The headlines here on aljazeera back with more news in thirty minutes next inside story do stay with us. A fake news story that triggered a major geopolitical crisis the effects of still being felt across the gulf nations whole than eight months on how dangerous the storys done to to suit vested interests and what could be done to stop fake means this is inside store you. Alone and welcome to the program im Martin Dennis now in may last year cattles National News agency was hacked on its pages were comments attributed to the emir of qatar comments that were completely false but despite the fact that they were made up they were broadcast by al out of beer and other channels and that led saudi arabia United Arab Emirates bahrain and egypt to cut all ties with cata the four countries later handed over a list of thirteen demands that included shutting down aljazeera demands that were rejected catarrh then lodged a complaint against l r appear at the british media watchdog of com which is investigating the case cattles News Agency Says it was the inquiry that led the saudi and channel to surrender its license to the broadcast regulator. A beer denies q. And as claim and says it surrendered its license for business reasons the channel accuses algy. They are of exaggerating the decision to give up its license which means it cant broadcast in the u. K. And the e. U. Last month off come find the dubai based t. V. Station almost one hundred seventy thousand dollars for airing statements by a jailed bahraini Opposition Leader well the man who pretty much brought the term fake news into everyday speech is of course the us President Donald Trump we are fighting the fake tears its fake phony fake the Dishonest Media i call the fake dos the enemy of the people and they are those use fake news by n. B. C. Which gives a lot of fake news they can use that they can tell fake the press can be fake news the news is fake im changing from fake news though doesnt that under very fake i have would argue. But even some of trans ocean officials have been accused of sending out fake news like former National Security advisor Michael Flynn he too easy the news story tying Hillary Clinton to a child sexual abuse ring with its base of the virginia pizzeria the story was proven to be force that flynn only deleted it moved a month later and then theres the case of the Tense Exchange between pakistan and israel that was in twenty sixteen after a story was shared online its claimed israel had threatened a Nuclear Attack against pakistan if it sent troops to syria pakistans foreign minister tweeted to warn israel that it too was a Nuclear StateIsraels Defense Ministry tweeted back saying the story was totally fictitious. And in the last year Sri Lankan Police rounded up two dozen people after they were accused of causing violent clashes by spreading rumors that muslims were going to attack a sacred buddhist monument or had we can introduce our guests now joining us in the studio is Mohamed El Masri chair of the Journalism Program at the institute for graduate studies in good danske in poland we have tom law who is director of campaigns and communications at the Ethical Journalism Network and via skype from naples in italy we have pier Luigi Paganini founder of Security Affairs blog and member of the European Union agency for network and Information Security thank you all very much indeed for joining us mohammed let me start with you weve just had an indication of how serious fake news can be does anybody know how much there is out there. Well one of the problems is that researchers are still trying to kind of catch up with a lot of the data obviously publication cycles being being what they are we you know we dont have a lot of studies out yet on this phenomenon but one of the interesting studies that was published relatively recently were just within the last few months by by a Research Team was looking at fake news in the United States in the lead up to the American Election of two thousand and sixteen between trump and Hillary Clinton and what they found was that there were thirty eight million fake news stories shared by americans in the lead up to the election thirty million in favor of donald trump and about eight million seven and a half million in favor of Hillary Clinton and they go on to surmise youre using sort of Statistical Analysis based on how many people voted that its highly likely that the election was impacted the election result was impacted by these by these fake news stories and one of the problems is is social media quite frankly right i mean its kind of a blessing its a blessing and its a curse but there arent any filters there are no editors there are no gatekeepers anyone can act as a journalist and share whatever he or she wants and pier luigi i can see you nodding at that because the engine if you like a fake news is im wishing me or otherwise of course the internet yeah i totally share the point of view of the cali basically you call them i call them you got a permission we are facing we do military operation. By governments and the governments you use a social media either the social media was created on the concept of trust or so everyone. Can send these messages each is sometimes a huge quantity of people and its quite difficult to even think five this if youve got those that are working on our own social media luckily to the we have different men. Thoughts we have different means that could help ours to try to analyze what is happening in specific areas specific more in his specific region we are able to understand if the result a specific quantity of people that for example. Specific arguments if someone is trying to pushing information in order to influence the sentiment or specific discussion all right tom propaganda has been around with us since time began at least by government she is by powerful individuals as well so whats the difference between propaganda and fake knees. Sometimes not very much and quite often the term fake news is misused especially by by donald trump as i understand it its content which is created deliberately to mislead and to get people to question verifiable facts. And to and deliberately for fill perhaps a political or economic agenda they might have some of the cases that have been listed were genuine mistakes made by journalists who didnt question properly the veracity of the information that they were dealing with and then the problem was that people not understanding and in government sometimes looking at the information did not ask themselves the right questions to make sure they were actually. Consuming information that could be trusted and not not not being critical enough of of that information so i think its incumbent on news media to really make the argument and to practically describe to the audience is why they are different than information that you might find on on social media and that means you know by articulating this is our code of ethics this is how we go about doing our job if we violate these then you have a way of correcting us you can you can complain and we have a process which is public and it was very clear about how you can go about addressing complaints that you might have so i think its incumbent on our media as well as for education to actually encourage Media Literacy so that governments so that individuals can actually understand what theyre consuming and start to tell the difference between what is state propaganda what is propaganda from from individual politicians or from of it of Interest Groups and not accept things on on face value because as was said earlier the internet means that businesses that politicians can try and communicate directly. With audiences and that can be a really good thing but i would argue that we also need Good Journalism to actually help put into context and to verify the information and to hold power to account i think many i think many would agree with you as well on that artery and also a crisis of trust and let me let me bring this to mohammed now mohamed from what toms saying it sounds very much as said the burden of responsibility is falling heavily upon the consumer and on the journalist not on. Those responsible for putting out the fake news. I think theres plenty of blame to go around quite frankly you know i mean youre in your introduction you talked about this the gulf the gulf crisis and kind of how a lot of that began but if we go back to two thousand and twelve the United Arab Emirates established helped establish a lobbying and Consulting Firm in california called the camp style group and their main purpose was to try and. Plant negative news stories about qatar in American News media this has been reported by the New York Times by the intercept to Glenn Greenwald and others and the bio they were quite successful there were many negative news stories about qatar but theres an important distinction between you know you asked about propaganda and fake news right so a lot of times governments to take the American Government for instance right much has been made about American Government propaganda and study after study shows that American News media tend to in one way shape or form support the american official american line but the American Government government is fairly sophisticated and how it goes about if we want to use that word absolutely and everybody has a certain implicit bias and those biases if you like are absolved as a consequence of of way you live way brought up in your own sort of Cultural Values peer luigi can i come to you and ask about this the government component of this because it seems very much as a governments not only of course as they always to ever use propaganda that they are moving if you like into becoming the major proponent says well could be can consider this fake news by some on the internet as well you know basically every government used to dida social media as a sort of weapon ok they use social media for different purposes while easy to try to live through fear to make intelligence on. Another aspect be used to try to control to our lives what does that mean. Inside inside the current three which are the october correctly you are trying to infiltrate some specific discussion or trying to influence the sentiment or people saw if there its a very important for any government or to every specific control or social media so im not surprised and so when we speak about news and. Speaking i am not surprised if something that means there is going on a few things are born of the we are the social media so we are not surprised what is very dangerous these are well thought she trying to report mission the easy user to try to get from believe another government try to not relieve problems yeah yeah thats very very very very well you tell me either let me let me just interrupt there because you take me on to another interesting point that perhaps i can take over to tom and tom here luigis just referred to this is the governments trying to destabilize other governments using fake news or propaganda online this year downing street the British Government theresa may set up a unit to fight false information that spread by foreign powers i mean how serious is that while there is quite serious but remains to be seen actually what powers that outfit will have i think that we have to be very careful when looking at a alleged have or laws when we address issues not just of socalled fake news but also of hate speech you already seeing in in germany the socalled facebook law whereby very hastily content which is being. Accused of being with tension hate speech or fake news is being deleted now the fines are so far so high that theres a real danger and evidence is already showing this that facebook is perhaps being a little bit too trigger happy and what it is removing because there could very easily be a Public Interest defense. For having content about a populist all right wing. Or dangerous dangerous content on there so long as its done in the right context at explaining to audiences what this is how its being used and how it could be a government it could be another actor is using this information in this way to try and change Public Opinion in some way so regard in the u. K. Is task force the jury is out on whether that will work and what its remit is going to be it seems so far that hasnt got much much flesh on the bones in terms of actually how thats how thats going to work by i think we have to be very cautious about finding legal istic solutions to this much better that we have that journalism plays a much more prominent role and starts to actually communicate better why its important for democracy and news media have to really reflect on what they can do to improve to address that deficit of trust so while its there some things out of the medias control governments clamping down media themselves also have to to to step up in this fight so and trusted sources are you have there you have the casing greater regulation more regulation. No on same as be very cautious about more regulation when it comes to the internet i think we have to find more more Creative Solutions than than creating laws which might be what intentioned to try to protect protect citizens from misinformation and from hate speech they can have unintended consequences much better that we educate audiences to better question the information that they receive and then they can make better choices about what Source Information they trust that im not ok ok sound im going to have to find many ways of addressing this thats an it really isnt as a legal solution can have negative consequences for freedom of speech thats a very interesting thought because muhammad of course the Younger Generation are much more savvy a much more sophisticated in terms of the assessing the kind of material that they are confronted with on a daily basis out there i dont know that we know about i would say that thats an empirical question right i mean our young people more savvy than than than adults navigating this Information Online i happen to think that people are really susceptible i just gave the example about the American Election but those results are pretty theyre pretty frightening right to think that there were hundreds of fake news stories in there shared and one of the things that the researchers do in this article is they asked people to what extent they believed these fake news stories and overwhelmingly people did they believe these stories whether they were younger whether they were whether they were older you know the young generation perhaps you know has even more of a challenge because theyre almost exclusively plugged in online right where a lot of these news stories are shared and pier luigi when governments undertake campaigns of misinformation surely say as mohammed has already outlined one specific example theyre not doing anything wrong no they theyre not breaking any laws no laws there. Breaking the law the problem is that they have no means in this moment to to arcturus in a different way ok the only ways to work closely with the company that operated social networks youre to consider that miss kompany live thing for example facebook ever all the necessary information to try to understand is someone is trying to push a quick news ok so is not the problem is not in my opinion is not a technological problem but we we have to consider to be also another problem the financial problem because some company make business and pick news are part of the business so its an if very very fair to do it very difficult to pick off the news from social media or one side you have the government that needs to control to monitor or and its very hard to do these without making a sort of surveillance on the other side of the company then thirty the need to make business and saw propaganda or a rising before them is quite the same things they have all they ever correctly or the thirst for the information to try to analyze it to discover a specific comp an answer in knowing the behavior or some use of the code could be attributed to a specific propaganda piece or spreading of news and tom we started off the program making mention of us count of com which is the regulator a body of media in the u. K. Established media organizations assigned up to codes of conduct and they codes of practice is the main problem then for the freelancer the freewheel or in fact those that are not sure its a new sources of information citizen journalists see than just a quick comment about the use of the word fake news i think that every time that we use it were actually doing the job of the people who want to undermine journalism and on the on the my. In the positive role that that can play in society i think we need to be much more descriptive about are we talking about misinformation disinformation mullan from ation what is the motivation behind it and really kind of start to peel away what we actually mean by all this various the whole spectrum of of misInformation Online and elsewhere rather than actually undermining our own home profession by by doing so regulation works at three Different Levels it works at the individual level as me as a journalist what do i decide to publish how do i treat my sources and i being independent am i being influenced by by other actors i was showing humanity to the people im talking about and i being accurate and fact based in my communications and we should be arguing for politicians and governments to be fact based and not propagandists but then you have the media level of how we being accountable to our audiences were all closed because of conduct and then you have the industry level i mean its unfair to paint freelancers as as as an eye for an ethical because i havent signed up to perhaps a a wider could of ethics some freelancers make that choice because they feel they can do better journalism outside of Mainstream Media rather than being inside where sometimes there are issues of selfcensorship and and that kind of issue so i think that we have to you know not generalize about you know freelancers or even some of his them generally or you tubers some of them do some really good reporting and we shouldnt become talked down to them and say oh youre not traditional media youre not established wed have a very honest and open dialogue admitting our own failings but also trying to promote the best of what journalism can offer in terms of a framework of values for communication more widely and mohammed particularly in western liberal democracy is there is a certain pride there they take a certain pride in an open media environment where freedom of expression. Is encouraged and and is tolerated but of course things change for government for a country when for instance there were war they feel that theyre under attack if the security is being threatened thats when a completely different set of rules come into play you know youre absolutely right and in fact a lot of the a lot of the research on the american new system which i work a lot with shows that during times of crises disasters and especially at times of war the American News media tend to play a strong propaganda role right this happened with the iraq war it happened with the vietnam war if you want to go back some you know forty plus years and you know after nine eleven and during a number of other crises you know what tom said i think is very very interesting and very important about the need to sort of define our terms you know are we talking about fake news or are we talking about propaganda are we talking about Something Else i mean fake news is very important as ive illustrated but i think its important to point out the overwhelming majority of news stories that youre going to come across on a daily basis if you open up the New York Times or the guardian or whatever theyre not fake theyre not you know false stories right theyre grounded in some reality as a media scholar im actually much more interested in other areas of journalism other problems with with journalism if you will not sure if tom would agree with me on that but issues of media framing issues of sourcing issues of implicit bias right these are things that ive worked on in my my own research that im actually much more interested in than fake news and here luigi we weve already asked the question i asked the question specifically of tallman and he wasnt for it but i was wondering whether you thought that the way forward would be to introduce a great. A great a framework of legislation i dont leave it at the good. Relations. Here we have to agree on this because he care. Normal behavior between states thats my opinion because i believe that also introducing specifically the free market in a single state it will not give any other man touch we need that shared agreement between the states and the disease also the results of the effort that was parents during the last g seven inequality we need normals behaviors between states in cyberspace. Right ok and tom the last word to you i mean you were. You were you were quite keen to for us to break down if you like the the language that we using fake news fake news incidentally was apparently one of the most. Popular terms used the twenty seventeen. But the fact is journalists have long been incorporated into campaigns of propaganda or some might call it fake news its down to the journalists then is it to to impose upon themselves a certain level of of ethics to which they should subscribe and live every day ideally yes we want journalists to be taking upon their responsibility to act ethically within their own value system but also subscribe to cause of ethics whereby they can be held accountable i want to see the same done by media organizations themselves and so the public can actually have a recourse and complain and ask for corrections if if mistakes are made absolutely but we also need to have you know facebook and and others taking their responsibilities much more seriously in terms of how their platforms operate and their transparency about what they allow or dont allow and help their algorithms work if they dont do that then laws will be introduced which could have very negative consequences much better that they voluntarily create for themselves better more transparent more accountable systems for the people who use their platforms and the readers and the audience for journalism to hold media to account and that we hopefully will be able to address this issue of the trust deficit with the were currently faced with and so people can choose better sources of information rather than absorbing and consuming misInformation Online or write great stuff thank you all very much indeed tom loring dance here Luigi Paganini in naples mohammed el. Master here in doha thank you all very much indeed and as ever thank you for watching the program if you want to see it again you can go to the website aljazeera dot com should you want more discussion go to our Facebook Page facebook dot com well as that a. J. Inside story and theres the twitter sphere if you still trust that our handle is at a. J. Inside story from dennis im at dennis and the whole team here in doha is by. In india five million children have genius level i qs but most live in poverty and go undiscovered one use means two child geniuses fighting for their chance to shine at this time on aljazeera i was always telling you how famous he was going to make it thats how he presented hello my name and body without consciousness it is northwest representatives kind of. Teaching. Georgia members that were on the special meeting about the nail and he said you know im sure thats not the topic and youre immediately this is a color in the piece on the mainland city aljazeera investigation. Of silence this time. Oh watching algis their arms the whole rubber with the top news stories criminal charges have been laid against thirteen russians and three companies as part of a u. S. Investigation into meddling in the twenty sixteen president ial election the indictment says they use thousands of fake social media accounts to influence public debate in favor of double try