Browse content similar to 21/03/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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There may have been new clues but after two weeks still no answers to | :00:00. | :00:13. | |
what happened to flight MH370. The search efforts of more than 20 | :00:14. | :00:17. | |
countries have been in vain. Is it beginning to dawn on us that such a | :00:18. | :00:22. | |
vast unexplored wilderness may never give up its secrets. We will put | :00:23. | :00:30. | |
that to oceanographer, the grandson of Jaques Custo. The Internet was | :00:31. | :00:37. | |
built after a nuclear war, why does the Turkish Prime Minister think he | :00:38. | :00:41. | |
can ban Twitter? This protestor is not impressed. And mapping our | :00:42. | :00:48. | |
genes, might lead to medical miracle, but could the power of this | :00:49. | :00:53. | |
new science also provide dangerous temptations. It is now possible to | :00:54. | :00:57. | |
take a blood sample from a pregnant mum, it could be in theory used for | :00:58. | :01:03. | |
all the genetics of the foetus, will the child have head hair, blue eyes, | :01:04. | :01:15. | |
those sorts of things. Good evening. Exactly two weeks ago the Boeing 777 | :01:16. | :01:20. | |
left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing, but days of a desperate search have | :01:21. | :01:25. | |
revealed only a few traces from tracking devices and aerial photo | :01:26. | :01:29. | |
that is may or may not reveal parts of the broken up plane floating in | :01:30. | :01:33. | |
the water. Neither they nor any other pieces of evidence can now be | :01:34. | :01:37. | |
found. The hunt is what's been described as | :01:38. | :01:43. | |
a Goth-wrenching business, in one of the most inaccessible areas on | :01:44. | :01:47. | |
earth. Leaving not just frustration for the rescue crews, but anger and | :01:48. | :01:52. | |
fear for the families of those who had been on board. | :01:53. | :01:57. | |
We're airport in Kuala Lumpur where the flight took off exactly two | :01:58. | :02:02. | |
weeks ago. What happened today? When we spoke yesterday there was a real | :02:03. | :02:05. | |
sense of optimisim, a real sense we could be seeing some sort of | :02:06. | :02:09. | |
breakthrough, since then we have had five search aircraft go down to this | :02:10. | :02:13. | |
area of the southern Indian Ocean where satellites had identified | :02:14. | :02:17. | |
debris which may or may not come from this plane. They all turned | :02:18. | :02:21. | |
having found absolutely nothing, despite the fact the weather | :02:22. | :02:24. | |
conditions and visibility were absolutely perfect yesterday. So as | :02:25. | :02:28. | |
soon as that happens you saw the atmosphere, you saw the language | :02:29. | :02:33. | |
being used change here in Kuala Lumpur. We went back to where we | :02:34. | :02:36. | |
were maybe two or three days ago. The Australian ministers and | :02:37. | :02:39. | |
Government immediately started talking about how this debris could | :02:40. | :02:42. | |
be something connected to a container ship, it is not | :02:43. | :02:46. | |
necessarily anything to do with the flight itself. In the building | :02:47. | :02:49. | |
behind me the Malaysian Defence Minister using language like "in | :02:50. | :02:53. | |
this for the long haul". This immediate sense of optimisim, this | :02:54. | :02:57. | |
kneejerk optimisim we saw after identifying the debris replaced with | :02:58. | :03:02. | |
maybe a sense of realisim over the last 12 hours. The hopes must have | :03:03. | :03:09. | |
turned again to complete despair for the families? Certainly for the | :03:10. | :03:12. | |
families. I think the main thing for the families is the frustration at | :03:13. | :03:17. | |
this changing story. So about a week ago the Malaysian Prime Minister | :03:18. | :03:20. | |
behind me gave a key speech where he gave the distinct impression this | :03:21. | :03:24. | |
was some sort of deliberate act, perhaps pilot suicide, perhaps some | :03:25. | :03:28. | |
sort of form of hijacking, a terrorist incident. Now that | :03:29. | :03:30. | |
narrative has really changed throughout the week, we're now back | :03:31. | :03:34. | |
to a situation where people think this could be some sort of accident. | :03:35. | :03:37. | |
A cockpit fire, something like that. The fact this story, this narrative | :03:38. | :03:43. | |
keeps changing is the main reason the families feel so confused and | :03:44. | :03:45. | |
frustrated at the moment. And briefly, any sense of what happens | :03:46. | :03:53. | |
nex This search operation today is entering what the Government are | :03:54. | :03:57. | |
calling a new phase, they will have naval vessels there for the first | :03:58. | :04:01. | |
time. The Australian Navy will arrive three or four Chinese | :04:02. | :04:04. | |
warships will arrive later. They will bring with them some new | :04:05. | :04:09. | |
advanced search capabilities that aren't available from the air. The | :04:10. | :04:14. | |
next 12-24 hours could be crucial. Make no mistake, everyone will say | :04:15. | :04:17. | |
this will be a huge task, this might not be something that can be found | :04:18. | :04:20. | |
in the next week even. Thank you very much indeed for joining us. As | :04:21. | :04:25. | |
Jim was suggesting the oceans are probably the last real wilderness on | :04:26. | :04:32. | |
earth. The hunt for MH370, fruitless to this point, is a pretty humbling | :04:33. | :04:37. | |
reminder about how much we don't know about the sea. In the very week | :04:38. | :04:41. | |
that scientists reveal startling revelation about the origins of the | :04:42. | :04:44. | |
universe. In the second we will talk to the grandson of one of the most | :04:45. | :04:50. | |
famous marine adventurers of all time, an ocean explorer himself. | :04:51. | :04:54. | |
What faces those still hunting for the plane? Investigators now suspect | :04:55. | :05:02. | |
that Malaysia airlines flight MH370 had enough fuel to continue flying | :05:03. | :05:07. | |
four hours to the other sinnedian ocean. -- southern Indian Ocean. So | :05:08. | :05:12. | |
the search is now in an area of 14,000 square miles. It is roughly | :05:13. | :05:16. | |
1,500 miles off the coast of south-west Australia. That's the | :05:17. | :05:21. | |
equivalent of London to Athens. Even the Australian Navy has no radar | :05:22. | :05:26. | |
coverage there. Satellite images had revealed some possible debris. But | :05:27. | :05:31. | |
after a second day of searching nothing has been found. That could | :05:32. | :05:35. | |
be because the southern Indian Ocean is one of the most remote places on | :05:36. | :05:40. | |
earth. And the seas there, some of the deepest, the average depth being | :05:41. | :05:46. | |
nearly 12,000 feet. Less than 5% of the oceans on earth have been | :05:47. | :05:51. | |
explored, and no-one has any real idea what lies beneath the waves. It | :05:52. | :05:57. | |
is an enormous and unexplored wilderness. At its lowest point the | :05:58. | :06:03. | |
sea bed is nearly 36,000 feet below the surface. A depth greater even | :06:04. | :06:10. | |
than the height of Mount Everest. We're joined by our guest from New | :06:11. | :06:14. | |
York. Thank you very much for being with us this evening. It seems that | :06:15. | :06:18. | |
the authorities have almost been surprised by how difficult this is? | :06:19. | :06:24. | |
Well Laura it may be surprising to some folks, but to my family and | :06:25. | :06:29. | |
other ocean explorers, it is not, the oceans are an extraordinarily | :06:30. | :06:34. | |
large complex environment. We are talking about three. Four billion | :06:35. | :06:39. | |
cubic kilometres of space. As you mentioned earlier, the depths are | :06:40. | :06:43. | |
almost 13,000 feet in that area, on average. And of course the | :06:44. | :06:49. | |
topography is very complex with valleys and mountains and all the | :06:50. | :06:54. | |
currents and torbity at the surface. You have explored the seas in this | :06:55. | :06:58. | |
area where the search is taking place, tell us what it is really | :06:59. | :07:02. | |
like. What are they up against? Well, it is you know, you are | :07:03. | :07:09. | |
basically up against the 28 million square miles of space and of course | :07:10. | :07:13. | |
the depth. Very, very strong currents, you have got upwellings | :07:14. | :07:17. | |
and downdrafts and of course the weather patterns in the general area | :07:18. | :07:21. | |
are always unpredictable and you have got, of course, the distance | :07:22. | :07:28. | |
factor from land which is a monumental task to be able to county | :07:29. | :07:31. | |
councillor when you are looking for something that is so unbelievably | :07:32. | :07:36. | |
small. And we're also putting sub position on top of they are -- | :07:37. | :07:41. | |
supposition on top of theory in an environment that is just unknown. It | :07:42. | :07:45. | |
is unknown as you suggest. Are seas the last wilderness then? We have | :07:46. | :07:50. | |
explored less than 5% of our ocean in all of modern day ocean | :07:51. | :07:54. | |
exploration. That leaves a lot to be discovered. And unfortunately it is | :07:55. | :07:59. | |
being countered by decades of underfunding and budget cuts | :08:00. | :08:03. | |
throughout the world. When we look at images of the vast areas | :08:04. | :08:09. | |
unexplored, this wilderness which we don't really understand yet, should | :08:10. | :08:15. | |
we just accept that it is beyond us really to ever know what is going | :08:16. | :08:19. | |
on? Absolutely not. I think with enough time, resources and | :08:20. | :08:23. | |
perseverance we can learn a lot more about the oceans. We spend a | :08:24. | :08:28. | |
hundred-times more in space exploration than we do in our very | :08:29. | :08:32. | |
own ocean system which is the life support we all depend on. In cases | :08:33. | :08:38. | |
like this on more tragic topics unfortunately we just don't have | :08:39. | :08:42. | |
enough tools and resources to be able to do a thorough search in | :08:43. | :08:46. | |
places like this. Why is that though do you think, as you suggest we | :08:47. | :08:51. | |
spend billions more on space exploration it is a very different | :08:52. | :08:57. | |
appeal for people what do you think that is about? Stars make us dream. | :08:58. | :09:05. | |
We love oceans to go for vacations, tropical destinations, that sort | :09:06. | :09:09. | |
thing. But when we talk about exploration and adventure, many | :09:10. | :09:13. | |
people look up instead of down. That said, there are plenty of adventures | :09:14. | :09:18. | |
below that blue carpet. Unfortunately there are also some | :09:19. | :09:23. | |
discoveries we need to make for tragic cases such as this. In your | :09:24. | :09:27. | |
experience, your long experience of exploring the seas do you think that | :09:28. | :09:34. | |
we should still have hope in this particular case? The human spirit is | :09:35. | :09:39. | |
a valiant one and we owe it to of course the families and friends of | :09:40. | :09:42. | |
those loved ones that have disappeared, whether that plane | :09:43. | :09:46. | |
ended up landing on land or in the ocean to find out what that | :09:47. | :09:51. | |
conclusion is. And in any event with enough time, with enough resources | :09:52. | :09:55. | |
with enough people power and of course enough funding and | :09:56. | :09:58. | |
perseverance we would be able to find a man made object in the | :09:59. | :10:02. | |
oceans. That said, it has been camouflaged by all the parameters I | :10:03. | :10:07. | |
mentioned before, and the fact that we dump over one million pounds of | :10:08. | :10:13. | |
plastics and other debris in our oceans every hour. That just | :10:14. | :10:17. | |
confuses things like radar and sonar. | :10:18. | :10:18. | |
Thank you very much indeed for joining us and good luck with your | :10:19. | :10:22. | |
next adventure under the seas, thank you. | :10:23. | :10:26. | |
Now, the NHS is already having trouble persuading us that sharing | :10:27. | :10:31. | |
our basic medical records is tolerable in the pursuit of the | :10:32. | :10:35. | |
greater good. Imagine then the rumpus if technology allowed the | :10:36. | :10:39. | |
medical profession to track and potentionally share your complete | :10:40. | :10:45. | |
genetic map? Understanding and monitoring the genome could create | :10:46. | :10:49. | |
huge leaps towards infinitely more effective personalised medicine as | :10:50. | :10:53. | |
it is known. Do we want to live in a world where doctors know way before | :10:54. | :10:58. | |
we can what might happen next to our bodies? Here is the former senior | :10:59. | :11:11. | |
policy adviser to David Cameron. Our genome is what makes us all unique. | :11:12. | :11:16. | |
It is our complete genetic code. Every single protein, every cell in | :11:17. | :11:22. | |
our body is programmed by our genes. It took billions of pounds to map | :11:23. | :11:28. | |
the first human genome, soon we will map anyone's genome for just a few | :11:29. | :11:37. | |
hundred. This is the Holy Grail of modern medicine, an era of | :11:38. | :11:42. | |
individual, personalised treatments, based on your genetic code. The | :11:43. | :11:46. | |
possibility of not just treatment but cures for some of our deadliest | :11:47. | :11:53. | |
diseases. That such a leap forward may come at a price. The history of | :11:54. | :12:03. | |
medicine is one of blanket treatment for disease across whole | :12:04. | :12:08. | |
populations. An aproper now seen as inefficient and ineffective. The | :12:09. | :12:15. | |
advent of quick, cheap, genetic sequencing, will mean the treatment | :12:16. | :12:18. | |
of disease will be targeted to individuals. One of the first | :12:19. | :12:24. | |
examples of personalised medicine is for a cancer called chronic myeloid | :12:25. | :12:30. | |
leukaemia that develops in people with a specific genetic defect. The | :12:31. | :12:36. | |
drug was created to treat the defect. That was a disease that | :12:37. | :12:39. | |
killed 100% of people who had the disease. With the introduction of | :12:40. | :12:43. | |
the drug genetically targeted it went almost immediately to 95% of | :12:44. | :12:50. | |
people with that disease got complete remissions. That is the | :12:51. | :12:54. | |
kind of results you can get from targeting the therapies, and | :12:55. | :12:57. | |
understanding and underping the mechanism of disease and changing | :12:58. | :13:05. | |
the whole way we do medicine. Some predict that soon we will all be | :13:06. | :13:11. | |
encouraged to have our genome sequenced. It may be possible one | :13:12. | :13:14. | |
way for doctors to start treating us even before we begin to feel ill. | :13:15. | :13:22. | |
Professor Sir John Bell is one of the most important voices in world | :13:23. | :13:28. | |
genetics. He's also the Government's chief adviser on health research. He | :13:29. | :13:32. | |
says even at the earliest stages of life our propensity for certain | :13:33. | :13:35. | |
conditions can be identified. As can many other things that make us | :13:36. | :13:40. | |
human. P now possible to take a blood sample from a pregnant mum to | :13:41. | :13:46. | |
reassemble the genome of the foetus. You can use it for screening for | :13:47. | :13:50. | |
conditions like downsyndrome, it could be in theory used for Alloa | :13:51. | :13:57. | |
the genetics of the foetus, will they have red hair, blue eyes, those | :13:58. | :14:02. | |
sorts of things. What you are saying is that genetic selection before a | :14:03. | :14:07. | |
child is born may well become more likely? ? I think that is | :14:08. | :14:11. | |
challenging for society to deal with. Society will want to govern | :14:12. | :14:19. | |
what it views to be an acceptable process of engineering one's | :14:20. | :14:28. | |
children, shall we say. The ethical dilemmas do not end at genetic | :14:29. | :14:35. | |
selection. How will it affect your behaviour if you know you are likely | :14:36. | :14:38. | |
to get cancer or heart disease? Will we have to legislate to stop | :14:39. | :14:42. | |
employers or insurers from discriminating on that basis? And | :14:43. | :14:48. | |
what about privacy? Who will have access to our genome? In the genetic | :14:49. | :14:55. | |
age we will be logged, monitored and analysed, right down to the very | :14:56. | :15:02. | |
fabric of our DNA. Our genetic strengths and weaknesses mapped out | :15:03. | :15:08. | |
in digital form. But how ready are we to manage that information? How | :15:09. | :15:13. | |
ready are we to have all our body's secrets stored on file? The genetic | :15:14. | :15:18. | |
data we are talking about would be available for people to use to | :15:19. | :15:23. | |
develop new approaches to diagnosis and therapy. Which I think is in | :15:24. | :15:27. | |
everybody's interests. The digital is allowing us to do that. There is | :15:28. | :15:30. | |
an enormous amount of information available that could actually lead | :15:31. | :15:35. | |
to your identification and people knowing things about you that you | :15:36. | :15:38. | |
would prefer them not to know about you as a person. I think the risks | :15:39. | :15:41. | |
to that properly managed are extremely small. The right to | :15:42. | :15:53. | |
digital privacy will become a key battle ground as our health service | :15:54. | :15:56. | |
becomes more exact and more data driven. But it is the promise of | :15:57. | :16:00. | |
targeting resources at a microlevel that will lead to a dramatic change | :16:01. | :16:04. | |
in the relationship between patient and doctor, the individual and the | :16:05. | :16:10. | |
state. All that moves this health care system from a health care | :16:11. | :16:14. | |
system which was wholly appropriate for the 1950s and 1960s, but which | :16:15. | :16:19. | |
now has to move to another paradigm. And I think that individual | :16:20. | :16:23. | |
ownership of their health care issues will be driven by the genetic | :16:24. | :16:31. | |
revolution. The potential benefits of the genetic age are vast. So too | :16:32. | :16:35. | |
are the ethical issues that lie ahead. If we can set aside our | :16:36. | :16:43. | |
preconceptions about how our health system should work, we will unlock a | :16:44. | :16:51. | |
new era of personalised medicine. Our guests are in the studio, we | :16:52. | :16:57. | |
have the chair of the Nuffield Council on bio-ethics with us as | :16:58. | :17:01. | |
well as or reporter. This sounds like something of a huge opportunity | :17:02. | :17:04. | |
but also huge risk. The authorities don't exactly have a great track | :17:05. | :17:09. | |
record of looking after our data, so why do you expect the public to be | :17:10. | :17:15. | |
happy for medics and then the state and drug companies to have access to | :17:16. | :17:19. | |
the most intensely personal data? I think genetic information is really | :17:20. | :17:22. | |
interesting. In a sense it is of course it is going to unleash great | :17:23. | :17:27. | |
benefits, personalised medicine, preventive treatments and so on. But | :17:28. | :17:31. | |
at the same time it is not categorically different to other | :17:32. | :17:33. | |
types of health information. If someone was to take my blood sample | :17:34. | :17:38. | |
they would be able to tell whether I have been drinking today, whether | :17:39. | :17:42. | |
I'm on drugs. But actually that's, you couldn't get that information | :17:43. | :17:46. | |
from my genome. But the genome is our complete blueprint. It is | :17:47. | :17:50. | |
everything, it's not just your eye colour or your hair colour it is the | :17:51. | :17:54. | |
whole map. It is different isn't it? So whether or not you are A positive | :17:55. | :17:57. | |
or if you have had a glass of wine when you come to the studio? When | :17:58. | :18:02. | |
the human genome was first sequenced, a lot of people thought | :18:03. | :18:06. | |
it would immediately yield lots of incredible insights. We did learn a | :18:07. | :18:10. | |
lot. But what scientists are increasingly of the view is that we | :18:11. | :18:16. | |
need lots of genomes in a big database to find out linkages and | :18:17. | :18:20. | |
patterns and that's really why people are talking about a new type | :18:21. | :18:25. | |
of social contract where people contribute their health information | :18:26. | :18:28. | |
in order to get back greater insights and new treatments. I think | :18:29. | :18:32. | |
that is a really interesting settlement for the 21st century. | :18:33. | :18:36. | |
Should we be that relaxed about a settlement where we give everything. | :18:37. | :18:40. | |
Do you have concerns about this idea? I don't think we should be | :18:41. | :18:44. | |
frightened of a new social contract. This is all about how we get the | :18:45. | :18:47. | |
gains out of the potential and we don't see the downside? This isn't | :18:48. | :18:52. | |
entirely new as an idea, if you take family history you will find out how | :18:53. | :18:57. | |
likely someone is to be affected by an inherited condition. It is doing | :18:58. | :19:00. | |
it no better and doing it slightly more technically. But the key is, is | :19:01. | :19:05. | |
it worth our while sharing this information with each other to get | :19:06. | :19:08. | |
the gain that will come from the system. It probably is, as long as | :19:09. | :19:12. | |
we have the safeguards in place. What safeguards could there be, this | :19:13. | :19:16. | |
kind of information could lead us to gender selection, it could give | :19:17. | :19:18. | |
information to employers about potential medical conditions. How do | :19:19. | :19:22. | |
you safeguard this really precious stuff? I think there are probably | :19:23. | :19:27. | |
two really important things to think about. One is about how it is stored | :19:28. | :19:31. | |
and looked after, how you decide what conditions people have to meet | :19:32. | :19:35. | |
in order to get access to it. But the other is what we do about misuse | :19:36. | :19:40. | |
of the information. So the n Genetics Commission argued for an | :19:41. | :19:46. | |
offence of DNA theft. So if you took someone's DNA and tested it you | :19:47. | :19:52. | |
would be penalised for that. There was also keenness to have rules | :19:53. | :19:55. | |
against discrimination. It addresses that. How do you get people to trust | :19:56. | :19:59. | |
that. It is almost every day we hear stories of child benefit data being | :20:00. | :20:02. | |
lost, or even a supermarket this week lost lots of their employ | :20:03. | :20:08. | |
years' bank details? There is an incredible place outside Stockport | :20:09. | :20:14. | |
in man Chesterer, it is the UK Bio Bank, they have 5,000 people's blood | :20:15. | :20:19. | |
samples and urine samples and health information, all of that the blood | :20:20. | :20:23. | |
samples are only being used for genetic research. Those 200,000 | :20:24. | :20:26. | |
people voluntarily gave up that information. Voluntarily they did. | :20:27. | :20:31. | |
For this social contract you are proposing, presumably we have all | :20:32. | :20:34. | |
got to buy up to that for it to work haven't we? Hundreds of thousands of | :20:35. | :20:38. | |
people do, but all the evidence is when people have been asked are you | :20:39. | :20:44. | |
willing to contribute your health information to improve the common | :20:45. | :20:49. | |
good, people do that. The Wellcome Trust have been doing this with | :20:50. | :20:51. | |
cancer patients for many years. I think they have got something like a | :20:52. | :20:56. | |
99% approval rate. Isn't this also really about giving that data, in | :20:57. | :21:01. | |
order to make scientific advances it has to be given to drug companies. | :21:02. | :21:03. | |
This is also about potential business and profit. Do you expect | :21:04. | :21:06. | |
people to feel comfortable about that. Give me your DNA so that huge | :21:07. | :21:11. | |
companies like Glaxo can make money out of it? We do know that people | :21:12. | :21:14. | |
are suspicious, but they also make that deal all the time with their | :21:15. | :21:19. | |
banks, with their supermarkets, it is about is it worth. This is not | :21:20. | :21:22. | |
about a loyalty card, it is different isn't it? Well your genome | :21:23. | :21:27. | |
probably is pretty hard to read. And it is personal to me, but most of it | :21:28. | :21:33. | |
is also common to my family, it is common to all human beings, it is | :21:34. | :21:37. | |
even common to primates. So actually you have to be pretty skilled at | :21:38. | :21:41. | |
interpreting this to be able to work out something that will track back | :21:42. | :21:44. | |
to me. I think we can control the uses of it, much more than you might | :21:45. | :21:49. | |
imagine. ??FORCEDWHI Thank you very much indeed. I'm assuming you will | :21:50. | :21:53. | |
happy sign up to it and you can share it if and when it actually | :21:54. | :21:57. | |
happens. Thanks for coming in. Even 140 little characters can be | :21:58. | :22:02. | |
hard to ignore. The Turkish Prime Minister certainly failed to turn a | :22:03. | :22:06. | |
blind eye today after a rush of messages on Twitter mentioning his | :22:07. | :22:10. | |
links to a corruption investigation. Allegations he denies. But his | :22:11. | :22:14. | |
rather clumsy attempts to block the Internet service condemned by other | :22:15. | :22:19. | |
countries backfired. With web users almost immediately finding their way | :22:20. | :22:23. | |
round it. Social media can be a powerful weapon, but is it strong | :22:24. | :22:28. | |
enough to resist state censorship, maybe the reality of the internet is | :22:29. | :22:32. | |
people with decent technical knowledge will eventually have the | :22:33. | :22:36. | |
last word. Especially our technology editor. Authorisertarian -- | :22:37. | :22:45. | |
authoritarian regimes haven't had an easy relationship with technology. | :22:46. | :22:53. | |
To trace material back to authors, Cold War Governments took samples | :22:54. | :22:57. | |
from every typewriter, these days it is not so easy to keep a lid on | :22:58. | :23:01. | |
criticism. In a rally last night the Turkish prep, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, | :23:02. | :23:05. | |
followed up new laws that allow the blocking of websites with a promise | :23:06. | :23:09. | |
to destroy social media too. We now have a court order, he said, we will | :23:10. | :23:15. | |
eradicate Twitter, I don't care what the international community says, | :23:16. | :23:20. | |
everyone will witness the power of the Turkish Republican lick state. | :23:21. | :23:32. | |
-- Turkish Republic state. Turk go to the polls in 11 days and the | :23:33. | :23:37. | |
ruling party have been pummelled by corruption scandals that look set to | :23:38. | :23:44. | |
increase. A lot of videos proving that corruption indeed took place in | :23:45. | :23:56. | |
turkey Turkey. And it is it is on Twitter and that is where millions | :23:57. | :24:01. | |
of Turkish internet users converse, the Government might want to block | :24:02. | :24:07. | |
the Twitter because of this. The Turkish President says the ban is | :24:08. | :24:12. | |
unacceptable. The fact that he did so on Twitter suggests the ban is | :24:13. | :24:15. | |
not working. We have already seen since the ban was introduced a big | :24:16. | :24:22. | |
uptake in the use of Twitter. There are work arounds including the | :24:23. | :24:29. | |
ability to use and send or send tweets on SMS. There are other | :24:30. | :24:37. | |
applications and we saw a similar situation in Turkey a few years | :24:38. | :24:44. | |
back, with it blocked, tube. At the end it was blocked YouTube was the | :24:45. | :24:49. | |
eighth-most visited site in Turkey. They are not alone, Russian | :24:50. | :24:53. | |
fireworks tonight to celebrate the annexation of Crimea, last week the | :24:54. | :24:58. | |
Russian authorities ordered internet service providers there to block | :24:59. | :25:00. | |
access to several opposition websites, after their critical | :25:01. | :25:05. | |
coverage of Ukraine offensive. These sites contain incitement to illegal | :25:06. | :25:09. | |
activity and participation in public events held in violation of the | :25:10. | :25:13. | |
established order said the rather chilling official notice. Much of | :25:14. | :25:25. | |
the censorship is ineffective, but there is one big exception. The | :25:26. | :25:31. | |
Great Firewall of China was basically brought up in order to | :25:32. | :25:34. | |
break a region of the internet off, the Chinese internet off and give | :25:35. | :25:38. | |
the Chinese state the capacity to reprogramme it along Chinese lines. | :25:39. | :25:41. | |
That is what they have done. That is the only way that continuous | :25:42. | :25:45. | |
constant and fundamental control of the internet is the only way in | :25:46. | :25:49. | |
which it can possibly be done. And only when you are a state such as | :25:50. | :25:53. | |
China with the resources to employ tens of hundreds of thousands of | :25:54. | :25:59. | |
censures to continuously control social media, and lots of other | :26:00. | :26:03. | |
social media sites used in China in order to manually remove messages | :26:04. | :26:07. | |
which are considered unpalatable. There is then a constant tension, a | :26:08. | :26:12. | |
battle between those who want to use technology to dissent and protest, | :26:13. | :26:15. | |
and those who want to shut down debate. It is a battle being fought | :26:16. | :26:22. | |
every day. With us tonight to discuss Turkey's Twitter ban is an | :26:23. | :26:27. | |
author with one. Five million followers on Twitter. From the | :26:28. | :26:34. | |
University of North Carolina, a Professor. | :26:35. | :26:38. | |
First to you, why did the Turkish Government even try to do this? They | :26:39. | :26:46. | |
have been completely outplayed? My sense is they would like Twitter to | :26:47. | :26:51. | |
open offices in Turkey and start responding to court orders and other | :26:52. | :26:55. | |
Government requests. Facebook and YouTube both have offices in Turkey, | :26:56. | :27:00. | |
in fact the YouTube ban finally ended when Google agreed to open | :27:01. | :27:04. | |
offices in Turkey. I see this as a salvo to try to taint Twitter which | :27:05. | :27:09. | |
until now has been an untamed platform as far as the Government is | :27:10. | :27:11. | |
concerned. A direct threat to the company then to be subject to our | :27:12. | :27:17. | |
rules or get out? That's exactly right. Because of YouTube ban Turk | :27:18. | :27:26. | |
issuesers are very practised at Sir come circumventing it, the Prime | :27:27. | :27:30. | |
Minister said what's the big deal, he got around it. There are more | :27:31. | :27:33. | |
tweets coming from Turkey. The difference between the YouTube | :27:34. | :27:38. | |
banner rah and now, there was no big social media-fuelled threat from | :27:39. | :27:43. | |
YouTube to the Government. Now there is from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube | :27:44. | :27:47. | |
and all the social media platforms. Aren't you worried that Turkey is | :27:48. | :27:50. | |
trying to use the tools you might expect from a really authoritarian | :27:51. | :27:54. | |
Government, like China for example? Yeah, I find it very worrying. Quite | :27:55. | :28:00. | |
alarming indeed. We weren't expecting this ban. I find it | :28:01. | :28:06. | |
unacceptable. I think it is violating our universal fundamental | :28:07. | :28:09. | |
right of freedom of speech. So starting down a road of censorship, | :28:10. | :28:13. | |
is this what happens now in a very powerful country where dramatic | :28:14. | :28:16. | |
things are happening, social media is part of the battle ground? Yes, | :28:17. | :28:20. | |
the social media has become quite politic sized -- politicised and | :28:21. | :28:28. | |
polarised in Turkey. It has a very large population of young people, | :28:29. | :28:32. | |
that number is huge, but also I think particularly in the last years | :28:33. | :28:37. | |
n the most recent years as the media diversity visibly shrank in Turkey, | :28:38. | :28:42. | |
more and more people started to go on the social media to find | :28:43. | :28:46. | |
alternative sources of information, sometimes misinformation as well. | :28:47. | :28:50. | |
The social media has become increasingly politicised in Turkey | :28:51. | :28:55. | |
over the last years. But in America isn't there always a danger that | :28:56. | :28:59. | |
social media is overhyped. We have seen other events, particularly in | :29:00. | :29:03. | |
the Arab countries where it was a big part of protests but it didn't | :29:04. | :29:08. | |
change much? Well you have to look at what social media is good at and | :29:09. | :29:12. | |
what social media may not be so good at. It is spectacular for busting | :29:13. | :29:19. | |
open censorship, it is great for creating a challenge in the public | :29:20. | :29:23. | |
sphere. What was just said about social media a politicised space, | :29:24. | :29:31. | |
where censorship is broken and information is passed. Elderly women | :29:32. | :29:34. | |
were begging their children to teach them how to use Twitter so they | :29:35. | :29:39. | |
could finally connect and learn and get together. As you point out what | :29:40. | :29:43. | |
we have also seen is it doesn't necessarily help create the kind of | :29:44. | :29:48. | |
structures that allow the opposition to strategyise to engage with | :29:49. | :29:53. | |
politics and electoral politics in particular. This is partly because | :29:54. | :29:57. | |
this is how people are using it at the moment. So it creates these | :29:58. | :30:01. | |
grounds in which there is a strong challenge and the Government's 's | :30:02. | :30:08. | |
can't rule as they did before. People can't use it to create the | :30:09. | :30:11. | |
grounds with which they can carry forward the impact. So we have a | :30:12. | :30:14. | |
situation that is really volatile. Governments can't rule the way they | :30:15. | :30:18. | |
did before, the old methods of control don't work. But the new ways | :30:19. | :30:22. | |
of challenging haven't completely matured either, there is this | :30:23. | :30:27. | |
dangerous middle ground where we see around the world Government after | :30:28. | :30:30. | |
Government shaking and then resorting to massive repression as | :30:31. | :30:32. | |
we have seen in the case of Egypt and of course that always works. | :30:33. | :30:38. | |
Thank you. In an element in way a hashtag doesn't create lasting | :30:39. | :30:43. | |
revolution exactly as was said? Yes, as was said there are two sides, | :30:44. | :30:48. | |
right, on the one hand these bans clearly don't work, since the ban | :30:49. | :30:56. | |
went into effect overnight there has been an increase, 138% increase in | :30:57. | :31:01. | |
Turkish tweets posted, on an average day we have one. Eight million | :31:02. | :31:05. | |
tweets now it is over two million tweets. There are over 12 million | :31:06. | :31:11. | |
Twitter users, Turkey-based, it is really big in Turkey. On the other | :31:12. | :31:17. | |
hand clearly, all people voiced and expressed their rage, resentment and | :31:18. | :31:21. | |
anger, there isn't a structure, so we don't know which way it will go. | :31:22. | :31:25. | |
There is a lot of misinformation and slander as well. Thank you very | :31:26. | :31:32. | |
much. That's almost all. But today Kate Bush announced that she will be | :31:33. | :31:36. | |
performing live once again, 35 years after her last show at the | :31:37. | :31:42. | |
Hammersmith Odeon in 1979. It will be at the same venue no less. In | :31:43. | :31:46. | |
case you can't wait until then, here is a quick reminder of her very | :31:47. | :31:52. | |
first appearance on Top Of The Pops. Good night. | :31:53. | :31:55. | |
# Bad dreams # In the night | :31:56. | :32:05. | |
# Told me I was going to lose the fight | :32:06. | :32:06. | |
# Heathcliff # It's me a Katy | :32:07. | :32:11. | |
# I've come home # So cold | :32:12. | :32:15. | |
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# Heathcliff # It's me a Katy | :32:18. | :32:21. | |
# I've | :32:22. | :32:22. |