:00:12. > :00:13.President Trump has put Iran on notice after its
:00:14. > :00:16.missile test with limited sanctions, so who is testing who?
:00:17. > :00:19.And is this the beginning of the unravelling of President Obama's
:00:20. > :00:23.I'll be speaking to a former Deputy Prime Minister of Iran.
:00:24. > :00:26.We are able to manipulate YouTube videos in real-time.
:00:27. > :00:28.Here we demonstrate our method in a live
:00:29. > :00:36.Is new technology, which can put the wrong words in your mouth,
:00:37. > :00:42.a giant leap for fake news and alternative facts?
:00:43. > :00:44.How do we sort out the truth, half-truth, and lies?
:00:45. > :00:59.Africa is no longer the colonial subject.
:01:00. > :01:04.President Trump today announced his first sanctions
:01:05. > :01:08.against Iran over its ballistic missile test on Sunday.
:01:09. > :01:10.The new president has been a long-time critic
:01:11. > :01:16.Trump tweeted that Iran is playing with fire.
:01:17. > :01:18.They don't appreciate how "kind" President Obama was to them.
:01:19. > :01:25.The US National Security Advisor said the administration
:01:26. > :01:27.was putting Iran on notice, and then the Treasury department
:01:28. > :01:30.announced sanctions against thirteen people and a dozen "entities".
:01:31. > :01:35.Iran's Foreign Minister responded, also on Twitter, saying "Iran
:01:36. > :01:39.unmoved by threats as we derive security from our people.
:01:40. > :01:41.We will never initiate war, but we can only reply
:01:42. > :01:57.Is this a harbinger of much worse to come like a handbrake turn on Iran
:01:58. > :02:02.policy? In a sense it is unfinished business from the last months of the
:02:03. > :02:07.Obama administration, these missiles, over 1000 mile range, not
:02:08. > :02:11.very accurate, the general view of intelligence experts is that they
:02:12. > :02:17.are being tested as nuclear delivery systems, that is counter to United
:02:18. > :02:26.Nations agreements. Another problem is that some people connected with
:02:27. > :02:30.these, the firing of warships by rebels in recent months, another
:02:31. > :02:33.issue is that basically apart from one counterstrike against those
:02:34. > :02:37.batteries President Obama kicked the can down the road. So emphasis
:02:38. > :02:41.tonight from US officials is that this doesn't mean the end of the
:02:42. > :02:46.nuclear agreement, it is a separate issue but we have to do something.
:02:47. > :02:52.The Trump rhetoric is heavy but these are not, as you say,
:02:53. > :02:56.heavy-duty sanctions. Well, here's the problem which is that President
:02:57. > :03:01.Trump and his national security adviser Mike Flynn are very hard
:03:02. > :03:05.line on Iran. So these aspects of sanctions about these two separate
:03:06. > :03:09.issues which you might see is business as usual for the National
:03:10. > :03:12.Security system in Washington are coming at a time when President
:03:13. > :03:18.Trump has said all options are on the table now for Iran, Mike Flynn
:03:19. > :03:21.has said they are on notice. The dangers of misperception, the
:03:22. > :03:26.Iranians have said that they will carry on testing and President Trump
:03:27. > :03:30.feeling he has drawn a red line, remember how he criticised President
:03:31. > :03:35.Obama for not enforcing the red line of Assyria, he may feel he has to
:03:36. > :03:37.defend it, the scope for sliding into conflict now is considerable, I
:03:38. > :04:01.would say. Thank you very much. Mohsen Sazegara was the Iranians
:04:02. > :04:06.Deputy Prime Minister in his late dash in the late 80s but became
:04:07. > :04:07.disillusioned with the resume and is now a political activist based in
:04:08. > :04:16.Washington, DC. These 25 persons and institutions, I
:04:17. > :04:19.expected it because of an escalation of tensions between these countries.
:04:20. > :04:29.It started from the White House three nights ago by Flynn and Trump,
:04:30. > :04:33.both of them. Do you sense the Iranians pushing a little, nibbling
:04:34. > :04:43.away at Donald Trump with this test on Sunday? I think that right now,
:04:44. > :04:50.the top officials in Iran, the leader, I mean, and the
:04:51. > :04:56.revolutionary guard, they are very cautious and they prefer not to
:04:57. > :05:05.escalate the tension, and more than that, I think, they are waiting for
:05:06. > :05:10.the results of the President's trip to Moscow to see what President
:05:11. > :05:13.Putin can do for them, because they expect that President Putin can
:05:14. > :05:24.reduce the tensions between Washington and Iran. It is not
:05:25. > :05:30.necessarily to the advantage of Tehran to have Putin and Trump
:05:31. > :05:35.close, is it? It is not to the benefit of one side, and to the
:05:36. > :05:41.other side, if there are new sanctions against Putin and Russia,
:05:42. > :05:51.if these are passed by the Congress, it shows that Putin can't solve his
:05:52. > :05:57.own problem. So both sides are not good signals for Iran. Let's look
:05:58. > :06:02.separately at the sanctions and also the visa restrictions, two separate
:06:03. > :06:08.things. Your reaction to the Visa restrictions? Visa restrictions
:06:09. > :06:15.definitely harms a big group of Iranians who live in the USA and
:06:16. > :06:20.their families, relatives, travel, and helps the regime of Iran for its
:06:21. > :06:27.own propaganda and mobilises people to support the regime. But the
:06:28. > :06:30.sanctions against the Revolutionary guard, or the leader, and the
:06:31. > :06:34.institutions, most of them are corrupt in Iran as well, I think
:06:35. > :06:41.this is something else that the people of Iran may like. It is
:06:42. > :06:44.interesting what you say because there is a strong entrepreneurial
:06:45. > :06:49.community of American Iranians who do not like what is happening with
:06:50. > :06:54.this visa. It looks as if President Trump is prepared to put up with
:06:55. > :07:00.that in order to pursue this heavy policy on visas. He doesn't actually
:07:01. > :07:06.care about the impact that will have on the attitudes of American
:07:07. > :07:10.Iranians. By the way I am definitely against such type of restrictions
:07:11. > :07:23.for Iranian citizens, or any sanction which harms all the people
:07:24. > :07:28.of Iran. But I support the sanctions which are targeted and are smart
:07:29. > :07:34.against the top officials and the people who abuse and violate human
:07:35. > :07:41.rights. Is it your sense that President Trump is ad hoc or just
:07:42. > :07:49.sounding like a hawk. -- hawk, or just sounding like a hawk? I feel
:07:50. > :07:56.that sometimes he is unstable and I cannot rely on his stances, but the
:07:57. > :08:02.guys that he has picked for his administration, they are hawks.
:08:03. > :08:06.Especially with respect to Iran, they are too tough. Mohsen Sazegara,
:08:07. > :08:08.thank you for joining us tonight. Should we trust our leaders to tell
:08:09. > :08:13.the truth, and is there something materially different about truth
:08:14. > :08:14.in the technological age? How do we gauge what's true,
:08:15. > :08:18.half true, or false? In the past month, new phrases have
:08:19. > :08:21.entered the political lexicon, in particular, "fake news"
:08:22. > :08:23.and "alternative facts". But what if there's another,
:08:24. > :08:25.explosive ingredient in this febrile mix - the ability,
:08:26. > :08:28.literally, to manipulate the words Here's our technology
:08:29. > :08:40.editor, David Grossman. How do we know that
:08:41. > :08:44.something happened? That we are not being
:08:45. > :08:50.fooled by fakes? Some TV trickery is
:08:51. > :08:56.pretty familiar to us. This technology, green screen
:08:57. > :08:58.or colour separation overlay, has been around in some
:08:59. > :09:04.form for decades. It allows us to convincingly give
:09:05. > :09:07.real people backdrops of virtual However, we are about to cross
:09:08. > :09:16.the threshold into a new world where it is possible to convincingly
:09:17. > :09:20.recreate known real people - famous people like politicians -
:09:21. > :09:23.and have them say or do more We're a few years, but not many
:09:24. > :09:32.years, away from a situation now where we can not only create
:09:33. > :09:39.a pretty sort of realistic environment for people,
:09:40. > :09:41.but we can also do things like manipulate their voices
:09:42. > :09:44.and manipulate their facial expressions and modulate
:09:45. > :09:49.their speech in real-time. Here we demonstrate our
:09:50. > :10:02.method in a live setup. This is the Face 2 Face
:10:03. > :10:12.Project, a collaboration between Stanford University,
:10:13. > :10:13.the Max Planck Institute and the University
:10:14. > :10:15.of Erlangen-Nuremberg. As we can see, we are able
:10:16. > :10:18.to generate a realistic They can take the facial expressions
:10:19. > :10:22.of one person and match them onto the features
:10:23. > :10:24.of another in real-time. The results are already
:10:25. > :10:26.amazing and only going It seems like they are being
:10:27. > :10:29.developed out with a specific ethical framework that helped them
:10:30. > :10:32.to actually assess before technologies are developed,
:10:33. > :10:33.the actual implications The perfect environments for fake
:10:34. > :10:40.news, for a widespread This hugely damaging image
:10:41. > :10:45.of John Kerry supposedly sharing a stage with Vietnam protester
:10:46. > :10:54.Jane Fonda was actually Now the company that
:10:55. > :11:01.invented Photoshop, Adobe, has unveiled a new,
:11:02. > :11:03.potentially game changing At this event in November,
:11:04. > :11:07.Adobe demonstrated Voco, which, loaded with 20 minutes
:11:08. > :11:10.of real sample voice, can then make someone
:11:11. > :11:13.say anything just by typing it in. Adobe said the auyo audio will be
:11:14. > :11:30.watermarked so that fakes are easy to spot but that may not
:11:31. > :11:32.stop them spreading. Often the things we see as fake news
:11:33. > :11:35.or false stories are actually very easily debunked
:11:36. > :11:37.in a matter of seconds. But it doesn't necessarily stop
:11:38. > :11:39.them from spreading, partly because I think
:11:40. > :11:44.the mechanisms now are so quick in terms of how virality is created
:11:45. > :11:48.online but also because people But is there a flip side
:11:49. > :11:54.to this technology? If it makes the fake seem real,
:11:55. > :11:58.what does it do to our perception Will it allow those
:11:59. > :12:05.intent on deceiving us to dismiss cold, solid, hard video
:12:06. > :12:10.evidence as mere trickery? It becomes a term that can be used
:12:11. > :12:23.by anyone who wants to call out something that they don't
:12:24. > :12:24.like, and spread doubt And when you have a high level
:12:25. > :12:33.of distrust in stories, and you have a high level
:12:34. > :12:38.of distrust in institutions, which we do at the moment,
:12:39. > :12:41.then a term like fake news becomes almost meaningless, because it's
:12:42. > :12:49.deployed in so many ways which actually describe
:12:50. > :12:50.things that are perfectly We've grown more sophisticated
:12:51. > :12:53.in our ability to discern However, accelerating technological
:12:54. > :13:00.change means we'll need to quickly refine how we weigh the evidence
:13:01. > :13:02.of our senses. We're joined now by Claire Wardle,
:13:03. > :13:12.Research Director at First Draft News, which aims
:13:13. > :13:14.to improve the standard of online reporting and the philosopher,
:13:15. > :13:24.Simon Blackburn, who wrote Truth - Good evening to you both in London
:13:25. > :13:30.and New York. Simon, is truth just about the most important thing? It
:13:31. > :13:34.is very important in our day-to-day lives, our sensors are adapted to
:13:35. > :13:38.telling us how the world around us is and if we don't know how the
:13:39. > :13:44.world around us is we will not behave well in it. Give an example
:13:45. > :13:49.of how senses are adapted. I'm pretty good at knowing of the bus is
:13:50. > :13:53.bearing down on me and pretty good at not crossing the road if I can
:13:54. > :13:57.see one bearing down on me. I would be much worse in life if I could not
:13:58. > :14:01.see that was a bus bearing down on me so I need the truth about that
:14:02. > :14:04.kind of thing and that is true of all kinds of ways I behave in my
:14:05. > :14:10.environment. I need to know whether the food I am looking at is
:14:11. > :14:15.poisonous, I need to be able to rely on various deliveries of sense,
:14:16. > :14:23.sound, and of course trust in things that people tell me. But it was ever
:14:24. > :14:30.thus. Is there a difference now as technology change things?
:14:31. > :14:38.Communication has exploded so we get communications from very different
:14:39. > :14:43.parts of the world, not just from our neighbours, our parents. Big
:14:44. > :14:49.communications from media outlets, fake media outlets and so one.
:14:50. > :14:54.Sifting what we are told, whether it is trustworthy, becomes much harder.
:14:55. > :15:01.We cannot go behind the scenes. I cannot see what the truth is about
:15:02. > :15:08.what Bush is saying if someone else shows me some bizarre things. In a
:15:09. > :15:14.way, you make it your mission not to be a single sister but to find a way
:15:15. > :15:19.in which we can engage the truth. Do you think the technology that has
:15:20. > :15:25.just been explained in that film will make a huge difference? People
:15:26. > :15:30.look at people's bases and think they can trust their eyes, trust
:15:31. > :15:36.what they see, and it is false. Absolutely. In the same way that
:15:37. > :15:40.photo editing software and video editing software is on a laptop,
:15:41. > :15:46.anyone in the world can create visuals. Because of technology they
:15:47. > :15:50.move at huge speed across the world. Our brains are adapted to trust
:15:51. > :15:55.visuals more. As technology becomes easier and cheaper that is why we
:15:56. > :16:01.have at this explosion of false information. I suppose the more
:16:02. > :16:06.people there are checking to find out it is false. How do you get at
:16:07. > :16:11.the truth? We are having lots of people talking about news literacy
:16:12. > :16:16.projects and educating people to stop and check. We're looking at our
:16:17. > :16:19.phones and scrolling quickly. Although we might know to be
:16:20. > :16:25.critical, sometimes things that are too good to be true, it is very easy
:16:26. > :16:31.to click share. We do not stop and check when we should do. Politicians
:16:32. > :16:35.particularly through the centuries have all tried to manipulate the
:16:36. > :16:40.truth one way or another at different times. In a sense, is it
:16:41. > :16:43.not easy because you can sift through and make decisions yourself?
:16:44. > :16:50.Is it not easier to get information to the access? As human beings, we
:16:51. > :16:57.want information to make us feel better. We are in a polarised world.
:16:58. > :17:00.You sit in groups of people you'd think are the same as you and you
:17:01. > :17:06.want information to make you feel better. It is easier to double check
:17:07. > :17:13.and Google something that does not necessarily mean we are doing that.
:17:14. > :17:19.What will it do to us? I find it destabilising sometimes if I do not
:17:20. > :17:27.know what is true and what is false. It is difficult to predict. If
:17:28. > :17:30.technologies do proliferate in the way described and they become very
:17:31. > :17:34.popular and everyone is using them, I should have thought one possible
:17:35. > :17:39.reaction, my own reaction for example, would be in a sense to
:17:40. > :17:43.retreat. That is very bad for democracy. If I say I am not going
:17:44. > :17:49.to believe anything about President Trump, I do not believe anything
:17:50. > :17:52.about Theresa May, that means I am retreating from my historic duties
:17:53. > :17:59.as a citizen, which is to inform myself about policy and what these
:18:00. > :18:05.people are offering. The advent of global communication could actually
:18:06. > :18:10.signal a retreat. It could indeed. It is a rational response to a world
:18:11. > :18:16.in which nothing is trustworthy. If you cannot trust anything, do not
:18:17. > :18:22.believe anything. Do not act. That basis for action, does that come
:18:23. > :18:27.from early education? Had you get a basis for action? Our senses tell us
:18:28. > :18:31.how the world is. We are very good at using them put up relying on
:18:32. > :18:36.other people, that is something you learn when they are trustworthy and
:18:37. > :18:40.when they are not. Unless you can get some experience in both sides of
:18:41. > :18:49.it, you're not going to be a fully performing, fully active adult. Does
:18:50. > :18:54.that fill you with dread? I have to say, it is a pretty troubling time
:18:55. > :18:58.over here in the US. We are seeing people retreat and say they are not
:18:59. > :19:02.looking at the news. People are already starting to say I am
:19:03. > :19:08.confused, worried and scared and I do worry about what that means. Is
:19:09. > :19:12.this now about the loss of control? There are so much of people's lives
:19:13. > :19:19.which are not in their control. It is another worrying aspect of modern
:19:20. > :19:22.life. I think certainly people feel overwhelmed by technology does it
:19:23. > :19:26.comes to them even when they are not ready for it. You see an update on
:19:27. > :19:32.your phone about something you did not expect. People feel out of
:19:33. > :19:36.control and overwhelmed. There is a huge proliferation. There used to be
:19:37. > :19:40.big blocks of media you could do to four different things. You knew what
:19:41. > :19:46.they did. There is a preferential of all sorts of websites. A lot of them
:19:47. > :19:51.are in high resolution, high technology sites. They look very
:19:52. > :19:57.ill. How you meant to know if they are real or false? You're not meant
:19:58. > :20:01.to know. That is the point. There are very systematic campaign is now
:20:02. > :20:05.to ensure people see the same messages. Over time we are seeing
:20:06. > :20:08.networks of information and systematic campaign to try to
:20:09. > :20:13.persuade people. It is very sophisticated. As much as we try to
:20:14. > :20:19.teach people to be critical, a lot of these things are really easy to
:20:20. > :20:22.fullback on. The people who benefit are dictators, people who manipulate
:20:23. > :20:27.the news for their own ends. Absolutely. We can see, even within
:20:28. > :20:31.Europe and the elections that are coming up with France, Germany and
:20:32. > :20:35.the Netherlands without huge concerns about systematic campaigns
:20:36. > :20:39.quit using social networks to change public opinion. That is definitely
:20:40. > :20:53.what is on the cards. How do you counter that? Thank God for the BBC.
:20:54. > :21:02.You looked at gold standard. Touch wood, we have the Times, the BBC.
:21:03. > :21:09.ITV and our colleagues. Now, of course, how long that will remain
:21:10. > :21:14.and whether indeed the BBC will, for example, remain Independent in the
:21:15. > :21:19.way that Donald Trump has ensured virtually no State Department can be
:21:20. > :21:22.Independent in the USA. That kind of dictatorship, that kind of change in
:21:23. > :21:30.Democratic politics is very worrying. Then we really do lose our
:21:31. > :21:32.morals. She told EU leaders she wanted
:21:33. > :21:36.to build a "strong partnership" with the EU and pledged the UK
:21:37. > :21:39.would be a "good friend This went down well
:21:40. > :21:42.with Chancellor Merkel. Better than her relationship
:21:43. > :21:44.with Donald Trump, After publishing the Brexit White
:21:45. > :21:48.Paper this week, we have a decent idea of what the government wants
:21:49. > :21:51.to get out if its negotiation. But what about those
:21:52. > :21:52.on the other side? Or policy editor, Chris Cook, has
:21:53. > :21:55.been speaking to the EU Competition Trying to find out why we still know
:21:56. > :22:06.so little. I think it is important
:22:07. > :22:09.that we leave some things for the people who will be
:22:10. > :22:11.in the room. The EU negotiator, the UK,
:22:12. > :22:13.and negotiating team because they will have to put
:22:14. > :22:18.together a new puzzle because some of the obvious signals from the UK
:22:19. > :22:23.Government is that they want a new relationship, not
:22:24. > :22:25.the Norwegian, not the Swiss, Therefore I am very careful not
:22:26. > :22:34.to prejudge things because I think the people in the room,
:22:35. > :22:40.they will have a task which is sufficiently difficult
:22:41. > :22:43.without the rest of us trying to... You have an insight
:22:44. > :22:51.into what Britain is planning which lots of people don't have
:22:52. > :22:55.because you've actually seen the undertakings they gave
:22:56. > :22:57.to Nissan and you've judged Well, of course we stay in touch
:22:58. > :23:05.with the UK Government on issues of this kind,
:23:06. > :23:08.just as well with a number The letter in itself,
:23:09. > :23:12.we don't have concerns of state You don't think that while we're EU
:23:13. > :23:24.members at the British Government is committing funds to Nissan
:23:25. > :23:26.which wouldn't be available That would be a very
:23:27. > :23:31.broad thing to answer. In the letter and the debates
:23:32. > :23:33.we have no concerns. Is there any public
:23:34. > :23:35.spending involved in this? Well, I think, eventually,
:23:36. > :23:40.probably you will know. But, for us, having seen
:23:41. > :23:42.the letter, we have no concern That is as well as we stay in touch
:23:43. > :23:51.with the number of other Is your understanding
:23:52. > :23:57.still that the commission's intention is that we'll have
:23:58. > :24:12.like the divorce proceeding and then in Brexit terms and then
:24:13. > :24:20.a trade negotiation? That is the most simple approach.
:24:21. > :24:25.The figure out where you stand and how you move on foot of it is a
:24:26. > :24:30.complex thing to be divorced and having some kind of partnership at
:24:31. > :24:34.the same time. Isn't part of the problem with this that the two
:24:35. > :24:41.things are not going to lie one to the other? Nothing will be decided
:24:42. > :24:44.until everything is decided. There will be things we want in the
:24:45. > :24:50.subsequent relationship but you might want to serve early. It seems
:24:51. > :24:54.very hard to disentangle these two things. These negotiations will be
:24:55. > :25:00.extremely complicated. Maybe you get something in between. To some
:25:01. > :25:07.degree, you can say this will happen to be solved also in a future
:25:08. > :25:12.relationship. This is definitely something where we will have a clean
:25:13. > :25:17.divide commits this can be done now. I think all of these details, they
:25:18. > :25:21.will have to be solved in the room. Not because discussions around the
:25:22. > :25:25.room. But because the responsibility of getting it right is exactly for
:25:26. > :25:29.the people who will be asked to do the deal.
:25:30. > :25:31.Time now for Viewsnight, a new feature of Newsnight.
:25:32. > :25:33.All week we've been bringing you new thoughts
:25:34. > :25:35.and ideas from a range of opinionated people.
:25:36. > :25:37.You might agree with them, disagree, or think again.
:25:38. > :25:40.Tonight, the British Senegalese activist and business
:25:41. > :27:36.The widely respected head of the American organisation
:27:37. > :27:39.Human Rights Watch, Ken Roth, expressed his surprise this
:27:40. > :27:43.week at the appointment of the new deputy head of the CIA.
:27:44. > :27:46.As you might have noticed, we follow Trump's moves closely on this
:27:47. > :27:50.programme, and at the risk of breaking BBC rules on bias, we can
:27:51. > :27:57.Mr Roth was concerned that the new deputy had previously
:27:58. > :28:01.been connected to running a CIA black site for torture.
:28:02. > :28:04.We were more concerned at the double identity of those
:28:05. > :28:11.Emily has issued a kind of denial, but whatever
:28:12. > :28:15.the truth of the allegations, we here at Newsnight fully support
:28:16. > :28:22.Before we go, you may have read in the papers
:28:23. > :28:26.Storms in the Med have left us without fancy foreign
:28:27. > :28:27.imports like lettuce, broccoli and aubergines.
:28:28. > :28:31.This sceptred isle has weathered fiercer storms than this.
:28:32. > :28:33.There was once even a time when, yes, we had no bananas.
:28:34. > :28:35.We've ransacked the archive to find some advice
:28:36. > :28:49.So, here are some useful pointers when attempting
:28:50. > :28:52.to cook that decent, honest, British vegetable that never
:28:53. > :28:54.goes out of season or fashion - the humble cabbage.
:28:55. > :28:58.Sally's cabbage has been cooked in little water with the lid on,
:28:59. > :28:59.retaining the full value of the vegetable.
:29:00. > :29:01.Sally carefully pours the water into a cup.
:29:02. > :29:06.Jane, on the other hand, has drowned her cabbage in water and
:29:07. > :29:10.apart from losing the goodness, that cabbage is a wet soggy mess with no
:29:11. > :29:36.Now, never put so much water in the cabbage again, it makes it
:29:37. > :29:43.But you'll do it quite all right tomorrow.
:29:44. > :30:04.Good evening. Still some unpleasant weather out there if you are
:30:05. > :30:11.travelling. It could well be icy ones rain, sleet and snow meanders
:30:12. > :30:12.northwards. More rain in the South later. Let's take a