Is digital media good for democracy? BBC News

maybe can't welcome with a big question so they were back at Brunel University London in Oxbridge to debate one very big question is digital media good for democracy welcome everybody to the big questions now this Friday Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States of America many say he knows his victory to a greater mastery of the tools of this digital age Twitter Facebook and all the other forms of online communication and US intelligence agencies are saying that Russian intervention in cyberspace played a hand too well here in Britain the brexit campaign was acknowledged to be far Savia in its use of social media than the remain site the Scottish nationalists online army narrow the gap in their independence referendum and helped drive out labour in the 2015 general election so there's no denying the power of digital media but it also poses a real challenge how do you know what's true what's fake in an online world with no editorial control or standards and what is the effect on democracy of trolling fake news and the echo chambers created by algorithms to debate this brave new world we've assembled a digitally savvy front row of journalists politicians campaign advisers techno Wizards think two heavyweights television executives learners academics all here in the flesh not created in some virtual world they are all too real and you can join in on Twitter or online by logging on to BBC code at UK slash the big questions follow the link to the online discussion lots of engagement contributions from our highly representative Oxbridge audience as well well I'm Jamie Bartlett AF I'm a director at the Center for the analysis of social media a very man this has changed politics forever hasn't it for years we've been saying how do we get young people how do we get more people engaged how do we stop them from being disenfranchised we have done just that it has got a lot more people engaged there's no doubt about that and it's not just people tweeting and posting things on Facebook social media has been remarkably good at forming a bridge to get people into real world politics as well various types of activism marching demonstrating even voting I think if people are more likely to vote if they get involved in politics online all good that is all good and I think everybody here would acknowledge that's a very good thing but of course it creates new problems and those problems I think we're only just beginning to grapple with I think it's making politics in some ways far more polarized far more difficult to predict or control in many ways Donald Trump is the perfect politician for a digital age we are overwhelmed with information and graphs and charts and infographics and tweets and retweets and in those circumstances we tend to go for whatever is the loudest the most offensive the most emotive and that is why politics I think it's becoming more polarized it's creating more centers of power that we barely understand huge tech companies that can control what we see online and we don't really know how they work so while it's bringing more people into politics it's not clear to me yet whether it's making politics any better in fact in some ways it's making it rather worse well there's loads of issues there I'm really looking forward to the next hour or so Helen he makes some good points are people actually becoming better informed and more engaged because a click of a mouse is one thing but actually trudging up the stairwells of high-rises delivering leaflets on a cold February night is another thing entirely I don't think we should denigrate the click of the mouse I think there's a there's a culture particulate expert ich Yule early British politics that politics must be painful you've got to do something cold or long or boring or hard work and what digital media have done is they've sort of democratized the acts of political participation so now there's very small acts of participation liking something clicking something indeed the click of the mouse which is which is what's doing the work here it's what's drawing people into we should let go of that even while we're kind of lame denigrate the quick yeah and it makes a difference people feel they're making a difference yeah are they they're only they're only because of these algorithms which send you your own things that they think you will like so you basically it's that echo chamber it's that bubble people talk about you're only confronting if that's the right word your own opinions there's no challenge I don't think that's right I mean the true echo chamber would be just reading the Daily Mail in the 1930s or just watching one particular TV station in the u.s. that would be a real echo chamber and I don't think that the of course our our social media environments are personalized by us and personalized by the social media platforms and we need to kind of work against that but I do think still that our kind of information environment in this research to show this that people are exposed to more news sources on social media than people who don't use only the news sources they agree with no not necessarily a more heterogeneous range of nuances on social media than they are in the offline world we're very good at creating echo chambers outside social media and they don't think we should forget that yeah echo chambers on there's nothing new nothing oh is that right well I think firstly I mean Facebook's a bit different but Twitter I think we over blow its importance because only a very small section of population are regularly using Twitter to talk about the world around them and they tend to be younger and more affluent he's like the brexit the EU referendum the people most likely to vote to leave were people over the age of 65 who were the least likely to be on Twitter so I think if we're talking about these grand political developments sweeping the Western world and putting it down to Twitter then I think we're mistaken I think the danger with people like me on the left of politics is we think well the mainstream media's biased against this most of the press supports the Conservative government so let's retreat to Twitter I think that's a mistake because most people they come home at the end of the day busy day got jobs got kids they might listen to better radio watch the evening news maybe flip through a newspaper and that is how most people still get their news culture false impression of what's happening in the world in a sense rather because Helens didn't get all this information you're better informed than ever but in fact you're saying there's something of a political Mirage about it I think when it comes to Twitter I think on Facebook we've got look you've got someone here who did an excellent job for the Conservatives weren't often hear me saying that about people on wouldn't get British qualities but he did because what they did with Facebook it wasn't about joining Facebook groups which is again just people often agree with each other what the conservators did is they targeted specific demographics because millions of people use Facebook they're not talking about politics again on Facebook then clicking on photos sharing funny messages with friends but they targeted adverts at specific demographics that is very effective but if people like myself who are campaigners think we can just send a few tweets going or a Tereza may yeah a load of people retweet that that we then we make the mistake of thinking well the rest of the country all of a sudden are full of the same enthusiasm as me and that's not true so Twitter has its use it can mobilize campaigners put issues on the agenda but it isn't the substitute unfortunately for trying to have a strategy to deal with yes very hostile press there are formation Tom Edmunds in a moment but Ellie want to come in at this point yeah I think that was a point made earlier that social media which i think is a great new tool it's just another kind of technological advance in the way that people can communicate with each other and that's to be welcomed makes it politics harder to control or makes politics more polarized I think most of us myself included would welcome that because having more ability to have an argument having more scope to have a debate and have more people involved in the conversation is always a positive certainly - it is a very kind of close shop in the way that it's mainly young people and media commentators myself as journalists know that and Facebook as some as own said it's a bit different but the idea that this should be what what kind of frightens me more about social media isn't necessarily who's on it and who's talking about it is the attempts to control it the intents to make Facebook and social media and Twitter put out certain messages will be worried about what messages they're put out and kind of the drive to censor social media something that way so fascinating area I'm going to address that a little bit later on because we all will have lots - must have focus on there with the trolling with the vile abuse with the fake news with the with the false news and all that that's all to come but you were mentioned Tom in despatches by Owen Jones in a congratulatory tone because of the brilliant strategy that you came up with for the Tories in the last election online what did you do and how did you do it Oh broadly political policies use online communications for two things it's the first thing is to find and recruit supporters who will go and take those vital actions to support them primarily offline as other panel members have mentioned so it's people are going to go knock on the doors because nothing beats that face-to-face communication the second thing they do and we did in 2015 campaign is to find and reach out to those swing voters in their marginal seats that can decide that election and speaks them about the issues they care about now if you imagine an election campaign you're speaking from any one films die versus live down voters in the southwest to labour voters in the north of England and in Scotland as well so you need to speak to them about issues they care about there what facebook allows you to do is find those groups of individuals and speak to them about the issues you can't have to work quite hard to find labour voters in Scotland nowadays you so that's what you did very very targeted very focused and very successful very targeted very segmented communications now digital in itself is just a medium so you need to have the message right before you go and speak to these people there's no point finding individual groups of people and speaking about things they don't care about there's no point finding groups of people finding inclusive young voters and then speaking to them about pensions or about issues they don't care about so it's about finding groups of people having the right message and getting in front of them the time and time again hmm and it was Helen it was remarkably successful in the marginals wasn't it well it was and if you and I think also very successful for the leave campaign and brexit and very successful for Trump because after all if you if you just reach an echo chamber of people who agree with you you're not going to make any difference I mean that's not that's not what parties are looking to do they're looking to find people who are undecided or don't know what they think yet and what Labour did at the last general elections you know better than me is it just randomly throw out the same message across Facebook so didn't target specific people in specific seats they needed to win over and also they miss stock engagement that's lots of people liking commenting for success but actually what that generally meant was the messages their core supporters already agreed with like the NHS we're getting lots of Attraction but they weren't reaching out to the people they needed to win over and obviously that's what you learn from so successfully you said I'm not good we're not just gonna do things for likes or clicks we're going to target the people we need to win over who aren't in our natural coalition yah-tchi as a Labour MP just moving up I never so slightly the digital media revolution it's a great process and platform of democratization isn't it isn't it a great leveler before I came into politics I was a electrical engineer for twenty years helping build out these networks and the reason why I went into that is because anything something that gives people the power to connect with other people which enables people to reach out to share that is progress and that I believe is good for democracy but like any technology it comes with its disadvantages as well and also any technology those in power will try and use it to be force reinforce their power and as they have the most means they're the most likely to be able to use it most effectively to begin with but you don't have to you know have lunch news Rupert Murdoch to get your message out there anymore because there are there are other ways of doing it let me say there's two really big caveats with that and the first one and that's the reason why I still do walk out on cold winters days and knock on doors is because there were millions of people in this country who still don't have broadband who still don't have any digital access you know at the state of broadband in this country is a disgrace and then there are those who may have access but they can't afford it it's too expensive or they haven't got the digital skills necessary to use it so there are millions of people off away from this from this debate that we really need to include and when we have included them then we need to look at the way in which that debate and those messages are being put out and what I would say particularly about you know and I really I think it was it wasn't as effective can paying the Tory campaign in 2015 spent I think it was as ten times more than labor on Facebook but the other point is that those messages came with adverts downsides you know and when when I am reaching out to my constituents and Facebook enables me to do that and I do use that but I'm very aware that if I'm asking them about how they feel about obesity or something there's gonna be adverts for you know well-known fast food places down one side and there's going to be messages which are calculated on the basis of algorithms which are entirely you know invisible entirely opaque would become known not a job so what I would say is we are destroying the system fails the system feeds you with things that they know you will like because of your your previous clicking habit it's just just to highlight that for people carry on yeah so we need to we need to update you know the regulations basically to make sure this fantastic opportunity is fairer and is accessible to people and is used to support and enable people and not to feed them the same message they're happy the word regulations I think that I also think we may be giving a bit too much credit to social media in that the idea that political messages put up by parties simply failed because they weren't using the right social media strategy is perhaps masking a bigger problem and perhaps they were putting out the wrong messages are messages that people weren't interested in and when you brought up there the fact of adverts being alongside things on Facebook and there is this sense that people kind of are just sort of mindlessly clicking on something and then they kind of you know pop up for McDonald's comes up and they think oh yeah I want McDonald's and it's that kind of mindless and that's very insulting view of the public not only how they engage with news but just generalizing is vert izing for a reason because it does actually work so so that's what and that's where Facebook gets its revenues from now I'm not saying people are mindless but I'm saying that people are influenced by advertising otherwise you wouldn't have said quite such a big but if you're putting out a message on obesity let's take your example and then you're saying that there's a link between that and then a fast-food advertisement being alongside that you're drawing is some kind of relationship between them and when then when you use the word regulation my alarm bells go off because I think what do you want to regulate in that everything respect you I'm gonna count you in a minute because that was quite a round of applause nothing is above for the Lord are you saying that the internet should be above the law I mean so there are regulations that exist now you recognize that we have a legal system yeah yeah nothing's above the law so the law should apply yes but in terms of great speech on the Internet it should be absolute Oh free speech and Internet that's gonna be a tasty area for us later on that way sir you burst into a raptures so low round of applause there we expand on it I just agree with the lady here I just think that it's very easy and I think it's a correct you know link between advertising on social media and problems that we face in society hmm now Jamie what about you mentioned Trump I think earlier on what was was Trump's campaign a triumph of digital media in some ways yes I mean of course there are much bigger trends behind that you can just arrive and use Twitter and Facebook and then suddenly get yourself elected you're obviously tapping into various much deeper concerns that people have but the point I want to make about that is when you are completely overwhelmed with different sources of information this is the problem with social media we were promised in the 1990s from the digital prophets that the politicians of the future when we were all connected and we all had access to the world's information we'll be more informed they'd be smarter and we'd all be kinder and nicer to each other what a great academically we said it would be the end of nationalism because we'd be able to link to everybody and we'd all understand each other this is ludicrous the reality is of course that when we're overwhelmed with information we use heuristics to try to quickly figure out what we think we do tend I think I disagree slightly with you on this Helen that we do tend to find things that we already agree with that our friends already agree with and we trust that more anyway we do that anyway but we do that to such a greater extent now than we ever did before and we're less aware of it is that true Helen well it's I think it's a tendency to present it as one thing or the other I mean it's it's a very gray area you know between I even hear people talking about kind of hermetically sealed echo chambers and that's people say people say oh the Twittersphere has gone mad what they mean is their own Twitter feed has gone but in almost any platform you'll be able to see trending information and you just you know just you're just one click away from a huge array of opinions but the danger is I think that social media politics is in many ways more angry more aggressive more emotive and the danger and the danger of that I think is that it makes compromise more difficult the US Congress is more polarized than it's ever been or since the war at the least and I think that's happening in a lot of different democracies and part of the reason is the way that we do now most of us not everyone but most of us engage with politics that makes compromise more difficult and I think that is going to make politics much more difficult all our societies have become more polarized where you know people whether Trump in the United States brexit here across Europe the rise of the populist right we've become far more divided as society it's not obviously social media that's cause that social media is amplifying aspects of it though because people communicate on social media in a way they would often never dream of speaking to each other in real life they often it encourages a pack mentality where you do get groups of people like the mob in the French Revolution but they will get like that because that does sound kind of because it is good that they can be as good you can democratize information that lots of people because somebody says something out for example on Twitter and I was on holiday and I looked online on them on the phone to see what was having in the newspapers number three stories are people who'd said something on Twitter and it had the fury poured upon them for doing so and had to delete the tweets and had to apologize and so it's that really good for freedom of speech no that's not because you do end up with a situation now where basically people often if they make a mistake or they say something which is obviously quite inflammatory or divisive then a group on well basically coordinate and relish taking that person down yeah and they will throw everything at them and if you in the middle of a Twitter storm John Monson wrote an excellent book about this yeah people shamed on Twitter yesterday it can be a terrifying experience where random strangers all over the world are suddenly screaming at you can be quite threatening and menacing you even get a phenomenon so-called daxing where people will expose your personal information go through your backstory everything possible try to get me sacked by your employer so it can be very menacing if I'm the mainstream newspapers feed off the back of it and have stories about that very thing happening and people being shamed for saying something that some of the papers reporting on it I should agree with yeah well I think that's the other problem because this is the other issue day because we look at social media so this is a new phenomenon but there's a very long history of our very politicized media finding individuals who they disagree with hunting them down having reporters outside their front doors going through that private life go through the private lives of people around them so yes we should hold social media to account but we should also hold to account our mainstream media which is responsible offer for disseminating false news for targeting individuals they don't agree with I'm humiliating them so yes let's have that concern I think we should talk about our press as well which is often out of control itself okay okay that's that's something we'll skip onto in just a second is this good for freedom of speech then if people feel intimidated Jamie no I mean there is always a I think there's a danger with socially and I'm in favor of I think social media and democracy work in some ways very well together and I think the positives do outweigh the negatives there is definitely a sense though there are a lot of people and I feel it myself sometimes of self censoring fearing to put something online than have it will I be attacked for that is it the right thing to do and just avoiding the scandal avoiding the mob avoiding saying something that might cause what did you want to definitely well I did I might get some retweets and you know views the rest of it so but and that is a that is the danger especially given that anything that you post stays online forever and so you might be called up for something you did 10 years ago but is then waved in front of you and you lose your job or you have people complaining about you and that's very that has a real chilling effect because people be afraid of ever speaking their mind an tom is this something you take into account when you're employing people for example you have to look at their Facebook history and their absolutely and we notice increasingly it for example if your political party wants to use a real-life case study for a film with party political broadcast a poster campaign it's virtually you would look into their background and you find increasingly when you look at people from a younger generation when you look at their Facebook feeds when you look at their Twitter feeds they are saying stuff that kids aged sixteen seventeen eighteen sake which you know when I was sixteen seventeen eighteen oh saying stupid stuff as well or you find they will have like something from uni loud or the loud Bible or something like that which we know that this is just part and parcel of being young and being a bit stupid and making mistakes as we've all done but taken out of context suddenly it is it blows up and becomes us now it's written in stone exactly and I remember a case of the supposed other than panel to know details more but a Youth Police Crime Commission I think she was in Birmingham who had sort of put her head above the parapet for a job thing yeah yeah maybe put a head above the parapet for a job and then the press wouldn't over her tweets as as they are it's their right to do and they found that she says some stupid stuff as we've all done in suddenly she became the number one victim in the country the number one criminal in the country put her face all over the papers and she had to resign now I'm not argue the rights or wrongs about what she said but increasing now the things we say when we're younger are being held against us because it's a permanent record of the life done you want to come in I'll be with these things are important but that I'd like to get us onto fake news which i think is a I think is a cancer in the system I mean you know the information is the lifeblood of democracy and fake news is a terrible oh and so in fact news is nothing new well we've seen the rise of it well we've really seen the rise of it on social media in the u.s. we not had fake news in the mainstream media's you know the Pope supports Donald Trump Hillary Clinton part of a pedophile ring I mean these things are nonsense but they're very serious nonsense and I think well the thing is I think that what we you know we've got an election coming up in three years time there is some evidence to suggest this have an impact on the democratic process in America I think we need to find ways of thing that tide reaching these shores over the next three years I person I mean although I think that social media and the Internet are fundamentally good for democracy they disseminate information they encourage participation this fake news needs to be stamped out but what think the responsibility for that lies with social media companies but what's the debt don't think they're being responsible enough about it and I think they need to be cooled out okay are they tech platforms or other publishers that's the clues in the title of their social media platform I don't know why they're saying they're not media come on this fake news business some of these fake news stories are so blatantly ludicrous surely most people must think of which is more insidious that or some of the misreporting and misrepresentation and distortions that we've seen over the years from the mainstream media which is more dangerous well I think that they're both dangerous so there's a big big difference between those two worlds though which is that particularly for television it's a much more regulated world there are rules there's a third party independent regulator who can investigate complaints the the the social media is the Wild West it is absolutely the Wild West and that's a problem but if back in 1984 Joe and the miners strike a very divisive moment in British history and there was a infamous Battle of all grieve an infamous battle right then in the in the you know whole struggle and the BBC I'm afraid to say at the time they put the tape in a wrong direction because originally as Liberty said the human rights organization for police riot the police had to pay compensation and and they put it in a wrong direction the BBC yet to apologize for incidentally because and made it look like the miners at attack the police the other example infamously is Hillsborough where the Sun newspaper spread false news fake news about Liverpool fans with absolutely horrendous consequences so we should take on fake news to the media but this happens every day on on Twitter and the Twitter sphere of the digital media of fake I think often it Moloch I mean whether it be about immigrants Muslims unemployed people benefit fraud I think all of these are issues which are either exaggerated or distorted often as well by the mainstream press which play into people's prejudices where you end up for example with disabled people who've been as disabled charities have said abused on the streets as a consequence various obstacles often complain to somebody with them as dancers with this so-called mainstream media the MSM you can complain again I theoretically this redress isn't in theory but I'm afraid to say often the way the media operates in this country is that they often behave still with impunity you'll get Corrections on page 22 in a tiny little box so yes obviously we take we should take I'm not saying we shouldn't take it seriously absolutely should do should do that false news which is deliberately fake in order to play into the prejudices of very angry sections of the population bill I just don't think there's enough anger about this I'm coming I'm coming - don't worry cuz I just got lots on this and knows a lot about it but will is a fact-checker not only checking what people are saying be like politicians be they journalists be they lots of other people in public life but also asking them to go and correct the record but it's not just mischievous this stuff it's malicious isn't it it's deliberate and it's malicious it's not for me to judge that it's for everyone in this room to judge that if we're concerned about the effect of information on democracy we've got to remember that we are democracy it is all of us as voters who decide where the digital media is going to be good for us or bad for us I think the thing you've got to look at is who has power and aren't they using it fairly our people who are in powerful positions using information to mislead us and if so what are we going to do about it and Owen is right that there are lots of examples of mainstream media outlets publishing things that are clearly not true in our experience before eventually sorry I'm getting clobbered for it well clobbers this stuff is relative clicks isn't it and it's you know loving Club and is putting it far too strongly very few mainstream media outlets have any kind of system where people get clobbered for getting things right set of rules there's a third party independent regulator who police's that you can complain to things are investigated and ultimately if you were a pure repeat offender you have your license revoked well a when did that loss happen in a major but I made you mean it's almost someone of the Jews some of the news channels it's really sail close to the wind and they get called on this stuff by I get by the regulator and they have to amend their behavior and they do television as you said it's the most regulated and it's absolutely right that they have the strongest kind of set of rules around accuracy and greatest caution it's nonetheless 4k so at least one of them has the informal Slagle of never wrong for long we'll get it on the air as quickly as possible and we'll correct if we need to television and radio have very strong rules newspapers which are highly partisan don't have the same rules they have a whole range of things some of them will correct things very quickly and very fairly when we ask them to and some of them will simply ignore corrections requests so there's a whole range of stuff I want to check a fact how long does it take to check a phone usually about a day a day and around a really solid fact check where you've looked at all the sources you talk to experts where you need to witness it's been around the world twice in fact so the thing that really matters isn't actually whether media outlets get things wrong once it's how often things get repeated because that's very powerful so if they do correct things when we point it out or when someone else points it out that can do a lot of good but not a lot of them do it consistently now let's talk about social media for a minute because there are kind of two things going on with so one is that all of us can share whatever we want with whoever we want and that's amazing that's democracy writ large and if you don't like the consequences then change your voters is not all of us to do a better job as voters the other is people in positions of power be they were social media companies or be they the advertisers on social media using that platform either fairly to the users or unfairly now the thing we don't know when the political parties spend hundreds of thousands millions I don't know advertising is what they are saying and to whom it has never ever been possible before to reach millions of people in this country and have the other millions of the people in the country not know you couldn't take out a newspaper advert and have the rest of us not see it so now we have a whole set of political advertising that is completely unscrutinized and that's the thing that I think we should be maybe a bit worrying Danziger is invisible the rest I think it's the fact that it's unscrutinized is dr. Andrew about trust you can't in a minute I'll come back to trust I'll come back to trust because the trust me I will come back to it but or I'll apologize but Andrew hasn't been in yet if I man I know Laura I've got to come see you I think everyone's had a say and we'll have far more of a say but Andrew journalism humanities in creative industries that's your thing as a doctor Andrew calico in this we're on false news raw fake news now but in this it is cacophony of calamy falsehood is the truth dying well I think the idea that democracy is threatened and truth is destroyed by a bunch of spotty youth from Macedonia it's just ludicrous and equally reasonable is that the CIA of all people complaining about state agencies interfering in the business of other sovereign nations I mean you couldn't good thank you I think though that I think some of my fellow panelists are really trying to do the jigsaw by just the first couple of pieces that come to hand and I think really if we take a step back and look at that question it's kind of too early to tell whether social media digital media very good for democracy because we're not in one we're not in a democracy we're in an era of something like zombie politics if I'm a it's a little bit like was it that was it down shopping was it when asked yes the French Revolution is it that any so did it work it's too early to tell yeah yes if it was done but it's a little bit like well we're in an era of zombie politics where the majority population is no small by its absence and professional politicians have been like a kind of Medicine Show spooning out what the majority population is supposed to accept and you meant to just take your medicine and if you don't take it you're decried as being a deplorable and guess what in the last year major sections of that population have said we're not going to be the studio audience anymore we're going to walk out on that scenario and so with all due respect I think a lot of people sitting around the inner circle are indeed in the inner circle they're in the bubble that we are the problem that is that is rather far removed from where most people are and most people are not in any substantial sense engaged in in politic but if this kind of interpersonal details amounts to political polarization it's just ludicrous put your hand up in the audience if you want to say something on this and I'll get around you but if you say that people have disillusioned with politics because of a lack of trust we are now playing around with this platform which has stuff on it that we cannot trust in there's a paradox somewhere that isn't well yeah I mean I'm particularly interested in this question of you know rules and regulations because the the most regulated part of the media is television it is and we've got this diverse public service system in the UK and that is policed by Ofcom and lo and behold people's biggest source of news in the UK at least is television and it's also the most trusted social media I mean at the moment is much much lower both in terms of the amount number of people that do access it for news but also for its levels of trust that the problem is that you've got those by the way your problem is you've got you got this this issue of fake news and we have to stamp it out before it gets bigger do like it's not it's not too late but there's no such thing as fake news and not fake news and it's clear to determine which is which I mean it's such a big gray area between one and the other and every sense there may be but something has censorship already you have to regulate everything we have to bring up the elephant in the room here and in which is that what no one wants to admit is that the idea of the fear of fake news is the fear of who is reading that fake news and what will they do with that information and essentially when you say that there is a danger of people being influenced by News negatively you're making a differentiation between you who can understand that the news is fake and kind of those vicars out there who can't and that's a deal that's deeply insulting things if you think fake news should be stamped out who do you want to stamp out and why should they be the arbiters of church I just don't buy exactly well I think that's complicated and I know but I think it's bogus do you have different you have different systems within different media and you know televisions heavily regulated in stop television keep holding power to account generally being extremely accurate being diverse and being popular about why why are you so worried that people and I mean I don't know who you're talking about when you're talking about people who don't understand that a wild story about Ed Miliband fixing relationships with Hillary Clinton is fake BuzzFeed's research showed that there was more consumption of fake news entering the u.s. election than true news it's the question if someone if something completely fake about you when all over the world like someone claimed you the head of a drug cartel something to you obviously ridiculous but when all around the world thousands P they don't know you from Adam that any who you are and your picture is they're calling you the head of your car so you'd be like no correction needed free speech they can say well one well they won't he be comfortable that but I would suppose I would publicly say that that isn't the case rich it would put it's the cost of having a free societies people being allowed to say whatever they want and sometimes that being untrue sometimes that being now you all it stamp out the cost of it free I'm good I'm gonna take that I'm gonna take that thought there are people being able to say whatever they want and we're gonna discuss it in the context of the digital media but first of all as promised what would you like to say I want you to say was that this particular issue about news weather where they are coming from is not the responsibility of one side it's the responsibility of the receivers us general public as well to find it out where is it coming from if we can't get to right to the bottom of it at least do a little bit of research or investigation of our own nowadays it's not only TV as somebody said it's mostly the free newspapers on the train that's the time we have to just listen and edges now this even if we take simple rules golden rules now this particular rule and saying is coming from a Muslim community is a saying of Prophet Mohammed Salim a basic saying a Hadees that for a person to be a liar is enough that he passes on whatever he just his without making any effort to check so if everybody takes just a simple basic rule only we will avoid so much of spreading around just a news which we heard on a word say assume was their city yes against rumors in backbiting everybody sticks to their truth so much so much will be relieved isn't it yeah a really smart point and it's a really good point so far you know as a fact checker it's lovely to find may say to use fact-checking to empower everybody but thing you've got to ask the flipside of the question of you know who's the person who can you know split the difference between all of those stupid people who believe all that they can use and the rest of us actually none of us can just skim through a set of headlines and know which of them is true or not it's immensely difficult to spot people who are trying to mislead you and people who are we want to be things we like the rills in the spills and the excitement of all what what if that's true that's great exactly it's a completely different set of personal standards we apply to that than we do to watching TV news or radio news but you can't never mind splitting the difference here's somebody who made a difference Laura your campaign and the tampon tax and that was through social media wasn't it yeah and yeah I think one of the main really good points about social media is that it really gives power to underrepresented communities for people like women for example so like tampon tax have existed since 1973 and people have campaigned for generations to end tampon tax and the reason why this campaign finally won at least I think anyway is because we've had this platform of social media that we've never had before and upon that platform we can finally really be heard and like politicians can't necessarily ignore us anymore and so I think that's one really really good like an important point of social media that individuals can really use it rather than like political parties or maybe like news outlets like it gives the individual and then communities that are under represented power yeah there's loads of examples things I'm interested in the whole pressure on SeaWorld in Florida with your campaign yeah manic campaign your campaign but it's not just a click isn't it because it's what you were saying no they don't Helen it's a million clicks scale up just nothing really significant also like people don't just click and then do nothing else or they don't just like go through exactly and people don't just scroll through like changed or example and just like click on every single petition they don't I get people emailing me every single day with that little spelling errors that I've made that I've not even seen so they definitely do like read through your campaigns and we also have lots of communities throughout the world really and that have found together and really made a difference within their community whether that be through tampon tax or the new campaign about homeless people and improving sanitary provision to homeless women like lots of people do stuff physically that's inspired did you get any abuse and vile trolling as a result of your campaign I did I think like especially as a woman or like a feminist campaign you know online and you just opened to that which is really sad but like I found that online trolling is actually really important form of sexism that I mean like in current way in that it's really obviously documented and it's evidence to show that like sexism really does exist shock and it's yeah it shocks people but like women face X is upon everyday basis no lots of people basically say Oh sexism doesn't exist like we have never experienced as men for example for therefore some of that stuff is psychotic it's not yeah but I mean it's just evidence of feelings that are like evident throughout Society and if that comes out online that's in a way a good thing because it shows that sexism you discus and when it's tackle it it's lifted up the stone what about so many female MPs have from all sides of the of the chamber of the political divide I've had some and it's not about what's going on I think it's about they're in a suit that's the power of the network that you're talking about with a tampon tax you know in networks before were all boys network so they were further powerful whereas now we can have networks for for everyone good to come together but as well as that that attracts and what the internet does really well is amplify what is in people's what was out there in the debate so it tracks those who are the most vocal and the most aggressive to take part in the debate and what I really dislike I know about you is this idea that if you respond to that you are feeding the trolls you know I think that women have to have women and everyone needs to put their voices out there and we need to take back that space we need to take back the internet space and what I would what I would say is that again you know to come that's why we need a more active government setting we need it's too early to tell I agree what the impact of digital media and democracy but we need to decide what that impact is what active government what do you mean we need we need a government where example is looking at this the issue is protecting free speech but also against hate speech online for example if you meet one of these people are very often out oh and you know they're not very impressive human beings some of these people are pretty sad individuals think but they're you know they become these sort of keyboard warriors and as Owen said oh they're only say things to you that were they would never say to your face that's not representative it's just brought out a sense of its empowered its rather pathetic people well I'm it's empowered if you like the wrong people but there needs to also be sanctions it needs to be sanctions and this is the point about internet it's in part of the wrong people the wrong people when they're attacking and trolling yes and there needs to be sanctions and I'm very interested the idea that you don't that you don't believe there should be sanctions online for the sort of behavior which in the streets if somebody attacked me in the street and the way they do online there would be sanctions and what I'm saying is a regulation that applies in real life applies also online I said I don't think there should be any such foreigner on the beach in real life or any wasn't you know that the phrase empowering wrong people is so terrifying to hear from an MP I mean that is just shocking to me because what this is really masking and the in the question about women is so interesting because so often censorship online is couched in terms of protecting women protecting minorities and what that basically is saying is that women cannot really sometimes quite awful abuse online as well as men to me that's tops without putting their head above the parapet wanted to stand apart if you are public bigger and if you if you're a publicly special MP you should be able to accept that you are talking to the public and the public should be allowed to talk to you now sometimes that's particularly nasty actually the majority of so-called sexist abuse that MPs get and I'm thinking about certain MPs who were very vocal about it just that it's about Cooper is actually just criticism of this hang on if so they cancel and Regency surgery and said I think you should I would I think you should be raped you wouldn't say hang on a minute I'll be with you in just a second threats and things like that are clearly illegal it should be dealt with through law but what we're really talking about now is a broader question about what is that and actually what is talked about is saying stuff like I mean you know I've written on this a lot about what is sexist trolling and it's often like calling women fat or calling what saying horrible things about women and that is that is seen to say that women are too sorry to say so women are more subject to online abuse and that there should be sanctions to protect women is deeply more sexist than anything in online coach how do we stop this can we stop it should we stop I can't stop here and we shouldn't stop all types of trolling and we shouldn't stop all types of offensive language or behavior because when we live in a society is and we talked about it where people are slightly worried about self censoring not being able to speak their mind actually sometimes internet trolls play quite a valuable role they push at the boundaries of offensiveness and they make other people feel like they might be able to speak their mind to yes of course there are limits to that where it gets particularly targeted or where it's a threat against an individual but there's always a danger I think that with internet trolls we just say oh there was you know a terrible ghost silence and all that would actually be quite detrimental for the health of our tomorrow you can play I think trolls and abuse and that's the flaw I get trolled all the time right I look like a 12 year old I mean some age better than others what can you do in article it was provocative but it was pretty as most of your articles can be pretty thoughtful and and well argued about the fact that having Jeremy Corbyn as leader might not be the best idea in the world and it was interesting and I I watched it happen now is it unfolded in front of me like a like a fight in the schoolyard you weren't behaving in that manner but other people were arriving sellout as my mom would tell me no I'm joking there's not much room for civilized debate so no but I would say this actually because yes I have had that kind of attack and it seems ridiculous but I think we've had a lot of focus on that but but the vast majority of abuse I get is from the far right and the hard right and that is stuff like threats of violence that's a death sharing my home address sharing pictures from Google Street view of my bedroom and my front door with arrows pointing at them saying here's where he his bedroom his his door now if you're saying an absolute view on free speech which is people have the right to say that I should be chopped up because I'm gay that people online should you know it doesn't I don't take it seriously I should say some of my friends think I should take it far more seriously than I do but nonetheless that in the in the interests of free speech people can basically issue whatever I do about it and hate well it should be well over to you in the real world if someone says to you should you know your very real world it is the real world online of course it is I have to say after the death of Joe Cox by far right terrible we should take far more seriously the sort of hate speech we see online and it legitimizes often the sorts of extremism that can end video that's where there's a fella I'm drew so I don't think it necessarily ends up in the tragic death of Joe Cox which was not through a kind of social media hate campaign that was not the what happened it's not what I said that tragedy well but the thing is what you know the left used to be about protecting people's freedoms and arguing for people's freedoms and right now I mean a lot of the kind of trolling online comes from as we've said sort of yes right-wing Sadow's who are keyboard warriors and they really wouldn't threaten a mouse let alone you know women or any left-wing side those as well as I can for the social people see impartiality it comes from it comes from both sides but we used to on the left we used to argue for freedom and absolute freedom and the freedom for somebody to be able to say and express themselves in any way and that's actually now the biggest kind of argument against free speech which is an absolute right in a free society if you don't have free speech you don't have a course or any kind of freedoms because it's the fundamental right to say what you believe and the left is now trying to close that down for through sound andrew Williamson's and through dr. andrew cole cut is this is this just a necessary or unavoidable consequence of the digital media platforms is it just an a manifestation of aspects of the human condition or is it something that we should stamp on oh I certainly don't think we should be stamping and regulating things out of existence not by any means and I I think it would just be ludicrous to try and close it down and sanitize it and outlaw the deplorable zhh it's you know this the same kind of Hillary Clinton discourse all over again you shouldn't be allowed to say that we don't want you even in the echo chamber but what Andrew what about and this is something we'll come back to dump is Dan mentioned this earlier on I think somebody else did too seems an awful long time ago Facebook and Twitter are they tech platforms or are they publishers well they're something like your hybrid in between the two but you know I don't think they are either the problem all the solution I think we've lived through decades of intense into personalization privatization of everyday life mixed in with a kind of post political managerial elite that wants to micromanage every aspect of our existence including what we do on online and I don't think anyone's a mean I would imagine cuz you're not because it's revealing that you don't want a society of free speech in this country and I believe a total and utter free-for-all ignores the fact that there are other aspects of existence that also have importance we're not talking about micromanaging that out of existence we're just talking about having creating an environment where there's some basic decent creating an environment means managing it one of the originally have that incarnation of these already have that media Electronic Frontier Foundation which saw it as a frontier for experimentation and people breaking wait a minute everybody please or I'll unfollow you all as a as a as a TV man as a channel for man are you not slightly on the defensive here because you're old news and this is all this is all the next this is what's happening now that's gonna happen because the TV News Channel 4 News great program Sky News they do wonderful job BBC a IT and likewise but don't they all look a little bit letting footed no I don't think that's right actually I mean I don't think that is a sort of view of it what is actually happening so and as I said earlier television is the main source of news for most people but the traditional media companies Channel four included the BBC included have done an incredible job of going into the new world and distributing video based news you know travel news is now the biggest British broadcaster putting news into into Facebook but I think you've done a deplorable job I'm telling the story of what's been going on in Western societies for the last twenty thirty years that's why you didn't get that people who were gonna vote for brexit that's why the mainstream media didn't get that people were gonna vote as much as when covered the story I think you just to complete on that point I think the important thing to say about the old media going into the new media space is that we the BBC the other public service broadcasters we we apply the standards that exist in the television world which are much higher and in the UK or the gold standard in the world in any form of media we apply those standards into a world where other people aren't applying it that's not to say the internet only players don't have terrifically high standard some of them do people often pose I think you very many open medals you don't dislike there are many self-service broadcasting right there are many who don't and is on fire now well interesting points though interesting about self service broadcasting that's so that's quite a fact Jamie you've been listening you know you know about this stuff well the reality is I think that the one I saw in the back well it's getting far more unstable and unpredictable and that's also very exciting and we definitely need to reinvigorate our democracies we need new ideas to be new controls the more what about Facebook what about Twitter aren't that are their publishers essentially aren't they shouldn't they be doing more if they are judged as publishers I mean they have an opt-out under a 1995 legislation in the US which means they're not responsible for things that are published on their platform because if they were they would probably collapse immediately because they'd have to check everything before it was posted and we're talking about millions billions of you could go on right now you could not suck if I do is you can find vile Islamism you can find a file not using the confession not possible to actually check everything all the time they have a moral imperative to do significantly more than they are doing that moment they are they have immense power as companies and they are simply not well exercised ability I think we're mixing up two things or down really with respect I think you're mixing up two things one is that we all know as individuals around social media and what we do as individuals is our business and everyone else can mind theirs there are also lots of people publishing on social media who are organizations who are doing what used to be only the remit of proper journalists with proper hopefully proper journalistic standards and obviously as a professional journalist who lives by those standards you're offended to see people purporting to do that and not living up to those standards those are the people you have a beef with and I think we need to be with people who are outright lying and also people who are doing it for their own simply for their own financial even get to play Helen I haven't heard from you for a while the point is that the social media platforms are now to some extent kind of institutions of democracy if you like I mean there are where our democracies are played out there where our campaigns a place where our elections take place where our governments act to the web the president-elect is actually making policy and but they've only been there for about five years they've only been around at all for ten and they've only been kind of intertwined with our political systems for five so I suppose it's not surprising that we've got a lot of institutional catch up to do but there are things we can do and there are things that being done I mean not enough and it's too late cetera but we shouldn't just throw our hands in the air and give up Twitter and and we shouldn't lump everything together we're lumping together fake news trolls you know you know the small the small very small number of people who are threatening to close down Twitter entirely right now this is how this is a this is a fantastic debate but aren't there there is a an even more fantastic debate about this debate happening right now debate about politics is being played out on social media as we speak exactly but but the solutions to the things are different as well the solutions to fake news of things like your organization and of what Facebook have said they will do about fake news both they themselves in terms of fake jacking and allowing individual Pete's social media users to report you know and and the solutions are different for trolls and they are different for all the other things that we've been talking about but they they are there are possibilities out there and they are being worked out there are even BOTS being developed antibodies just to explain to people who don't know what a bot is well an automated Twitter account for example there are there are automated Twitter accounts that are out there facing racism and attacking racism or just trying to persuade racist trolls of the error of their ways etc and some of those things are being shown to work so there are a lot of possibilities out there but we can't just lump them all so Chih we're getting towards the end but is it we've got about a forty second answer from you field which we would is this I do celebrate this is it a better form of contact with your constituents as a an elected representative I celebrate it as an elected representative in terms of being able instantly almost to see some constituents those who are on Twitter or those are on either on Facebook's response to really important issues that is fantastic online but I also recognized that there are so many who aren't making those responses because a lot of people have better things to do with their lives then respond to their MPs online but also and I think we haven't talked about this the rules that Facebook and others do in order to decide what you see okay the algorithm they are what control and after theirs goes we're all gonna check our phones right

Channel: BBC News

Views: 287,018

Rating: 4.7084851 out of 5

Keywords: democracy, digital, digital media, bbc news, the big questions, big question, debate, facebook, twitter, youtube, video, lifestyle, owen jones, owen jones twitter, owen jones facebook, jamie bartlett demos, politics, government

Id: zDdWbStC2VU

Length: 58min 9sec (3489 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 19 2017