That witnessed one of the worst crimes of the 20th century the massacre of thousands of post. Special coverage of the 25th anniversary of the sort of the needs of genocide on and just a. Growing number of iconic brands are pulling their ads out of the states where we take you live there are rising patagonia just sound the companies doing stuff for Profit Campaign thats incredibly strong and advertisers to the point that pacemakers for allowing post racist and violent and verifiably all this kind of rooted into a long term boycott. Hello im richard just part of youre watching the listening post working from home here are the media stories were covering this week facebook gets hit by a big brand advertising boycott designed to get hate speech off the site will anything really change. China passes a new law in hong kong that has journalists there running scared well read talking heads and the bookshelves the just credibility plus with all those racist statues getting taken down who or what will take their place the 2 biggest news stories of 2020 the pandemic and the racial inequality protests have triggered what the United Nations calls a tsunami of hate speech a surge in a phobia online the social media platforms involved now find themselves the focus of an advertising boycott a campaign called stop hate for profit that is designed to get them to clean up their act by hitting them where it hurts the primary target has been facebook for years Mark Zuckerberg and company have resisted demands to take a more active approach a harder line on moderating hateful content 99 percent of facebooks revenues 70000000000 dollars last year reportedly comes from advertising however given facebooks size this boycott is unlikely to syria. They damage its bottom line at least in the short term there is another element in this story the us elections just 4 months away now and the donald trump factor the problematic material this president posts on facebook are a starting point this week is the biggest social Media Network on the planet. How big is facebook so big that an advertising boycott backed by major brands and a sudden 74000000000. 00 fall in the companys market value probably wont amount to very much. On a lives dreams. But it got Mark Zuckerberg attention on june 26th he went on Facebook Live to deliver a statement on hateful content much of which consisted of familiar sounding platitudes were able to identify 90 percent of the speech that we were. Already want to deter zuckerberg did promise however to do more to ban openly divisive and inflammatory rhetoric along with a new policy on flagging hate messages thats more in line with his rivals twitter were going to start labeling on times that we find newsworthy i dont want to buy i dont know as he has done these are changes facebook has long resist the companys hand was clearly forced by the ad boycott and the changing socio political realities of 2020. I were in the middle of a well. People have been locked in. And not only bought but were also in a period of unprecedented civil im breath in the middle of a well. Weve been seeing more violence against people of color in the faith for years now but weve never seen. President of the United States openly call for about 40 islands and weve never seen a social media platform actually we ive met that says something thats ok so i think people are finally fed up and theyre saying that. Facebook has been getting complaints about its relatively lax approach to moderation for years not just in the us the Police Killing in minnesota that set off the Racial Injustice demonstrations and provoked threatening and racially charged posts from President Trump simply brought it to a boy the brands that announced theyre pulling ad money out of facebook includes some of the worlds biggest. Cocacola and unilever but big brands dont dominate social media the way they do want to feel smaller brands medium sized boards and local businesses are where most of the money is the organizers of the boycott a u. S. Based group called stop pay to for profit maintain that ad revenues are just one way to measure the impact of their campaign. Our main goal is to stop hate in december mation on facebook and this is impacting places we saw last week their stock prices drop 8 percent we saw 15000000000. 00 go out of Mark Zuckerberg. Mark zuckerberg was a billionaire before we started this campaign hes going to be a billionaire once this campaign is over the truth is that facebook is going to have to reckon with this so brands probably know bads. Isnt going to put a realistic in anything that he has. And you know. 70000000000. 00. Advertising last year. We dont know how much of that is coming from major brands like cocacola and we dont know how much of that is coming from. Business and the truth and facebook knows that these smaller businesses cant afford to leave a plot or especially in the midst of a Global Pandemic brand boycotts are always a bit of a performative gesture that certain and weve seen that throughout the years that said they tend to be jesters that firms take quite seriously for the Public Relations hit that they do represent resawing way to significant lead out of facebooks market capitalization as the share price dropped and we saw investors selling off stock at a time when the u. S. Economy is likely set for a fairly significant recession on the whole so i do think that facebook and others are watching this closely and taking it seriously. Advertisers value facebook because it knows far more about its users than other platforms do about them it can target them more effective even though some major brands have pulled their ads off the site they remain heavily invested in facebook their ads are still being placed through what the Company Calls the facebook audience net which runs ads using what facebook already knows about its users on a host of external or 3rd party x. Everything from news sites to to talk to 10. When the advertisers square money into a stock they can pour money into facebook directly or they can pour money into facebook and then ads play on whats new of an audience. So advertisers can use a and kind of rest easy knowing that their ads are going to be targeted using the same facebook tech that theyve come to know and love and it also keeps the general public from knowing about it ad is technically running through facebooks pipes. Facebooks advertising model is based on getting the attention of its users and keeping inflammatory content works because it attracts all kinds of supporters to back at parliaments to fight in the limited content moderation facebook does carry out the standards are vague the rules are applied inconsistently and in force appears to be selective yet there are critics of facebook who say the ad boycott as a cure is much worse than the disease its. This is absolutely neutral it specially on a given. Off the munich asia even if certain speakers are completely removed they simply find other social media platforms where they can continue to disseminate their hateful messages in ways that make them even more dangerous because it then becomes harder to know about them to respond to them to make sure that the hateful ideas do not manifest in hateful or violent or discriminatory actions facebook is selling us and our eyeballs to advertisers. And the truth is that shape all things get high engagement both from folks who are propagating hate but also from folks who are trying to stand up against hate and so claiming that she. Is not a part of the business not all he they can say that all they want but its simply not true. Is calling for a total and complete shutdown of muslims and during the United States hanging over this story is the prospect of the us president ial election in november from his 1st run for office in 2015 when donald trump used twitter to call for a ban on muslim immigrants to the racial unrest story this year when he called pro. Testers thugs and threatening to send in the army trump has relied heavily on social media casting and stretching the rules getting far more leeway than other political leaders do how does he get away with it it helps to have Home Field AdvantageSilicon Valley usa has more to fear from President Trump and the lawmakers and regulators who work under him than any leader anywhere. It has come to light in the past few weeks that Mark Zuckerberg and President Trump do have some sort of personal relationship we know there have been visits to the white house by soccer and we know that there have been phone calls between the 2 trumps public rhetoric toward social media platforms is one to suggest that social media platforms are somehow unfair to conservative viewpoints and in particular unfair to him this seems to be counter to the facts. Trump supposed to sustain and even when they are flagrantly violating those rules we know that we have this important president ial election coming up in the United States will facebook and platforms across the social media landscape solve their problems with regard to trump them with regard to heinous racist invective from here to november that strikes me as highly unlikely and therefore its very worrisome going into the election. Were discussing other media stories that are on our radar now with one of our producers johannah whos joe this past week china imposed a sweeping new National Security law on hong kong what effect will this new law have on journalists there. Well this new law truly is historic richard as it marks a decisive break from the socalled one country 2 systems principle under which hong kong has been governed by china it grants beijing broad powers to crackdown on anyone that criticizes the Chinese Communist party including the media now the law criminalizes subversion terrorism and socalled collusion with Foreign Forces but its language is extremely vague and that is deliberate because it gives beijing a lot of leeway to suppress free speech and silence dissenting voices including journalists now this past week richard for example the 1st person who was reportedly arrested under this new law was taken into custody just for carrying a flag that said hong kong independence and whats this about hong kong is going online finding some of their old social media posts and deleting them for fear of it being deemed illegal under this new law yes so a lot of hong kong areas including some very prominent activists have either started taking their social media accounts down completely or have started deleting posts that either tie them to the protest movement or criticise china now there are 2 other issues that really worry Home Congress when it comes to this new law firstly where they will face trial because some of them may well end up in a courtroom in the chinese mainland which may be a lot harsher in its judgment secondly how long they could end up in jail for as a maximum sentence for violating this law is life imprisonment. Ok moving on to iran now were journalists this past week was sentenced to death what can you tell us about the case overall hola zama so exam had a telegram account called news which he ran from paris and he covered politics sometimes even posted. Dara singh information on iranian officials now what we know is that tehran accuses him of fueling antigovernment protest in 2017 but what we dont know is how he actually ended up in iranian custody according to the ngo Reporters Without Borders he was actually cant that whilst on a trip to iraq almost 9 months ago since then he has appeared on iranian t. V. Several times expressing regret for his alleged crimes now the charges are very vague to say the least he was found guilty of corruption on earth which is a language that is often used in cases of espionage or attempts to overthrow the government this past week he was sentenced to death but there is no word yet on whether or not hell foreign appeal ok thanks joe with the pandemic forcing so many of us to work from home all kinds of talking heads news anchors interviewees pundits and politicians have had to redefine their natural environments so youve been seeing a lot of bookshelves theyre the perfect solution they provide a little visual texture they dont distract and they create the impression whether true or not that the talking head has actually read the books maybe even written something. Creating a backdrop is an exercise in self branding it sends a message and speaks to your alleged credibility before you say a word this book flaunting has led to a new genre of media critique bookshelf analysis it was an avid about the listening post for phillips now on judging a person by their bookish backdrop. Its an irony for the ages how this pandemic this time of on precedented isolation has forced us virtually to invite strangers into our home. I have 0 meeting with my students i broadcast my b. B. C. Radio programme here and interviews and presentations and people from here making us consider things about our domestic spaces weve never thought of before and no accent that china needs should it be easy to sit near a needy girlfriend hed like to write books and cereal for interview is an interviewee its whether or not participants and writers suddenly its all about the bookshelf. Let me show you a little chill. So you think a lot of people actually work in studies and have home studies and particular kinds of experts and called upon in Television Interviews to talk about areas of concern you know often theyre situated in environments that are actually off the books but if the same time you can also see when the background has been really clear traffic to the bookshelf is not a function it is somehow neutral and professional. It conveys messages about who we are and who we want people to think. Over 50 years ago Erving Goffman a sociologist thought about how do we shift. I think about the world as being like authentic or fake and instead how is it more about being sincere or cynical so he said well lets think about everything as a performance everything is like a stage play. I actually sit at that grey. Tract. For the purposes of any kind of videoing i like to have a nice colorful backdrop so i use this which i change according to who are talking to by the way and so whats really important whether people are believing in that stage play or not in fact the term impression management comes from governments work where we look about how people are selectively revealing things about themselves theyre all under want to signal like you know their authority by displaying very big kind of Historical Books one of the most popular ones ive seen on a lot of. Classics as well certain people who have like all the war or the original classics and like russian or french and stuff like. Historically and paintings and portraiture carefully chosen and placed visual props have long been used to hint at someones interests in a way. Dogs can be symbols of fidelity or wealth fruit may represent bounty or desire specific books spell out persons profession or fashion. It wasnt until the 19th century that books for books a large numbers of took on the 7. Whole genre developed in the 1900 century or literate secular male thinkers and the book lent kind of grab a task and expertise for example it got the french impressionist did a wonderful portrait critic and writer in months and he seems to be completely enveloped by bookshelves when manning represented in the french 1903 naturalist writer and critic as well he sits alongside a table which is with books. They mean truth is this mans or. The credibility that books offer has given rise to a cosmetic industry platforms like zoom and allow you to customize your background virtually so you can adopt any bookshelf you like. If you want the real thing but arent too bothered about actually reading them there are companies that sell books by the media that even cure rate your collection usually they cater to the Hotel Businesses in the Film Industry that the pandemic has led to a spike in sales to individual households. To leave those crazy quick shelves and. They treat its almost as a kind of interior design and much as a lot of look i actually think its much more they get read you know the evening they should be commodified to the point where their appearance is more important than the. T. V. Producers quickly learn that many of their interviewees working from home often dont have that many framing options so we try to make suggestions and we always ask if they have a bookshelf because we know it works ive become reliant on the bookshelf as backdrop for interviews for lives and pieces to camera i generally go for this one for practical reasons its the right height and the lighting works even if some of the titles might give off the impression im trying a little bit too hard. We thought about using this collection of magazine covers its about british pop culture from the ninetys isnt exactly the listening post by not to mention what it says about me. The shell say a lot about the other part of my life the colors and the covers a great but im not sure they scream journalism and im not the only one reading into whats on the shelf authors have always had their critics now bookshelves. Bookcase credibility attracts hundreds of thousands of. Reviews and a great backdrop. Some trends and of course draws all kinds of conclusions about the people parked in the front that. Sits in front of rows of his own but everything is out completely and utterly is everything these were simply the surplus that i didnt have room for more like i didnt really want to be showing them all so they would just put up here out of the way its an immediate related book. And its also a concept is. Based on you know how messy or how clean they are color schemes ways in which. Blacks alike are separated all that put together and what they say about us and. My own build them understand how to public some white space distilling credibility to it purist alibi. I call them while but for having a pretty color code the comments are harder to say greedy people seem to be incandescent rage to use it is like a way to pretty bad my analysis i think almost book is credibility so funny is the way that theyve struck late so much from so listen and the nation one of the really brilliant piece of our own jones where he has a couple bookshelves behind him and theyre described as being like 2 hands from an you know sort of overseeing the conversation and releasing it to make sure there goes the days owns way. I think theyve got this wonderful way to work taking an element of truth and then just spinning out into this almost a kind of a fantaisie about what the cards are. Gideon haigh gives us a decent chunk of getting his favorite sport with this majestic display simply because on face this one that you see my cricket books in the background. I think my head sort of hail. Cricket is beginning with the lead of b. And c. Its not because im particularly interested in those ones it just happens to be there in a roundabout hit by. A presenter Richard Geres but got the case credibility treatment a couple of weeks ago perhaps their way of declining our interview request. Which it is but seeks to put a city as if hes invited us back to his hotel room to see his credibility if things go well he might give us a sound. I mean they they read a lot into the Acoustic Guitar which i never play all i do is play my lecture guitar my telecaster but our camera man would let me use that because he likes the wood grain in the shot so you know we make compromises whenever we make television doesnt matter whether were in a studio or where at home people draw these widespread conclusions and theres very very little flow that you or i can do about so richard do you agree with the credibilities assessment of you or do you think you want to contest it i would say their assessment would be harsh a little snide but ultimately. And finally its been a bad few weeks for statues monuments that have stood for centuries have come crashing down as the black lives Matter Movement forces countries around the world to confront their racist past but theres a Business Opportunity here think of all those city squares formerly graced by White Supremacists they need statues and australian comedy group called the chaser has come up with a few ideas on how to fill up some of those empty spaces that all those slave owners who have fallen out of fashion left behind well see you next time here at the listening post. Hi my name is john and im mike rice the statutes. My great granddad made rice the statues his dad made rice as doctors on im continuing a proud Family Tradition so what do you make racist stuff. Or are because not a lot of work in stock you may think you know as soon as you put up a statue you cant really put up any more statues im hearing you know its the crowd congestion its just just a nightmare really so our Business Model weve been making racist structures sorry the idea is that someone going to want to tear down for the rights us and then when we get if you like only thank you for the good you know weve weve done all the big ones we did captain cook really proud about on the wall or the local mccoury hes the guy who hung all these Aboriginal People off treys. We did the drug deal victoria she just she just kept killing tiny people until they bought her opium. Must have stopped millions of tyrus people these are all the things we will for woman proud of my crisis that you. Have you encountered any difficulties with your business. Its gone these days you put it right a statue suddenly just like the cops from all around the city just come around to protect it. Making it really really hard to get hold. Eco Friendly Solutions to comeback threats to our planet on aljazeera. The arab. 2 and a half a 1000000 infections a driving latin america overtakes europes number of coronavirus cases. Alarms all rommany want yards or life more headquarters here in doha also coming up a patriotic show of Independence Day from the u. S. President despite concerns about covert 19 and protests