranking officials who actually ties that. which is it which is highly highly ironic given that his entire brand and in many ways his entire popularity and his hijacking of our journalistic system and his attacks on journalism were partly pre-condition based upon his social media presence right

so you know the thing that's really remarkable right now look senate is we have bipartisan we have spent 70 percent of americans who support some sort of some forms of reform we have 47 i believe out of 50 state attorney generals looking at regulatory issues involving facebook with the trumps department of justice was investigating antitrust issues and the federal trade commission and i as a as a registered democrat and a progressive have many many. folks in congress and their staff members contacting me about various bills that they have so what i think we need to do is is a couple there are 3 major planks to this we need to think about how economic livelihoods in this country are being affected as you pointed out very well with the so-called post industrial economy which is increasingly data and digitally oriented so we need to ensure that jobs and labor and economic issues are protected because it's incredibly unequal in our world today and in this country you know 3 people with equal and look at what happened during this endemic all this money and

he said that politics has only become sharper as the signal logical and that's what's happened you mentioned that you've been talking to people in power on this issue but what are they really are chances of any of these reforms being passed by the new administration reaches clearly supported by the big tech companies not all the ideologically but also in terms of campaign contributions do you buy it and administration really has an awful motivation to go against its corporate sponsors that's a really good question so i just want to just lay out the other 2 components just just so i finish what i was saying you have to thing. the economic issues we have to think about political to simper mission and the polarization issues we discussed earlier and we have to think about personal privacy issues as well ok so those are the 3 of you to light enters a station abscess in your building or you know you know question. i don't think

they have any choice i don't think they're not there i don't i don't think so because i think that right now there is such a groundswell of attention and energy around these issues that i think some steps will be taken but this completely depends i'm who the advisors are in the federal communications commission who just you know where the office of science and technology policy which was just named its top directors a couple of days ago where where where they stand i will say this because i can say this now publicly i was part of the bone in her innovation policy committee who are the people on it. but i do know though that there was a common interest in. so you always start with what you people say you're an army each other our 1st goal will always be to think about real collaboration can i trust you can you trust me we start there we don't start by by demonizing per

vilifying or illian getting maybe that's a very naive california and like hippie progressive way of looking at it but you know there's a hand when you have everything that anything that's confusing people and corporations when it comes to campaign contributions that eats not the dollar trust professor really thought about trust it's about going against very very powerful multi-trillion dollar financial issue yes and i think donald trump had you know even though like much bigger problems when he tried to challenge much similar interests do you think that the biden harris ticket is really up for that. cynthia and i very much i very much agree with you that the real power is in huge is entrenched you know multi-trillion dollar kind of corporations i don't think they issued a larger issue of corporate governance over all aspects of our lives are going to be resolved immediately or by the will power somehow of this administration

magically this is a neo liberal system we live under the question is whether social movements whether organizations whether advocacy can move the needle you know we don't we don't can't move from the status quo to some to some sort of ideal like equal system but we have to kind of move things i mean this is the reformist perspective but it's a real reformist perspective i agree you can't just magically think that things are going to change through good will there are entrenched political interests and just give you one example that people don't realize for example mark zuckerberg people say that the shareholders of. facebook could choose to remove. a man is the certainly supporting that that's actually impossible because of the dual class share structure zuckerberg has a different class an acquisition investment where he actually can't be removed he has total authority now professor if i had him make me happy and me ask you a question that is very close to my heart as as

a professor of information that is i'm sure you are fully aware aware of my channel's reputation in the united states and that's what i saw grateful to you for at appearing on my show but i think that reputation is driven by real philosophical ontological differences big thing here liberal globalist world view and many tech companies happen to support that will be and the they also happen to be very very aggressive towards people or companies entities who do not support that that and it's not just about trying to jump is just the most vivid example but there are many. many efforts you suppress channels like mine and many others who do not subscribe to the globalist agenda and you concerned that this term misinformation or dissent from nation that by the paris administration uses a lot of it in because their nations being applied very liberally pun intended here

obviously. that term gets thrown around without the analytical rigor around what that means and i think that the be often in the room all was is that is that is the outsized power of private so-called liberal interests over the over 99 percent of people especially around the world and definitely in the united states so you know you will have no disagreement from me on that all of us are compromised in some manner or another i you know and compromise demand we not like and like a lot not a political issue or something but i have a car that uses fossil fuel i have a facebook account i have what's right so you know we're all imbedded with in particular systems that are neoliberal so well for our team and you i see you as a legitimate journalist asking great questions i know other people on our team who

are also very much like that and i'm open to having conversations you know does our teeth take money from the russian state which has which is problematic in many ways of course is the united states problematic and says that that's problematic but i'm at it as far as i'm concerned that's not me i'll turn into a business model to you. there one that we discussed earlier amplifying the conflict there is pretty much she ended up going to hear a corporate interests there is there is i mean look at what happened with their with the sanders campaign we raise way more money than anyone else people are giving 20 bucks 10 bucks 17 but not all but we are talking about media and you cannot have a media with a global outreach. going to cover u.s. led war if you're not supported by the state because it's simply impossible to do that by corporate means you can't if you can a big profit driven but. i was joined by your colleague chris angelus on democracy now last week it's not it's not funded by the u.s.

state department or the government and certainly not by big private corporations that it's very it's out of reach is also quite limited i'm not saying down here and no exceptions but i think in generally speaking it would be ugly to read that it's it in the in those are the 2 predominant business models for the media as far as the international outreach is concerned if you want to do interviews on the let's say be as soon that's possible but if you want to go to libya and syria and see what the we there revolutions looks like here and let me tell you i mean they have events on capitol hill would look like a child child's play compared to what happened in benghazi where people were hanged on lamp post and twitter wasn't suspending them back then so i guess. m. is actually in egypt 10 years ago reading about the arab spring and i drove around 20 which is funded by the qatari state so my point again is that they're all war they're all sorts of they're all was alliances that may not be pure or ideal and

i'm and we're all in that world and all we can do is do the best we can to support the values not really but i guess what i want to ask is you mentioned before before that regard listen where we are in the world we are all using that infrastructure but most of those companies are privately owned and the u.s. based and they have ties perhaps unofficial ties to the american government assume for the sake of argument if you guys figure out how to regulate those big tech companies within the united states what about the rest of us how much they should be have. those platforms operate and what they consider to be appropriate. are inappropriate but the rest of do well and love that question thank you for asking it absolutely. like the state the russian state the state of sri lanka the state of the philippines the state of my own market where facebook has has created all sorts of problems for people in my big distorting reality which

leads to violence and actual attacks against. you know and in many cases muslim minorities like it for example we saw it in my own mark. and we saw it in sri lanka right because facebook misrepresented the reality because they didn't know any better so the goal so any form of mediation any network or social media system or technology system has to be kind of immediate it through the prism. of a state or a regulatory apparatus i mean i do applaud and i'm friends with some people who wrote the general data protection regulations for the european union you can't just trust a private tech company whose goal is to keep you on their stuff all the time who monitors you even if you never created in the account you monitors even if you're not online you know and words known and right there in moscow has made the point that these things are recording us even when their own airplane and he's right he's right so like we can't be naive about this but you know this is. going to have

a counterpoint when these type of infrastructure will be consider it public good. i wish specially because i the internet was you know i'm not saying it's the same thing that it is today but it was initially funded by united states taxpayers ironically enough kind of be arpanet and the cold war and all this nonsense right by like the it was it was set up that way but you know we have a real big problem in this country we're all the costs borne onto the 99 percent socialist and all the profits and now these days we're talking about valuation it's not even profits anymore we're doesn't make any money is not profitable worth hundreds of billions of dollars a great example this is what you need to verify because the greek minister a former greek parliamentarian caused the zombification of capital you know so yeah i mean this is this is a huge huge issue and challenge i come alive. i want to share your optimism

that they knew of ministration real privately address there i have my doubts but anyway we have to believe that their presence going great to talk to you and thank you very much for sharing. that was so much thank you thank you for having me today and thank you for watching come to syria again next week for the world a part of. all.

join me every thursday on the alex salmond and obviously going to get a feel of the world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see that. in the stories the change of the week frustration mounts in countries that opted for the covert pfizer vaccine with supply problems in europe and north america some people in the us are having to travel to neighboring states just to get inoculated . meanwhile a mass vaccination campaign kicks off in russia with its put make the job as an increasing number of other countries also choose to use it and renowned serbian film director gave us his take on the vaccine. created to be. exposed to the possibility of good. me as i was told by

someone who know me.