Its a deadly sin. And the whim of nature. Is going to face us. And threatens to. Greet. You say she will decide. To let tribes out. Puts it in danger its been one gig ive come to oppose comfortless and more because i see the whole city is down to the world. To talk. Why dont we greet. The search of answers here the documentary shows. Greed starts may 21st w. Hello and welcome im melinda crane in berlin for deutsche about its also ours for france 24 dont believe everything you see on television or read online especially times of. Whether its false kovac cures or grand theories and whos to blame this information on corona is spreading there gallantly so much so that the United Nation says were fighting not one common enemy but to the virus itself and info demick conspiracies lies and the coronavirus info tell me how considers are they thats our topic today in a short edition of the debate france 24 and so it should follow with you and were pleased to welcome from harris hes a form italian minister for European Affairs former member of the Italian Parliament today member of the European Parliament elected on the slate of french president in your next was not the communist Party Central coetzee for joining us thank you and its a pleasure to welcome here in berlin Francisco Bennett nationally is a member of the german bundestag and she is the Green Party Spokeswoman for european policy initiatives in the southwest of france gentry be sociologist of the 1st book was once the students john spoke author of the revolution that wasnt out digital activism favors conservative and if you for joining us i happen to be here jen with more time to stroll or income women weve certainly been exposed to all kinds of ideas since it was then demi to go how much have kids spears your skinny traction. So conspiracy theories and so health news are something that seems you know of will the airwaves or means meet politicians crying crying foul whether in the us or france or elsewhere. But the reality is that fake news has always been around propaganda has always been around and yes there is an uptick in when people going on line for information because of course in teams worldwide but its really important to keep fake news and purse active in terms of the actual percentage of news and information that people are both. Boomers of and shares of its a very small part of once you start up small part of it but yet were all exposed to it out of show you an example right now there was a demonstration over the weekend in stuttgart germany against the wall were down and on twitter youll process see it there were there was this one tweet with the hashtag allegedly were there short films too in your conspiracy theories and its a memory got flak are talking about 5 biggest dictators in the last 100 years. Uncle merkel is there the head of the system party topping the list gentry is bill gates. The bill and Melinda Gates foundation which has been at the forefront of trying to fight the pandemic would you say who gives us more please george soros is the bogey man for conspiracy theorists well theyre on different sides of the political cooling right so. On the one hand yes soros has been the bane of. Conservative in terms of. The socalled. Terms of nonfunctioning not a lot of funding for conservative causes but yes bill gates people are targeting him of course because of the work the fascination were foundation has spent earning world y. And yet there are ties clearly tie antivaccination movement but if we take a step back really what bill gates him a lot. Or a lot of people conservatives particularly the far right is representing what they call the. Right so if you follow what conservatives particularly are arguing online even if you see some tests that are happening worldwide but especially in the United States and my lot down protests really what were seeing are. Hong. Really trajectory of conservative whos in what they call the government right and 1st some vaccines represent a concrete way in which governments actually require him to be too old. To act right getting vaccines or in this case why why this is so much more extreme if the Public Health measures that people like will be symbolized are foreseeing and you know improving Public Health by requiring confinement were seeing some of those a lockdown the protests here in germany in fact in several different german cities over this past weekend now francisco polls show that the overwhelming majority of germans in fact support the measures that have been taken by the German Federal government on kovac but there is a vocal minority out there that questions both the governments narrative and its approach now i know youve been talking to some of your constituents who apparently sympathize with those protests can you tell us what theyre telling you. Yeah i was in the beginning quite shocked when i got emails from people i like friends close to me who are you know saying that they will intention go to that demonstration and i dont really want to find out why and my impression was that many of them didnt know who was really behind those demonstrations was going to be in those demonstrations to get it with them like greeces new nasties it such as that there was not a lot of awareness about who is behind it who will be there what are their conspiracy theories that are you know spread in these frameworks and of course still very legitimate concerns by many citizens and we have screens are also voicing some of that and many of those i spoke to because im coming from the southwest of germany with a lot of quarters with france fits a land and many are suffering from the regulation and germany goods that you cannot see your family members and less your for example narry if you must be married but you know usually we have a much broader definition of family in germany now which is you know brought it and if you have been for 20 years with somebody you are still not allowed to see that person married so there were people who are into 6070 is that they where is this country going to the y. And we are if your family i dont understand this and im trying to tell him like its right to protest but please watch out who youre protesting with and as you say there have been concerns that these normal citizens with normal concerns could wind up being instrumental ised for example by the far right or by anti vaccine activists what do these 2 groups the anti vaccine activists and the right wing have in common and do you think that these protests show that the right wing which was marginalized in the beginning of the krona crisis may be about to make a big comeback. You know were trying to look more into who is bringing the scripts together how does it work so were still not completely. You know we dont have all the knowledge we need but really searching is that what we know so far is that of course what combines these 2 groups is that they are skeptical of science that they dont trust scientific knowledge he said the same people who also deny Climate Change so this more general approach to you know how do we how do we do evidence based politics which is not accepted by you know by far right people to ignore to deny to kind of change it such as if they are some approaches that they have together and we also have evidence that actors like russia to day to bring 2 groups together and help to mobilize for those causes in very different sectors of society and were trying to look more deeply into that who is catalyzing and which groups are activated. We are quite sure that there must be some help to get these groups together start to go see let me ask you on this in your leader of italy the Previous Coalition government you have the 5 Star Movement where there are a lot and he backs or is and you have the far right if the koch 19 pandemic lasts that the sort of the shape of things to come in italy. Well i mean is that the only it what if i may face you may say one positive effect sofa all of the good on the viral surprise anybody a bet they made these are the anti boxing i mean we dont find them anymore i mean theyre way off represented even by lemond by the 5 Star Movement they kept they started to be very silent and the i would say that if it is. Defect now it is good that them. And the girl i rose as showing why on the fundamental feature now dont have seen a piece in right that was say a victim puppet is because you need and you got them it is a deadly cocktail feasting rye and movement it is stronger than mistrust the effect of science off a body its based on how and i didnt and this has me now why dont they feature also on the nice dross on the social networks during the crisis i want to pick up on something francisco proper said he said homespun conspiracy theories sort of fueled an eggs on by outside forces that she is looking into lets take a look Cornell University put together a list of top 10 conspiracy theories here a few of them well plenty dont gates talked about earlier the virus escaped from a chinese lab the other direction u. S. Military exported a virus to china a plot by the pharmaceutical groups big pharma is there not. Code names he doesnt exist thats another one but topping the list in the alliance for psychoses article is 5. Friends for the force observers web site Catherine Bennett looked into one of the conspiracy theories about the current virus that weve been seeing the most is supposed connection with the building of 5 d. Communications networks around the world take a look at this video flames engulfing a mobile phone mast in birmingham in the United Kingdom this video was taken on april the 2nd or 3rd he think the fire was set to deliberately since then at least 20 other mass across the country have been burned or vandalized but its not just the equipment telecoms engineers are being harassed while theyre trying to do their job but you know what youre doing that youre laying 5 here we realize that you get say what year that kills people but where did the theory come from it all began with this man thomas cowan an american doctor whos currently on probation for treating a patient with non approved drugs in a video posted on you tube on march the 12th dr callan claims that convict 19 is caused by 5 g. Networks that 5 radio waves poison cells in the human body and that causes the virus anybody want to make one gas is to wear the 1st completely blanketed by g. 30 in the world was. Exactly. Scientists have dismissed cowans claims as complete rubbish saying that 5 radio waves arent Strong Enough to affect the bodys cells all it means system but the video was seen hundreds of thousands of times you tube took it down but people are still sharing copies online and coming up with their own evidence like this map for instance that supposedly shows how the spread of the virus echoes the 5 to rollout in france except that france doesnt even have 5 g. Yet the map shown in this tweet actually represents the roll out of fiber optic in the country people who believe this theory are actually making it harder to tackle the virus the director of the u. K. S National Health Service so that mobile phone masts are vital they all want to connecting the countrys Emergency Services with the people who need them most just are going to be without such a good cheap. Thomas theory whos running and jerk and why are. Well i mean from the mean story rubbish i mean it is im amazed to where he. Absolutely are is but yeah yeah you got a problem however i mean the 1st problem is that as i say that everybody can say anything today because nobody i trust theres a whole experiment and the circle of fish are saying if you will and we have to walk on it we have to restore its trust to war those who carry out Research Study is. Carry out serious who are there for the benefit of all. The 2nd problem that is the problem of the east up latham because that in your old you know you show there that this absolute theory was spread out and then you tube intervene i think that we have to do much more. And we must be much more demanding with the platform because they must be our allies in fighting this kind of absolute theory and infighting it war against misinformation which otherwise could really threaten our democratic regime in our society is and i think that is something that which as being put under a much stronger light during the day called in 1000 cries. So let me ask about that very matter because in fact social media including Facebook Twitter they say that they are trying to remove covert 1000 dissin from ation from their platforms an unusual move actually from facebook that has in fact refused to remove quite a bit of other contact how good a job are they doing of policing this content. Social media platforms in general do a terrible job of policing misinformation because their algorithms are actually designed to promote this information and fake news right so the top 10 fake news around komen 1000 that we just saw it was really easy in just a couple words of brief headline to see what that information is and its also negative information and that type of simplistic. Hyperbole dramatic sensational information is really what social ringback media and its algorithms promote right so if we rely on yes a small group of content moderators or an algorithm that may draw a few keywords in and eliminate them yes that can happen but thats just tinkering with the margins it doesnt address the fundamental problem of the social media platforms which is that theyre designed for very basic simplistic and in many cases false information so a quick follow up in regard to ourselves to the Mainstream Media as i mentioned a franciscan branton or in fact polls show that the vast majority of germans are absolutely confident in the government approach we in the media report quite a bit about the protesters who are not satisfied do we in a way give the conspiracy theorists and purveyors of misinformation too much of a platform. In many ways i think that. The right now what were seeing right if were covering it the media researchers are looking at whats happening with protesters right its the anti koren 1000 protesters who are in the streets right thats just a given and about your question of how many people they represent i think its a mistake this may vary country by country but it is a mistake to under estimate the entire conservative ecosystem that these protests represent right so if you look at far right. Officials that have been elected worldwide over the past 4 years. Including the bracks that vote whether were talking about trump a new west or both and narrow in brazil. Social media yet was a part of what was going on but the other key point is that if we just get rid of that that misinformation its not going to get rid of the ecosystems of grassroots conservatives who are meeting on a regular basis now theyre doing it online but for coping 19 were meeting in Community Centers and all over a lot of teen issue or its just an information or science issue that were really missing and one more point its more than just the money its more than just russian this information thats what weve seen throughout history is that. Authoritarian authoritarianism brought on by fascism or right wing movements often happen not because a leader comes in and filled a vacuum. But because there are a lot of Strong Civil Society really supporting that and we cant overlook that support so on another princess koba had to Say Something to the same question if you would francisco be great if you could be brief because we do want to get on to one or 2 other topics but also just a very quick question on facebook it has now announced a new Supervisory Board that supposedly is going to help you do a better job of content moderation what do you think is going to work you know we need much more legal frameworks for facebook and co we also need to split facebook from whats app from twitter its all one data were not really thats not acceptable so we too much more illegal state action to get that the huge problem for our democracy and the control and to the question do you report to match you know i think there is a lot of there a lot of wherries out there about the Current Situation i dont know anybody whos not us in the south big life question so its understandable and none of us has all the knowledge and were still getting into more data so i think you know we should not underestimate how many people have to out and i think we need to have reporting that shows who is really demonstrate and who is behind it so its not enough to say there are 10000 people in the street but your job is also to so was the i know how many races were there how many you know signs did you have that its a big lead in germany and yes overall probably the biggest majority in germany is looking for some vaccine and is hoping that we can get one and only minorities afraid of it but still you know its important to report out phenomena but francisca rattner are haunted by something gentry said earlier which is that these platforms theyre all humans arent cater to simply stupid mr chips there its what theyre built for d so rotten you. No i you know. We also laugh to come up with their easy answers that are understandable to have a Clear Communication so im not against saying you know its something must be complicated and only then is it true. But what we have to avoid is that we have you know really saved news that we have researchers and we have these artists you know thats what we have to control and thats where facebook is not going far enough and not doing its job and thats why we need more legal constraints on facebook and co and as i said we need to split it up that they dont normally not acceptable. What do you think the center goes it would you agree do we need to actually break up facebook. When we certainly need a new approach. At least. Because it is that situation all global dont go up only go party which was also raised a fundamentally shows on. And on the protection of they i agree