the government. form in the country. using its. authority struggled to cope with the deadly winter storm sweeping the states. this is. the 1st.

shipment. from moscow to the world this is our team my names you know me let's get straight story. government has accused. use of power after the social media block publishers in the country from sharing news posts like. taylor earlier talked through the story. rough start to the day if you are a news junkie or a millennial and facebook is the open in the morning because on thursday all of a stray a wake up to find that its go to news platform had pulled the plug on any and all roekel and international stories not obviously sparked shock but also outrage now this is all because mogs are not a fan of proposed legislation in the country which would force attack and social

media companies to pay news publishers to repose that content facebook says this is unfair i'm not willing to negotiate and so on this really bold blanket ban a move which has infuriated government for facebook. sections were unnecessary they're way heavy handed and they will damage it's reputation here in australia their decision to block the strains access to government sites were completely unrelated to the media code which is yet to pass through the senate facebook's actions to unfriend australia today cutting off essential information services on health and emergency services. as they were disappointing i am in regular contact with the leaders of other nations on these issues we will not be intimidated by big seeking to pressure our parliaments as he votes on our important news media bargaining code so what we just heard that and this is what's really got

people talking on facebook now the proposed legislation is about news but facebook has gone beyond the meta us here and it's blocked pages that really can and do affect people's lives so the bureau of meteorology blocked far and a much and see services which post updates about deadly bushfires they've been taken down to charities including women's shelters or legal services for aboriginal people as well as very crucially state health departments which pay a really big role of course in the ongoing pandemic now some of those pages have been restored but it's too little too late straight out like all this is preparing it's code that 19 facts in roll out and now hospitals are worried that they will not be able to get out information to the people extremely concerning to find this morning that since vincent's melbourne's facebook page has been blocked these during the pandemic and on the eve of crucial covert vaccine distribution we hope

this situation can be rectified very shortly now a facebook spokesperson said that the banning of no news organizations was a mistake but some would argue that the reputational damage has been done already this is just one example we've seen recently over the past few months governments and big tech facing off again and again but is this just sort. adding fuel to the fire well absolutely particularly stateside how many times have we seen mark zuckerberg being pulled into those endless hearings and facing accusations that his platform doesn't tackle harmful content enough that it's engaged in censorship that it doesn't react quickly to allegations of abuse facebook in these circumstances often raises its hands and says you know what it's easier said than done it's a very difficult almost impossible task while the astray and situation now shows that actually it is that easy whereas apparently removing the live stream of the christ church massacre in new zealand wasn't for many this was the icing on top of

the case for a long time big tech face says allegations that it wields too much power the banning of course of the democratically elected president of the united states donald trump being the latest case in point so this latest situation just another example of silicon valley overreach and these actions will only confirm the concerns that an increasing number of countries are expressing about the behavior of big tech companies who think they are bigger than governments and that the rules should not apply to them they may be changing the world but that doesn't mean they run it but what today's events do confirm for australians is the immense market. of these media digital giants these digital giants loom very very large. in our economy. and on the digital landscape the hash tag delete facebook trending people are

asking is it compatible with to crissy some thought that facebook was too big to fail but looking at the anchor reactions it might well have triggered its own downfall here. well we'll be getting some more perspective on the story a little later in the program when i'm joined by a panel of guests there with r.t. for that on plenty more. deadly winter storm sweeping across the southern united states has left millions of americans without electricity for days texas has seen a record seasonal freeze with temperatures dropping as there was minus 18 degrees celsius for the 1st time in over 30 years it's led to ruling blackguards sunday extensive damage to. this is this is it i don't. know. where do you.

think it is the other bro oh it's going to get you through to wriggle appears to be here for birds and. meanwhile for 2 circulating online claim to show texas senator ted cruz flying to the mexican resort to be of can cool injuring the disaster crew 1000 commented on the pictures yet they've caused a massive backlash on social media and he's not the only politician in hot water a local mirror was forced to step down after his response to pleas for help from residents. no one owes you or your family anything nor is it the local government's responsibility to support you trying times like this sink or swim it's your choice the city and county along with power provide his or any other service owes you nothing it's pretty bad that you know it's texans you just can't hear or hold every other part of the country this would have been a huge issue in the late weeks in march for this election. so i see. 2 fold

hope. you got all the blankets out would try to all sleep together to keep us warm and then today when we got up there was no water we have no real update of when it's going to come on our phones barely work. while authorities in texas struggled to keep power grids up and running some are blaming wind turbines for the disaster they are frozen not on able to operate their however are delaying they blame squarely on the local government's doorstep up and takes up the story. without electricity texas residents are resorting to some rather desperate measures in the hopes of staying warm they are firing up the grill and the generators and some of the even tried to use their cars to heat their homes resulting in several deaths and over 300 cases of carbon monoxide poisoning people are dying from carbon monoxide poisoning we have had so many calls in so many incidents that we can't even track them all the major oil refineries of the state has shut down due to

freezing weather that bright new future of green energy isn't working out so well in the present the wind turbines that accounted for almost a quarter of texas is energy last year have frozen to a standstill every source of power that the state of texas has has been compromised whether it be renewable power such as wind or solar but also as i mentioned today. access to coal generated power access to gas generator power also have been compromised alternative energy sources have been a key aspect of the democrats' push for ecofriendly policies a key plank of our build back better recovery plan is building a modern resilient climate infrastructure and clean energy future that will create millions of good paid union jobs critics are blaming joe biden and the democrats saying they pushed climate friendly policies a bit too hard and branding the outcome catastrophic shows how the green new deal

would be a deadly deal for the united states of america if the last few days have proven anything it's that we need oil and gas relying solely on renewable energy would be catastrophic many of these sources have proven to be unreliable the united states may be a global superpower but at home it's a lacking power quite literally all of this critics say are symptoms of america in decline caleb r.t. new york one another suggested indication of a decline in the. truck to military presence on capitol hill around $5000.00 national guard troops are expected to remain in washington d.c. until the middle of next month but decision was reportedly made over lingering concerns of violence you're starting america's foreign friends with more. one of the places that i actually lived in was a news anchor was an el paso texas where you had fort bliss that is the 2nd largest army post in the country when we pulled up to the gates here this morning it looks

like i was walking into fort bliss there is a there's a whole street that's blocked off here that goes right into a checkpoint you'll see that these cars they go in they get check point by police by national guard and you see this is all happening literally just you know maybe 2 football fields away from our u.s. capitol you can also see to the left of the capitol here in our life we have almost like these little trailers that have been put on we have a lot of these members where they're actually staying there was 26000 troops here during the inauguration the numbers starting to go down but they want to have 5000 troops here scheduled again like you said till march 4th because you have a lot of cuban members talking underground and in sub right it's in you know you have a lot of these different you know social media outlets and they're going to talking about possibly coming back again on march 4th believing that trump will be reinstated as the president again the fence looks like it goes down for miles now it goes all the way to the reflection pool in front of the capitol you know this is the people's house kids come here on their snow days to slide down the hill and now

it's completely occupied by the national guard here i want you to look at the fencing right now normally you'd have barbed wire fencing you have barbed wire fencing outside of federal prisons this is razor wire this will kill you if you try to breach this fence here ok that fence that goes all the way around the perimeter of the capital $50000000.00 now again there's talks of having the national guard stay here until the early fall it's it's going to cost american taxpayers 2650000 per day to have 5000 troops here. the 1st sputnik feed coronavirus vaccine those are going to israel earlier stop the shipment from getting to medical facilities for both the blockade since being lifted the initial 2000 shelter intended for people in poor health and medical personnel working in intensive care units the emergency services and we translated the report from our a bit there. after coming under international criticism israel has allowed the

shipment of the 1st batch of the russian vaccine sputnik v into the gaza strip through the qur'an border crossing any almost. day the 1st batch of the russian vaccine has arrived it will be great help for all citizens certainly all of us will take the shot we hope other badges will arrive in gaza as well otherwise the street will simply crack under the pressure of the granddad. according to the health ministry the 2000 doses which have been shipped are intended for individuals in poor health and medical personnel dealing with coronavirus infected patients in intensive care units and emergency services staff but you have had a lot of extreme program will get underway on sunday morning in 2 centers in order to cover all the provinces of gaza the vaccination campaign will go on until we run out of jobs the health ministry affirms that the russian vaccine is one of the best and most effective among international analogs the russian vaccine will help cope

with the consequences of the pandemic affecting medical facilities due to a lack of capacity in. other receive other batches of the vaccine in the near future which will allow us to inoculate the whole population express our deepest gratitude to russia to its president government and people what they did for palestine. the shipment comes after israel prohibited vaccine supplies to medical facilities in gaza the reversal of the ban opens up the prospect for future shipments of the facts into gaza yes the. people in gaza call israel's decision to hamper the delivery of vaccines to gaza blackmailing some of thousands of sick people including children who need to be vaccinated urgently. former goldman sachs banker richard sharpe has officially been confirmed as the new chairman of the b.b.c. he's known as an ambitious man with an impressive list of contacts sharks got

a background in finance and has worked for some notable institutions in the sector he's also known for backing the conservatives donating hefty sums to the ruling party besides that sees also been an unpaid adviser to the u.k.'s finance minister during the pandemic and work for a current prime minister barak's johnson when he was mayor of london. who the chairman of the b.b.c. is a position appointed by the queen on the recommendation of the government mr sharp will take home a $160000.00 pounds a year taxpayer money of course that's around 220 $1000.00 for 3 or 4 working days per week british journalist and author francis beckett gave us his thoughts on the appointment. position you see is a long. long. time to maintain its independence and clean and price its. it has to animate so its relationship with the government. continually

compromise its independence and that it tries to pretend are no new former prime minister has used the power of control. of control of the german in quite the overtly political way johnson has just used the trouble with the appointment into it's not that it is a branch but that it is a banker with close ties to the conservative party i'm the banker. can these 2 sets of having of having a political agenda that is in line with the governments that appointed. you let's return to our top story in the dispute between the australian government and facebook which has seen a social media giant shutting down its news feed in the country and all the ramifications that not come without let's get some expert opinion on all of it and

bring in syndicated radio host of harrison's reality check kerry whoreson political commentator host of the pseudo intellectual podcast lauren chen author and former fester of liberal studies at n.y.u. michael rect and while you're all very welcome lauren can we kick off with you today facebook's move a pretty dramatic escalation of us the speed with the government wasn't it but essentially does it not boil down to the fact it's a private company their site their rules. you're right it absolutely is a private company and for the record i do not support the australian government's policy in this regard at all however if there is one thing that should all show us is the amount of control that facebook currently has who are our public discourse and actually i know some people were furious and that it wasn't just news agencies that are originally blocked by facebook but there was actually a time when some government sites or government resources were blocked as well facebook may be a private company but we cannot deny that in 2020 or 2021 rather it is part of the

public square you know whether that means that facebook should have to bend the knee and pony up money for the new sites that it does offer a link for i'm not sure but i think that countries all over the world should be paying attention over how much control facebook does have right now over really our democracy's when you think about it michael we hear a lot of council culture today but is not don't want this trailing government is doing saying to facebook you're going to have to pay to put earn news on your site which is a complete change in the relationship or else it is it's cancelled culture but in a way it's facebook has decided to cancel the entire australian news service so. there is a 2 way cancellation going on australia saying benefactor who they will not. permit their news to be disseminated without some reimbursement for ads and facebook named

them they're going to have it all so we have a kind of 2 when it cancellation going on facebook of course is notorious for cancelling people want to have companies and presidents and so on so this is no foreign territory for about kerry whatever way you break this down it's dreadful p.r. for facebook isn't it you have got a country and entire nation against you or your firm the stock price is way done there's boycott facebook pages everywhere an all to remember not part of the world the new zealand mosque must occur looms large that played live for 29 minutes on facebook live so why pick this bottle well the australians are not 1st in line to hate facebook i think most humans if the us actually get them in private will say they hate facebook but they all use it is to think i'm in california there is a law here that says you cannot use my likeness to sell your products that my explicit permission so if facebook is just doing peer to peer just handing this

material out and not profiting off of somebody else's work fine but they're making a fortune off your data off your work your toil and giving you nothing for it and i think that's really what city it issue here is that they've become this multinational ubiquitous global organ that just you know pounds the mallet down and if you don't want to play lauren at the end of the day though that facebook actually do anything wrong it simply decided they didn't want to pay news outlets for publishing their content can i put it to you what's wrong with it with a symbiotic relationship essentially when when the is truly news outlets get a bigger audience and awareness of their i put facebook gets to host the stories. well i am very very hesitant to defend big tech sites like facebook on anything but in in this case i have to say you are right i do not blame facebook for trying to push back against this policies for the for the longest time really news media and social media sites have like you said had a rather symbiotic existence

a social media sites out the news stories and in return these publishers they get more exposure and hopefully more traffic going back to their sites where they run their own ads and make money off of that so i although i don't like facebook by any means i also don't blame them for trying to put a stop to what i think is a very bad policy that in the end will only end up hurting smaller independent and perhaps even dissident sources in favor of a larger more establishment media sources michael something that often gets fired on facebook or on big tech in general in countries is not paying enough tax in australia it's sometimes the opposite done in the years they've been paying more per head in comparison to other big corporations with other in mind is cumber of perhaps shooting itself in the foot somewhat it could lose that revenue could lose jobs that the company provides it's not old it's a little pru for the australian government here is that there could be done sides but they're not taking into consideration right now it. well i think these news

organizations are at risk of disappearing that's really what's at stake and they really don't have any choice because they're not generating a kind of revenue is necessary that to run these news desks content of which facebook relies on if all the news organizations all the same sort of arrangement or demanded the same terms from facebook they'd be without any content all the same goes for users users are providing content for free to 1st facebook which facebook sells that's around if users desisted from posting statuses of any sort or commenting on other people's statuses than facebook would have any content around which to so anything so they really have no choice i think they're in a difficult situation in which they're looking at the eradication of good news rooms carry a similar point you who stands to lose the most in all this facebook its users are the australian government. well i think the dreaded d.

word of democracy was mentioned earlier and i vote yes for that word we have seen a whole cloth disruption of paid you know professional journalists guys that spent 30 years cutting their teeth and there are a lot of jobs because who's going to pay $80.00 grand plus benefits to write a story when you can get to me on his you know non-ferrous by no real credentials in journalism typing out something and make more money on those clicks so the question is for democracy is what is the threshold where people deserve to have real information and should they have to pay for it should facebook profit on someone else's work without giving them some what example r t wants to run a movie trailer for something the agreement is artier anybody else the agreement is you're promoting it only but you're not taking their trailer and making a profit off it and not promoting it so we're now at that point in human civilization where big tech has taken over and people are now saying well we have

a right to some of that love back other than just a nod or a like or a thumbs up lauren you can understand facebook's desire not to give in and start paying for news stories like google did once the box opens there's $200.00 other countries surely saying we want some to facebook but you do to the shareholders right. absolutely i think like one of your other guests mentioned if we start saying all right facebook will have to pay to feature news articles and news links what's stopping other forms of content from doing the same right what's from stopping any celebrity or social media influencer from saying alright if you want me on your platform you're going to have to pay for my posts i think this whole social media i guess ecosystem has really spun out of control in terms of how it is monetize and actually a i think more equitable if i can use that word solution to this would be to start talking about ways to break up the monopoly that facebook does have on advertising

and also on user data because the fact that so many eyes are on facebook is one of the reasons why this is even a point of discussion in the 1st place michael we mentioned ramifications perhaps one of them let me just give an example when twitter decided to buy those questioning the result of the u.s. election some users switched to alternatives like telegram do you see something similar happening in australia now there's a lot of negative views aren't there about the company right now among the public or how much do people care about this sort of thing maybe not at all. i think they care but there is this thing called the network effect which makes it very difficult to take your followers or your friends and just relocate them to a different site the network effect this such that facebook has this enormous advantage over other social media sites because they have the users and there's this kind of exponential development that's just almost impossible to almost insurmountable to overcome by just moving to another site well that's that's

a big question and i guess one of the ways i would think they should have derived their income should have been just from users paying for the service rather than giving away for free and surreptitiously charging advertisers and i think this is probably the one of the ways they could evolve the end of this entire scenario kerry can i just throw this out to you i don't know the answer at all but. why do you think google relented and facebook didn't. because google knows that its future is reliant upon the goodwill of others now let's remember back in around 2007 i happen to be one of those lucky ones who interviewed this guy who started facebook he was a nobody was still on my space my space everywhere and he said that he wanted to create an ecosystem similar to a a well at the time if we all remember dial up a oh well it closed circuit environment where all your dating your shopping your

opinions and that basically people who weren't able to have real friends in life could have thousands of friends make believe friends and call them their friends and you would never have to leave that world and it would do everything for you well that dream has come true and now all of us are sitting in the middle of it going well wait a minute it's either all capitalism where anything goes and we can all charge for everything or it's part capitalism or it's something but we're at that time of growth now where we actually have to make the grown up decisions and good on australia much of it is publicly funded media so they don't want some perversion and distortion of what has been capably written or discovered or researched just endlessly commodified into god knows what down the road so i think people have a right to own their own likeness and their own information ok we're just fostering to a close but if you want to offer something that perhaps i have enough and you want to tell me lauren just to start with you 20 seconds if you will well

a lot for talking about policies taken against big tech companies like facebook i would much rather the australian government follow russia's lead and actually start fining these companies for censoring media and censoring citizens because i think the big problem with facebook now isn't that they're putting too much traffic towards new sources is that they're actually trying to control what news sources people do and do not see mike a final thought. yeah i kind of want to read more embarrassed basically the biggest problem with facebook is that they're utterly controlling the narrative and they're completely shutting out news that doesn't obey the narrative and this and this goes for almost every issue down the line that's of the importance today the virus the vaccine the election and going to name an air precinct no issue they have complete control over kerry very last 10 seconds we have a personal responsibility we're stepping on mark zuckerberg flaunt he's not stepping in my lawn i'm stepping on his willingly so i can step off it and go

somewhere else. faster of liberal studies at n.y.u. university my correction wall syndicated radio host the partisans reality check curry hardison political commentator host of the pseudo intellectual podcast lauren chen thank you all. just a reminder to give us a follow on line art logo always fresh content a lively debate to be fun and i mean only saying bye for now. to. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see you then.

the post trauma era has begun for housing what role would the former president play within the republican party by all accounts trump intends to remain relevant if this is the case what is the future of the populist wing of the party and fourthly if indeed the g.o.p. is now the party of the working class will the party leadership in praise this direction. max kaiser this is the kaiser report it appears as though things are falling apart . well certainly when with those supply shortages that we're 1st seeing at the early days of the lockdown well we're seeing some significant law.