Browse content similar to 13/05/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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From high-street hero to retail tragedy - | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
what really happened at British Home Stores? | :00:07. | :00:09. | |
Did Sir Philip Green act responsibly when | :00:10. | :00:11. | |
You get really egregious cases, which I suspect this is one, | :00:12. | :00:19. | |
then it brings to light how casually the duties of directors | :00:20. | :00:22. | |
Facebook agrees to look into charges of political bias. | :00:23. | :00:32. | |
Did it remove right-wing stories from its trending list? | :00:33. | :00:34. | |
And should we worry that we are increasingly getting news | :00:35. | :00:36. | |
And on Artsnight, Tate director Nicholas Serota dares to ask - | :00:37. | :00:44. | |
just how important is contemporary art? | :00:45. | :00:46. | |
We stand here, on the point of opening the new Tate Modern, | :00:47. | :00:49. | |
the extended Tate Modern, with many people still doubting that | :00:50. | :00:51. | |
Just how did the tycoon dubbed the King of the High Street | :00:52. | :01:08. | |
become the "unacceptable face of capitalism". | :01:09. | :01:11. | |
Philip Green, the man behind many key fashion brands, | :01:12. | :01:14. | |
was lauded and loved - knighted indeed. | :01:15. | :01:17. | |
That was before he sold British Home Stores a year ago for ?1. | :01:18. | :01:20. | |
Last month, the retail chain went into administration, | :01:21. | :01:26. | |
and is likely to be sold again in coming days. | :01:27. | :01:29. | |
Crucially, the move left a ?571 millon hole in its pension fund. | :01:30. | :01:32. | |
The blame has been laid squarely at Philip Green's door. | :01:33. | :01:35. | |
Well, Newsnight has been trying to untangle what happened | :01:36. | :01:39. | |
with the business - and how much blame, if any, | :01:40. | :01:41. | |
Nothing scroomed British style more than British Home Stores, it became | :01:42. | :02:09. | |
a thriving chain of 160 odd shops nationwide. | :02:10. | :02:15. | |
That was then, now BHS is in administration, led by a man who has | :02:16. | :02:18. | |
been bankrupt three times, and lumbered with a hole in its pension | :02:19. | :02:25. | |
pot that seems to be ?571 million wide. And the fall out from this | :02:26. | :02:30. | |
could be immense. One of the BHS known retailers in this country, a | :02:31. | :02:35. | |
Knight of the Realm has been accused of recklessly selling BHS, even | :02:36. | :02:41. | |
though it has helped to make him a multiple billionaire, overnight a | :02:42. | :02:46. | |
man feted as one of our greatest entrepreneurs has been regarded as a | :02:47. | :02:51. | |
pariah. When you get egregious case, I suspect this is one, it brings to | :02:52. | :02:57. | |
light how casually the duties of directors are being taken by some | :02:58. | :03:01. | |
people, and I think we therefore need to remind people who work in | :03:02. | :03:07. | |
business, who have directored duty, that they do include more than | :03:08. | :03:10. | |
simply making money in the short run. | :03:11. | :03:16. | |
Sir Philip Green makes an almost pant mile villain, the ?100 million | :03:17. | :03:22. | |
superyacht, the models, the massive dividend, the tax haven. Feted by | :03:23. | :03:26. | |
some in the establishment, seen as vulgar in the eyes of others, but | :03:27. | :03:30. | |
how much is Sir Philip Green really to blame for all this? Newsnight has | :03:31. | :03:37. | |
heard the views from all sides in what everybody agrees is a sorry | :03:38. | :03:41. | |
tale. So what really happened to BHS? | :03:42. | :03:46. | |
Great value, good quality. It had all looked so hopeful. Money in one | :03:47. | :03:51. | |
side, money out the other. Friends have told us Sir Philip Green thinks | :03:52. | :03:55. | |
he should have sold it is a decade ago. | :03:56. | :03:59. | |
When he did sell in 2015, it went for just a pound. But the buyer | :04:00. | :04:04. | |
wasn't anyone you have heard of. It was a very little known businessman | :04:05. | :04:08. | |
called Dominic Chappell. A man with no retail experience at all, but a | :04:09. | :04:14. | |
very colourful past. So, who is he? Since his take over of BHS, it has | :04:15. | :04:18. | |
merged that Dominic Chappell has been made bankrupt three times, | :04:19. | :04:23. | |
although he insists that one of those bankruptcies is going to be | :04:24. | :04:27. | |
annulled. Newsnight has discovered that 15 years ago he was charged | :04:28. | :04:30. | |
with theft, and the handling of stolen goods in relation to the | :04:31. | :04:35. | |
disappearance of a 47,00 pounds sports car. When we spoke to him | :04:36. | :04:39. | |
about this, he invisited that the case had been thrown out, and that | :04:40. | :04:44. | |
he was innocent. -- insisted. But what about those bankruptcies? | :04:45. | :04:49. | |
Anyone wants to know about Dominic Chappell has to come here, to the | :04:50. | :04:53. | |
Isle of Wight. We have just come off the hovercraft. He used to make this | :04:54. | :04:59. | |
journey in his helicopter. This is island harbour, a unique and | :05:00. | :05:06. | |
historical area, a true jewel in the Crown for the Isle of Wight. Not my | :05:07. | :05:10. | |
words but those of this man. This is Dominic Chappell, the chief | :05:11. | :05:14. | |
executive of island harbour holdings. At least he was. Until his | :05:15. | :05:19. | |
development here went bust, seven years ago, owing more than ?20 | :05:20. | :05:24. | |
million. Much of it to local businesses, who were and still are | :05:25. | :05:28. | |
absolutely furious, including the company that printed this brochure. | :05:29. | :05:34. | |
How many did you make of these? From memory about 5,000. Tim lost out on | :05:35. | :05:40. | |
nearly ?13,000. In this particular project we have to pay our paper | :05:41. | :05:46. | |
suppliers who gave us the paper, ink suppliers, our people that did the | :05:47. | :05:51. | |
Varnishing, we had to pay them as well. So a considerable amount of | :05:52. | :05:54. | |
money other than staff that is paid out by a company, and this type of | :05:55. | :05:57. | |
work happens. Would you say it was reckless the | :05:58. | :06:04. | |
behaviour? Yes. Damaging and reckless? It damaged me to the tune | :06:05. | :06:13. | |
of ?13,000. Hamilton's Fine Foods lost a similar amount If BHS phoned | :06:14. | :06:18. | |
you and say we are thinking of selling up to this man, what would | :06:19. | :06:22. | |
you have said? I would have been speechless they even accepted the | :06:23. | :06:26. | |
approach. I would have say there is to way you can do this Mr Green. | :06:27. | :06:32. | |
Well, there is a lot of prominent businessmen and women who have been | :06:33. | :06:36. | |
through bankruptcies and administration so there is nothing | :06:37. | :06:39. | |
wrong with selling a company to someone with a chequered financial | :06:40. | :06:44. | |
past but this feels a bit different. BHS, such a prominent name on the | :06:45. | :06:48. | |
high street but responsible for a lot of people's livelihoods and | :06:49. | :06:52. | |
pension, so the questions that arrive now are is who was checking | :06:53. | :06:58. | |
the credentialles of Dominic Chappell, and were enough questions | :06:59. | :07:03. | |
asked at the right time. Right at the top of that list, who was | :07:04. | :07:08. | |
vouching for Dominic Chappell? Sir Philip Green's lawyers ling laters | :07:09. | :07:15. | |
told us they got reassurances from MrChappell's lawyers Olswang. | :07:16. | :07:31. | |
That pels lawyers told us: -- Dominic Chappell. | :07:32. | :07:41. | |
What is clear, is that everybody involved in the sale of BHS knew | :07:42. | :07:45. | |
about Dominic Chappell 's bankruptcies but nobody thought they | :07:46. | :07:48. | |
were a deal breaker. So a very rich Mansells his shops to | :07:49. | :07:53. | |
another man, who has no retail experience. On paper that looks odd. | :07:54. | :07:58. | |
Is there anything legally wrong with what happened? If you want to sell | :07:59. | :08:03. | |
the asset and you own this company, you are entitled to dispose of it as | :08:04. | :08:10. | |
you wish, and you don't have to ensure that the person purchasing | :08:11. | :08:17. | |
the asset can comply with his or her own obligations to the company, that | :08:18. | :08:20. | |
is after the event. You are entitled to dispose of your shares as you | :08:21. | :08:25. | |
wish. The single most controversial part of the collapse was the hole in | :08:26. | :08:30. | |
the staff pension scheme, valued at of ?570 million. Controversial | :08:31. | :08:34. | |
because those pensions are being paid out of a rescue fund, that | :08:35. | :08:38. | |
millions of workers have paid into. And not by Sir Philip Green, by | :08:39. | :08:42. | |
Dominic Chappell, or by anyone else who has made money out of BHS. | :08:43. | :08:47. | |
What has never before been revealed, is that two years ago, Sir Philip | :08:48. | :08:53. | |
Green planned a massive restructuring of BHS called Project | :08:54. | :08:58. | |
Thaw. One of the main things it would have achieved was putting more | :08:59. | :09:03. | |
money into the pension fund including 80 million from Sir Philip | :09:04. | :09:07. | |
Green himself. It needed approval and that is something the regulator | :09:08. | :09:12. | |
wasn't prepared to give. At months of discussion the global economy had | :09:13. | :09:15. | |
changed and project thaw was shelved. Could the regulator have | :09:16. | :09:24. | |
saved the scheme? On Monday the boss suggest it had kept in the dark | :09:25. | :09:29. | |
about plans to sell to Dominic Chappell 's group. They discussed | :09:30. | :09:33. | |
propositions with us and the next we heard that there was a specific | :09:34. | :09:39. | |
development, was the sale. Not so says the man who oversees the BHS | :09:40. | :09:43. | |
pension fund. My recollection is clear, that all of the key | :09:44. | :09:45. | |
stakeholders were involved in that sale process and we were all | :09:46. | :09:49. | |
involved in regular dialogue and discussions Once it learned of the | :09:50. | :09:54. | |
sale the pension regulator launched an immediate inquiry known as an | :09:55. | :09:58. | |
anti-avoidance case, I spoke to Dominic Chappell at lent today and | :09:59. | :10:02. | |
he said that inquiry had a huge impact on his ability to borrow | :10:03. | :10:06. | |
money from banks at a competitive rate. He said the inquiry was, in | :10:07. | :10:12. | |
his opinion, one of the main reasons that BHS had gone into | :10:13. | :10:16. | |
administration. But others say there was one very | :10:17. | :10:20. | |
simple option available to Sir Philip Green, but he failed to take | :10:21. | :10:28. | |
it. It. John Ralph has been asked to provide specialist briefing on | :10:29. | :10:32. | |
pensions to their inquiry If you are thinking about selling, and that | :10:33. | :10:36. | |
could you know, that could increase the risk of the pension scheme, | :10:37. | :10:40. | |
there is a very straightforward mechanism you can use, it is called | :10:41. | :10:44. | |
preclearance, you go to the regulator you fill in a form, it is | :10:45. | :10:47. | |
on the website, it is straightforward. You explain what | :10:48. | :10:52. | |
the facts you are doing are, you explain the impact on pension scheme | :10:53. | :10:55. | |
and what you are doing to mitigate that impact. That might involve | :10:56. | :10:59. | |
putting in an amount of money, you then can get a sign off from the | :11:00. | :11:03. | |
regulator, that they will not pursue you, and I think I would like to ask | :11:04. | :11:08. | |
however strong your legal advice was, what was the commercial reason | :11:09. | :11:11. | |
for not taking a bit of time and effort and trouble, and getting that | :11:12. | :11:16. | |
preclearance. There are senior executives within | :11:17. | :11:19. | |
BHS who believe the brand can be saved, but even if it is, the | :11:20. | :11:23. | |
pension scheme won't be. That lifeboat fund will now prop it up. | :11:24. | :11:28. | |
That raises bigger questions, some see this as an corporate equivalent | :11:29. | :11:33. | |
of a get out of jail free card. Let us be clear, setting up the | :11:34. | :11:38. | |
Pension Protection Fund was a progressive step forward, because it | :11:39. | :11:43. | |
was wrong that if somebody lost their job in a company failure they | :11:44. | :11:48. | |
should lose their pension. It is right to underwrite pensions in | :11:49. | :11:52. | |
those situations but clearly it is open to abuse, by employers, taking | :11:53. | :11:57. | |
money out of a company and then dumping responsibility on the | :11:58. | :12:02. | |
taxpayer. There is every chance Sir Philip Green hasn't broken any rules | :12:03. | :12:05. | |
at all to do with the sale of BHS, he stuck to the letter of the law, | :12:06. | :12:09. | |
that he followed advisers' recommendation but there is a chance | :12:10. | :12:13. | |
he will still have to write a big fat cheque to the pension fund? Why? | :12:14. | :12:17. | |
Because his reputation really is at stake here. This whole complex story | :12:18. | :12:22. | |
is about more than who is legally or technically right, it is about | :12:23. | :12:26. | |
perceptions of fairness, about what we as a society think of as fair. | :12:27. | :12:34. | |
At the marine that it was a new develop ever who pecked up the | :12:35. | :12:37. | |
recommend napts of the failed venture, with BHS, it is now down to | :12:38. | :12:42. | |
the Pension Protection Fund to help pensioners and the administrator to | :12:43. | :12:50. | |
try to sell the company. He is analysing five or six separated by, | :12:51. | :12:54. | |
one of which involves Dominic Chappell. | :12:55. | :12:56. | |
Joining me now, the Labour MP Frank Field, who chairs the Work | :12:57. | :12:59. | |
He has suggested Philip Green should hand back his knighthood | :13:00. | :13:03. | |
if he doesn't cough up the money to cover the pensions scheme. | :13:04. | :13:06. | |
Thank you for coming in. Let me ask you to help us unpack this, first, | :13:07. | :13:10. | |
did you know that Sir Philip Green tried to plough back the profits, | :13:11. | :13:15. | |
from BHS into the pensions fund, and that he was stopped from doing that? | :13:16. | :13:22. | |
No. But quite a lot is emerging, and one of the roles of both business | :13:23. | :13:27. | |
Select Committee and Work and Pensions Select Committee, coming | :13:28. | :13:32. | |
together, is be able do a number of audits, so those audits, we hope | :13:33. | :13:36. | |
will be tested but published by Parliament. There is some obvious | :13:37. | :13:41. | |
questions that we need answering, first of all when was as Adam was | :13:42. | :13:47. | |
suggesting there, when were the profits generated? And was it by | :13:48. | :13:51. | |
book-keeping or by other arrangements? Real improvements in | :13:52. | :13:57. | |
the firm? And to whom did they go? Let me go back on this one, if it | :13:58. | :14:02. | |
turns out that he did in fact try and plough those profits back, from | :14:03. | :14:06. | |
BHS, into the pensions fund, including that 80 million of his own | :14:07. | :14:12. | |
money and he was stopped by the regulator, would that concern you | :14:13. | :14:15. | |
and if so, where would you be looking now? Well, we are looking in | :14:16. | :14:20. | |
lots of places, Would you question the regulator? Is the pensions | :14:21. | :14:23. | |
regulator in your perview. We have questioned the regulator | :14:24. | :14:35. | |
without knowing this and immediately companies on behalf of Sir Philip | :14:36. | :14:39. | |
Green came back to disputing many of the key thing she said and again | :14:40. | :14:43. | |
another audit which we will be doing to publish is, was this a failure of | :14:44. | :14:51. | |
the existing law, or is the law adequate, but people trusted with | :14:52. | :14:57. | |
enforcing it did not match up to the job? Are you clear what Philip Green | :14:58. | :15:03. | |
has done wrong? No, that is the point of our inquiry. Do you think | :15:04. | :15:09. | |
he has done anything illegal? We are not starting from a basis of | :15:10. | :15:14. | |
anything illegal. Do you think he has been a moral? I am answering the | :15:15. | :15:18. | |
first question. That side of whether nor has been broken is being looked | :15:19. | :15:24. | |
at by the Serious Fraud Office. We have been in contact with them. I do | :15:25. | :15:31. | |
not want to do anything that would allow inadvertently somebody to | :15:32. | :15:35. | |
shout they cannot get a fair trial. Why would you say so clearly that | :15:36. | :15:40. | |
Philip Green has a moral duty to make good the pension scheme, or I | :15:41. | :15:43. | |
would personally recommend he should lose his knighthood? Why would you | :15:44. | :15:49. | |
go back far if you do not know he has done anything wrong? He was in | :15:50. | :15:55. | |
charge of the stewardship over a period where considerable dividends | :15:56. | :15:59. | |
were paid. We want to look at to whom they went and also he was | :16:00. | :16:06. | |
Stuart ineffective the pension fund. You know now he may have tried to | :16:07. | :16:12. | |
put into that fund and been stopped. Why would you come out with a phrase | :16:13. | :16:16. | |
that sounds like you are prejudging him? When you asked me on here you | :16:17. | :16:22. | |
said you would mention this and we would pass on because there are | :16:23. | :16:26. | |
important issues I would like to discuss. Let me have another go at | :16:27. | :16:31. | |
answering. I think there is one in moral case. Those who are developing | :16:32. | :16:42. | |
unacceptable face of capitalism. If you are a Steward, take the rewards | :16:43. | :16:47. | |
and then walk away and find there is a mega some of money, that people | :16:48. | :16:54. | |
will not get in full. Did he do bronchi think by selling it to Vista | :16:55. | :16:59. | |
Chappel? He has not sold it to Dominic Chappell. I'm sorry, he did | :17:00. | :17:07. | |
for ?1. Mr Chappell is up for buying it again. He is a businessman who is | :17:08. | :17:16. | |
trying to make good. What was the thing that you think he actually did | :17:17. | :17:20. | |
wrong that would lead you to say maybe we should rescind his | :17:21. | :17:26. | |
knighthood? You do not have to rely on your lawyers whatever they are | :17:27. | :17:29. | |
paid and that is part of the business inquiry. Who does advise | :17:30. | :17:35. | |
for these deals and what are they paid, what do they take out of it? | :17:36. | :17:40. | |
We have to go on the internet and find the man is three times | :17:41. | :17:46. | |
bankrupt. To think he is a serious player with no retail experience, to | :17:47. | :17:50. | |
whom you entrust the livelihood of a large workforce, the destiny of the | :17:51. | :17:56. | |
foregone wages and salaries in the pension scheme, I would have | :17:57. | :18:02. | |
thought, if the BBC was run like that, do you think it would have | :18:03. | :18:05. | |
such an easy run from the government this week? Frank field, thank you | :18:06. | :18:09. | |
very much. To those that live there, | :18:10. | :18:11. | |
and those that don't, London often feels like a different | :18:12. | :18:13. | |
country to the rest of the UK. Londoners seem to dress | :18:14. | :18:16. | |
differently, live differently, think differently and - | :18:17. | :18:19. | |
increasingly - vote differently. Polling suggests Londoners are more | :18:20. | :18:35. | |
for the EU then the rest of the country. | :18:36. | :18:35. | |
But what does that mean for the future of the capital? | :18:36. | :18:38. | |
And more importantly, you'll no doubt be shouting at | :18:39. | :18:40. | |
David Grossman offers us his thoughts. | :18:41. | :18:48. | |
London has always been a bit different. | :18:49. | :18:52. | |
It's not just its scale that makes it unique, but demography too. | :18:53. | :18:54. | |
It's younger, better qualified and richer. | :18:55. | :18:59. | |
Londoners are more likely to rent, more likely to live | :19:00. | :19:02. | |
in a flat, and more likely to use public transport. | :19:03. | :19:05. | |
And London politics has diverged from the UK as well. | :19:06. | :19:10. | |
My name is Sadiq Khan, and I'm the Mayor of London. | :19:11. | :19:14. | |
Sadiq Khan's victory in London was as emphatic as it was welcome | :19:15. | :19:17. | |
It's been building since the late '90s. | :19:18. | :19:25. | |
1997 was the first general election when Labour pulled substantially | :19:26. | :19:30. | |
ahead of their national average voting figures - | :19:31. | :19:34. | |
at least in London, compared with the rest of the country. | :19:35. | :19:38. | |
It has continued since then, and in 2015, further ahead again. | :19:39. | :19:42. | |
Now, whether this is because of changing Labour politics in the '90s | :19:43. | :19:48. | |
and 2000s, the late '90s and 2000s under Tony Blair, | :19:49. | :19:50. | |
or a change in the make-up of the London population - | :19:51. | :19:54. | |
to be honest, nobody really knows, but the effect is obvious. | :19:55. | :19:58. | |
It's not that the Conservatives are doing worse, it's that Labour | :19:59. | :20:01. | |
is doing better at the expense of lots of smaller parties. | :20:02. | :20:04. | |
One reason is that London has expanded well beyond its formal | :20:05. | :20:07. | |
Early morning commuters crowd on to packed trains. | :20:08. | :20:21. | |
As London has grown, many of the Conservative-voting | :20:22. | :20:23. | |
middle classes have moved to the surrounding counties, | :20:24. | :20:25. | |
driven by the search for affordable housing. | :20:26. | :20:27. | |
The people who used to vote Conservative in places | :20:28. | :20:29. | |
like Greenwich and Lewisham, they haven't stopped | :20:30. | :20:31. | |
voting Conservative, they just don't live | :20:32. | :20:32. | |
They are now voting Conservative out in Essex and Kent. | :20:33. | :20:41. | |
In place of the middle classes have come migrants, from all | :20:42. | :20:43. | |
Nearly 40% of Londoners were born overseas. | :20:44. | :20:48. | |
It is totally different from anywhere else in the UK. | :20:49. | :20:54. | |
No other region has anything like it, and that does make it look | :20:55. | :20:57. | |
It has links to all sorts of parts of the world, not only personal | :20:58. | :21:05. | |
links, but business links, and it simply and inevitably means | :21:06. | :21:07. | |
that the way people think in London is always going to be a little | :21:08. | :21:11. | |
different from middle England or middle Britain. | :21:12. | :21:13. | |
We can see that difference in polling. | :21:14. | :21:15. | |
In the UK as a whole, 60% put immigration and asylum | :21:16. | :21:19. | |
in their top three issues facing the country. | :21:20. | :21:22. | |
Housing is the most important issue, on 44%. | :21:23. | :21:31. | |
But housing only rates 20% in the UK as a whole. | :21:32. | :21:34. | |
Not only that, but when Londoners say they are concerned about asylum | :21:35. | :21:38. | |
and immigration, they can mean something very different. | :21:39. | :21:42. | |
Because an awful lot of people in London, | :21:43. | :21:45. | |
immigration is important because they have come here to live, | :21:46. | :21:51. | |
and they want to have the freedom to work and to live in London. | :21:52. | :21:55. | |
If they are from elsewhere in the world they may | :21:56. | :21:57. | |
want to have the right to bring their extended family | :21:58. | :22:00. | |
here and come and live here, London works very different, | :22:01. | :22:02. | |
immigration works differently in London because a lot | :22:03. | :22:04. | |
And this different view of course feeds into the debate | :22:05. | :22:08. | |
In the UK as a whole, one recent poll found | :22:09. | :22:14. | |
that the Remain side was just two points ahead of the Leave side, | :22:15. | :22:17. | |
whereas in London the Remain side was ahead by 12 points. | :22:18. | :22:23. | |
It may be that Labour's dominance over the capital is shortlived. | :22:24. | :22:31. | |
As the new luxury investment apartments go up, poorer Londoners | :22:32. | :22:37. | |
may follow the struggling Conservative-voting middle classes | :22:38. | :22:39. | |
The Boris boom created this sort of Dubai on Thames landscape we can | :22:40. | :22:46. | |
If we see the sort of policies we have in London at | :22:47. | :22:53. | |
the moment continuing, where you have on the one hand, | :22:54. | :23:01. | |
up to 100 council estates are up for demolition, and on the other | :23:02. | :23:04. | |
hand, you have 300 towers being built of predominantly luxury | :23:05. | :23:07. | |
apartments all over the city, you have that twin track process. | :23:08. | :23:11. | |
If that continues, what we are going to see is this | :23:12. | :23:14. | |
hollowing out of the city, where it really is going to become | :23:15. | :23:21. | |
a very, very different sort of environment, | :23:22. | :23:22. | |
and in five to ten years' time you will have a very | :23:23. | :23:25. | |
different population, and a very different demographic. | :23:26. | :23:31. | |
Part of London's abrasive charm is it doesn't seem to care | :23:32. | :23:35. | |
It is always been slightly detached from the UK as a whole, | :23:36. | :23:43. | |
but there is perhaps a danger this remoteness turns into isolation - | :23:44. | :23:45. | |
Mark Zuckerberg has today announced plans to invite | :23:46. | :23:51. | |
from across the political spectrum to discuss accusations | :23:52. | :23:58. | |
The Facebook founder and CEO has always denied allegations that | :23:59. | :24:03. | |
Facebook routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative | :24:04. | :24:05. | |
readers and that the company would artificially inject stories | :24:06. | :24:08. | |
into what appeared to be user-generated trending topics. | :24:09. | :24:12. | |
Launched in 2014, the topics appear for the right of the news feed | :24:13. | :24:15. | |
The question is, has Facebook deceived its users by chosing | :24:16. | :24:21. | |
And crucially, have they played to a left-leaning | :24:22. | :24:28. | |
audience's preference for news in their choice of story? | :24:29. | :24:34. | |
the head of social and trending content for the Independent. | :24:35. | :24:38. | |
And Louise Mensch, the editor of Heat Street, who is in New York. | :24:39. | :24:45. | |
Gina Rik Mayall, many people I think would be surprised to know Facebook | :24:46. | :24:53. | |
is in the news game and it is such a big player. I would not say it was | :24:54. | :24:58. | |
in the news game traditionally, in the way you and I understand it, but | :24:59. | :25:04. | |
what people need to realise is that many people get their news via | :25:05. | :25:08. | |
Facebook and that would be the Facebook news feed rather than what | :25:09. | :25:13. | |
is generated in trending topics that only appear on desktops. Most people | :25:14. | :25:19. | |
who use Facebook do it on mobile. Louise, do they have that much | :25:20. | :25:25. | |
influence, does it make such a difference? Of course it makes an | :25:26. | :25:30. | |
enormous difference. Facebook brings the world together and brings the | :25:31. | :25:36. | |
world it's news. I think we have seen Facebook admit and Mark | :25:37. | :25:41. | |
Zuckerberg admit that they have been suppressing conservative news. They | :25:42. | :25:47. | |
issued a statement from a PR firm, a non-denial denial, saying we allow | :25:48. | :25:52. | |
Facebook trending topics that are well supported. The question is, | :25:53. | :26:01. | |
what is well supported? . We had a list yesterday. One right wing news | :26:02. | :26:05. | |
source which was Fox News, the others were left wing including the | :26:06. | :26:09. | |
Guardian, the BBC and New York Times. To be fair, Facebook says it | :26:10. | :26:15. | |
monitors thousands of websites per week. There were right wing | :26:16. | :26:24. | |
publications. It is not saying it feels it is left-leaning, it is | :26:25. | :26:31. | |
saying it will invite Conservatives. It acknowledges it has relied for | :26:32. | :26:36. | |
what is good enough to support a trending topic. If you are not | :26:37. | :26:42. | |
supported by these sources, including the BBC, Guardian and New | :26:43. | :26:45. | |
York Times, your trending topic is not good enough. I think you are | :26:46. | :26:54. | |
being deliberately disingenuous. You are running a right wing leaning | :26:55. | :26:58. | |
website and it looks good for you to say you are suppressed. I have not | :26:59. | :27:03. | |
seen evidence of right or left-wing contents doing better or worse | :27:04. | :27:17. | |
online. These are trending topics. Not news publications. The basic | :27:18. | :27:23. | |
technological... We are not discovering which news publications | :27:24. | :27:27. | |
are suppressed by Facebook and my publication only launched in the | :27:28. | :27:32. | |
last couple of weeks. They are talking about trending topics, not | :27:33. | :27:36. | |
news publications. Can we step back from this? Right wing sites, if they | :27:37. | :27:44. | |
are suppressed, why are they successful on Facebook? The question | :27:45. | :27:49. | |
is trending topics, not news sites. It is amazing you have a basic lack | :27:50. | :27:54. | |
of knowledge on the issue at hand, it is topics, not news sites. Is it | :27:55. | :28:00. | |
the political bias allegations that concern you all the idea that anyone | :28:01. | :28:05. | |
is editing what we think of as a trending topic? Does that worry you? | :28:06. | :28:12. | |
You have to have an element of human duration otherwise it would be easy | :28:13. | :28:20. | |
for Isis to make a trending topic out of an execution video. The | :28:21. | :28:24. | |
sources on which they rely are far too left wing. And that is why, and | :28:25. | :28:30. | |
to give Mark Zuckerberg credit, he is willing to meet with conservative | :28:31. | :28:35. | |
leaders and changes ways, which has to be a good thing. Did you hear | :28:36. | :28:39. | |
that as an admission, that they think they have been biased? No. In | :28:40. | :28:45. | |
the same statement he said he did not think the allegations were true. | :28:46. | :28:49. | |
When you look at where they came from coming they came from one | :28:50. | :28:53. | |
contract working with Facebook. They said that certain sites were not | :28:54. | :29:00. | |
trusted. Like the one we mentioned before. What do you define as a | :29:01. | :29:15. | |
right wing topic? Let's take all lives matter. They would promote | :29:16. | :29:22. | |
black lives matter and the socially conservative response all lives | :29:23. | :29:25. | |
matter would be suppressed. You think that is wrong? Yes, as long as | :29:26. | :29:33. | |
something is not completely it... It is not child abuse, something like | :29:34. | :29:37. | |
that, you have to treat topics equally. Your guest is confused. | :29:38. | :29:44. | |
Should they treat all lives matter, a rival campaign setup in the wake | :29:45. | :29:50. | |
of black lives matter, equally? I have no evidence Facebook have been | :29:51. | :29:56. | |
treating all lives matter, black lives matter, unequally. When I look | :29:57. | :30:02. | |
at the trending topics and what is there, I do not have a look and | :30:03. | :30:06. | |
think, there is something that is not there or artificially. We have | :30:07. | :30:15. | |
run out of time. I am sorry we have to end it there but thanks to both. | :30:16. | :30:17. | |
I'll be back on BBC Two with This Week's World, | :30:18. | :30:20. | |
Next on Artsnight, in a crisis-ridden world, | :30:21. | :30:26. | |
with our national economy on the ropes, Tate director | :30:27. | :30:28. | |
Nicholas Serota dares to ask, does contemporary art really matter? | :30:29. | :30:33. | |
He visits Los Angeles and Middlesbrough, and talks | :30:34. | :30:35. | |
to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne. | :30:36. | :30:37. |