03/02/2017 Newsnight


03/02/2017

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President Trump has put Iran on notice after its

:00:12.:00:13.

missile test with limited sanctions, so who is testing who?

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And is this the beginning of the unravelling of President Obama's

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I'll be speaking to a former Deputy Prime Minister of Iran.

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We are able to manipulate YouTube videos in real-time.

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Here we demonstrate our method in a live

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Is new technology, which can put the wrong words in your mouth,

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a giant leap for fake news and alternative facts?

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How do we sort out the truth, half-truth, and lies?

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Africa is no longer the colonial subject.

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President Trump today announced his first sanctions

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against Iran over its ballistic missile test on Sunday.

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The new president has been a long-time critic

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Trump tweeted that Iran is playing with fire.

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They don't appreciate how "kind" President Obama was to them.

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The US National Security Advisor said the administration

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was putting Iran on notice, and then the Treasury department

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announced sanctions against thirteen people and a dozen "entities".

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Iran's Foreign Minister responded, also on Twitter, saying "Iran

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unmoved by threats as we derive security from our people.

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We will never initiate war, but we can only reply

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Is this a harbinger of much worse to come like a handbrake turn on Iran

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policy? In a sense it is unfinished business from the last months of the

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Obama administration, these missiles, over 1000 mile range, not

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very accurate, the general view of intelligence experts is that they

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are being tested as nuclear delivery systems, that is counter to United

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Nations agreements. Another problem is that some people connected with

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these, the firing of warships by rebels in recent months, another

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issue is that basically apart from one counterstrike against those

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batteries President Obama kicked the can down the road. So emphasis

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tonight from US officials is that this doesn't mean the end of the

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nuclear agreement, it is a separate issue but we have to do something.

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The Trump rhetoric is heavy but these are not, as you say,

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heavy-duty sanctions. Well, here's the problem which is that President

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Trump and his national security adviser Mike Flynn are very hard

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line on Iran. So these aspects of sanctions about these two separate

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issues which you might see is business as usual for the National

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Security system in Washington are coming at a time when President

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Trump has said all options are on the table now for Iran, Mike Flynn

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has said they are on notice. The dangers of misperception, the

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Iranians have said that they will carry on testing and President Trump

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feeling he has drawn a red line, remember how he criticised President

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Obama for not enforcing the red line of Assyria, he may feel he has to

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defend it, the scope for sliding into conflict now is considerable, I

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would say. Thank you very much. Mohsen Sazegara was the Iranians

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Deputy Prime Minister in his late dash in the late 80s but became

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disillusioned with the resume and is now a political activist based in

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Washington, DC. These 25 persons and institutions, I

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expected it because of an escalation of tensions between these countries.

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It started from the White House three nights ago by Flynn and Trump,

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both of them. Do you sense the Iranians pushing a little, nibbling

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away at Donald Trump with this test on Sunday? I think that right now,

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the top officials in Iran, the leader, I mean, and the

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revolutionary guard, they are very cautious and they prefer not to

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escalate the tension, and more than that, I think, they are waiting for

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the results of the President's trip to Moscow to see what President

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Putin can do for them, because they expect that President Putin can

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reduce the tensions between Washington and Iran. It is not

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necessarily to the advantage of Tehran to have Putin and Trump

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close, is it? It is not to the benefit of one side, and to the

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other side, if there are new sanctions against Putin and Russia,

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if these are passed by the Congress, it shows that Putin can't solve his

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own problem. So both sides are not good signals for Iran. Let's look

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separately at the sanctions and also the visa restrictions, two separate

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things. Your reaction to the Visa restrictions? Visa restrictions

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definitely harms a big group of Iranians who live in the USA and

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their families, relatives, travel, and helps the regime of Iran for its

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own propaganda and mobilises people to support the regime. But the

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sanctions against the Revolutionary guard, or the leader, and the

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institutions, most of them are corrupt in Iran as well, I think

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this is something else that the people of Iran may like. It is

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interesting what you say because there is a strong entrepreneurial

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community of American Iranians who do not like what is happening with

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this visa. It looks as if President Trump is prepared to put up with

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that in order to pursue this heavy policy on visas. He doesn't actually

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care about the impact that will have on the attitudes of American

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Iranians. By the way I am definitely against such type of restrictions

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for Iranian citizens, or any sanction which harms all the people

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of Iran. But I support the sanctions which are targeted and are smart

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against the top officials and the people who abuse and violate human

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rights. Is it your sense that President Trump is ad hoc or just

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sounding like a hawk. -- hawk, or just sounding like a hawk? I feel

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that sometimes he is unstable and I cannot rely on his stances, but the

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guys that he has picked for his administration, they are hawks.

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Especially with respect to Iran, they are too tough. Mohsen Sazegara,

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thank you for joining us tonight. Should we trust our leaders to tell

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the truth, and is there something materially different about truth

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in the technological age? How do we gauge what's true,

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half true, or false? In the past month, new phrases have

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entered the political lexicon, in particular, "fake news"

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and "alternative facts". But what if there's another,

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explosive ingredient in this febrile mix - the ability,

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literally, to manipulate the words Here's our technology

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editor, David Grossman. How do we know that

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something happened? That we are not being

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fooled by fakes? Some TV trickery is

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pretty familiar to us. This technology, green screen

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or colour separation overlay, has been around in some

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form for decades. It allows us to convincingly give

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real people backdrops of virtual However, we are about to cross

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the threshold into a new world where it is possible to convincingly

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recreate known real people - famous people like politicians -

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and have them say or do more We're a few years, but not many

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years, away from a situation now where we can not only create

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a pretty sort of realistic environment for people,

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but we can also do things like manipulate their voices

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and manipulate their facial expressions and modulate

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their speech in real-time. Here we demonstrate our

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method in a live setup. This is the Face 2 Face

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Project, a collaboration between Stanford University,

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the Max Planck Institute and the University

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of Erlangen-Nuremberg. As we can see, we are able

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to generate a realistic They can take the facial expressions

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of one person and match them onto the features

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of another in real-time. The results are already

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amazing and only going It seems like they are being

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developed out with a specific ethical framework that helped them

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to actually assess before technologies are developed,

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the actual implications The perfect environments for fake

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news, for a widespread This hugely damaging image

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of John Kerry supposedly sharing a stage with Vietnam protester

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Jane Fonda was actually Now the company that

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invented Photoshop, Adobe, has unveiled a new,

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potentially game changing At this event in November,

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Adobe demonstrated Voco, which, loaded with 20 minutes

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of real sample voice, can then make someone

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say anything just by typing it in. Adobe said the auyo audio will be

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watermarked so that fakes are easy to spot but that may not

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stop them spreading. Often the things we see as fake news

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or false stories are actually very easily debunked

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in a matter of seconds. But it doesn't necessarily stop

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them from spreading, partly because I think

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the mechanisms now are so quick in terms of how virality is created

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online but also because people But is there a flip side

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to this technology? If it makes the fake seem real,

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what does it do to our perception Will it allow those

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intent on deceiving us to dismiss cold, solid, hard video

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evidence as mere trickery? It becomes a term that can be used

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by anyone who wants to call out something that they don't

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like, and spread doubt And when you have a high level

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of distrust in stories, and you have a high level

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of distrust in institutions, which we do at the moment,

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then a term like fake news becomes almost meaningless, because it's

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deployed in so many ways which actually describe

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things that are perfectly We've grown more sophisticated

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in our ability to discern However, accelerating technological

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change means we'll need to quickly refine how we weigh the evidence

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of our senses. We're joined now by Claire Wardle,

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Research Director at First Draft News, which aims

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to improve the standard of online reporting and the philosopher,

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Simon Blackburn, who wrote Truth - Good evening to you both in London

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and New York. Simon, is truth just about the most important thing? It

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is very important in our day-to-day lives, our sensors are adapted to

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telling us how the world around us is and if we don't know how the

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world around us is we will not behave well in it. Give an example

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of how senses are adapted. I'm pretty good at knowing of the bus is

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bearing down on me and pretty good at not crossing the road if I can

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see one bearing down on me. I would be much worse in life if I could not

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see that was a bus bearing down on me so I need the truth about that

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kind of thing and that is true of all kinds of ways I behave in my

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environment. I need to know whether the food I am looking at is

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poisonous, I need to be able to rely on various deliveries of sense,

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sound, and of course trust in things that people tell me. But it was ever

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thus. Is there a difference now as technology change things?

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Communication has exploded so we get communications from very different

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parts of the world, not just from our neighbours, our parents. Big

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communications from media outlets, fake media outlets and so one.

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Sifting what we are told, whether it is trustworthy, becomes much harder.

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We cannot go behind the scenes. I cannot see what the truth is about

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what Bush is saying if someone else shows me some bizarre things. In a

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way, you make it your mission not to be a single sister but to find a way

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in which we can engage the truth. Do you think the technology that has

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just been explained in that film will make a huge difference? People

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look at people's bases and think they can trust their eyes, trust

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what they see, and it is false. Absolutely. In the same way that

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photo editing software and video editing software is on a laptop,

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anyone in the world can create visuals. Because of technology they

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move at huge speed across the world. Our brains are adapted to trust

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visuals more. As technology becomes easier and cheaper that is why we

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have at this explosion of false information. I suppose the more

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people there are checking to find out it is false. How do you get at

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the truth? We are having lots of people talking about news literacy

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projects and educating people to stop and check. We're looking at our

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phones and scrolling quickly. Although we might know to be

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critical, sometimes things that are too good to be true, it is very easy

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to click share. We do not stop and check when we should do. Politicians

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particularly through the centuries have all tried to manipulate the

:16:32.:16:35.

truth one way or another at different times. In a sense, is it

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not easy because you can sift through and make decisions yourself?

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Is it not easier to get information to the access? As human beings, we

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want information to make us feel better. We are in a polarised world.

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You sit in groups of people you'd think are the same as you and you

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want information to make you feel better. It is easier to double check

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and Google something that does not necessarily mean we are doing that.

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What will it do to us? I find it destabilising sometimes if I do not

:17:14.:17:19.

know what is true and what is false. It is difficult to predict. If

:17:20.:17:27.

technologies do proliferate in the way described and they become very

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popular and everyone is using them, I should have thought one possible

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reaction, my own reaction for example, would be in a sense to

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retreat. That is very bad for democracy. If I say I am not going

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to believe anything about President Trump, I do not believe anything

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about Theresa May, that means I am retreating from my historic duties

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as a citizen, which is to inform myself about policy and what these

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people are offering. The advent of global communication could actually

:18:00.:18:05.

signal a retreat. It could indeed. It is a rational response to a world

:18:06.:18:10.

in which nothing is trustworthy. If you cannot trust anything, do not

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believe anything. Do not act. That basis for action, does that come

:18:17.:18:22.

from early education? Had you get a basis for action? Our senses tell us

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how the world is. We are very good at using them put up relying on

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other people, that is something you learn when they are trustworthy and

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when they are not. Unless you can get some experience in both sides of

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it, you're not going to be a fully performing, fully active adult. Does

:18:41.:18:49.

that fill you with dread? I have to say, it is a pretty troubling time

:18:50.:18:54.

over here in the US. We are seeing people retreat and say they are not

:18:55.:18:58.

looking at the news. People are already starting to say I am

:18:59.:19:02.

confused, worried and scared and I do worry about what that means. Is

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this now about the loss of control? There are so much of people's lives

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which are not in their control. It is another worrying aspect of modern

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life. I think certainly people feel overwhelmed by technology does it

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comes to them even when they are not ready for it. You see an update on

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your phone about something you did not expect. People feel out of

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control and overwhelmed. There is a huge proliferation. There used to be

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big blocks of media you could do to four different things. You knew what

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they did. There is a preferential of all sorts of websites. A lot of them

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are in high resolution, high technology sites. They look very

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ill. How you meant to know if they are real or false? You're not meant

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to know. That is the point. There are very systematic campaign is now

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to ensure people see the same messages. Over time we are seeing

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networks of information and systematic campaign to try to

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persuade people. It is very sophisticated. As much as we try to

:20:09.:20:13.

teach people to be critical, a lot of these things are really easy to

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fullback on. The people who benefit are dictators, people who manipulate

:20:20.:20:22.

the news for their own ends. Absolutely. We can see, even within

:20:23.:20:27.

Europe and the elections that are coming up with France, Germany and

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the Netherlands without huge concerns about systematic campaigns

:20:32.:20:35.

quit using social networks to change public opinion. That is definitely

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what is on the cards. How do you counter that? Thank God for the BBC.

:20:40.:20:53.

You looked at gold standard. Touch wood, we have the Times, the BBC.

:20:54.:21:02.

ITV and our colleagues. Now, of course, how long that will remain

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and whether indeed the BBC will, for example, remain Independent in the

:21:10.:21:14.

way that Donald Trump has ensured virtually no State Department can be

:21:15.:21:19.

Independent in the USA. That kind of dictatorship, that kind of change in

:21:20.:21:22.

Democratic politics is very worrying. Then we really do lose our

:21:23.:21:30.

morals. She told EU leaders she wanted

:21:31.:21:32.

to build a "strong partnership" with the EU and pledged the UK

:21:33.:21:36.

would be a "good friend This went down well

:21:37.:21:39.

with Chancellor Merkel. Better than her relationship

:21:40.:21:42.

with Donald Trump, After publishing the Brexit White

:21:43.:21:44.

Paper this week, we have a decent idea of what the government wants

:21:45.:21:48.

to get out if its negotiation. But what about those

:21:49.:21:51.

on the other side? Or policy editor, Chris Cook, has

:21:52.:21:52.

been speaking to the EU Competition Trying to find out why we still know

:21:53.:21:55.

so little. I think it is important

:21:56.:22:06.

that we leave some things for the people who will be

:22:07.:22:09.

in the room. The EU negotiator, the UK,

:22:10.:22:11.

and negotiating team because they will have to put

:22:12.:22:13.

together a new puzzle because some of the obvious signals from the UK

:22:14.:22:18.

Government is that they want a new relationship, not

:22:19.:22:23.

the Norwegian, not the Swiss, Therefore I am very careful not

:22:24.:22:25.

to prejudge things because I think the people in the room,

:22:26.:22:34.

they will have a task which is sufficiently difficult

:22:35.:22:40.

without the rest of us trying to... You have an insight

:22:41.:22:43.

into what Britain is planning which lots of people don't have

:22:44.:22:51.

because you've actually seen the undertakings they gave

:22:52.:22:55.

to Nissan and you've judged Well, of course we stay in touch

:22:56.:22:57.

with the UK Government on issues of this kind,

:22:58.:23:05.

just as well with a number The letter in itself,

:23:06.:23:08.

we don't have concerns of state You don't think that while we're EU

:23:09.:23:12.

members at the British Government is committing funds to Nissan

:23:13.:23:24.

which wouldn't be available That would be a very

:23:25.:23:26.

broad thing to answer. In the letter and the debates

:23:27.:23:31.

we have no concerns. Is there any public

:23:32.:23:33.

spending involved in this? Well, I think, eventually,

:23:34.:23:35.

probably you will know. But, for us, having seen

:23:36.:23:40.

the letter, we have no concern That is as well as we stay in touch

:23:41.:23:42.

with the number of other Is your understanding

:23:43.:23:51.

still that the commission's intention is that we'll have

:23:52.:23:57.

like the divorce proceeding and then in Brexit terms and then

:23:58.:24:12.

a trade negotiation? That is the most simple approach.

:24:13.:24:20.

The figure out where you stand and how you move on foot of it is a

:24:21.:24:25.

complex thing to be divorced and having some kind of partnership at

:24:26.:24:30.

the same time. Isn't part of the problem with this that the two

:24:31.:24:34.

things are not going to lie one to the other? Nothing will be decided

:24:35.:24:41.

until everything is decided. There will be things we want in the

:24:42.:24:44.

subsequent relationship but you might want to serve early. It seems

:24:45.:24:50.

very hard to disentangle these two things. These negotiations will be

:24:51.:24:54.

extremely complicated. Maybe you get something in between. To some

:24:55.:25:00.

degree, you can say this will happen to be solved also in a future

:25:01.:25:07.

relationship. This is definitely something where we will have a clean

:25:08.:25:12.

divide commits this can be done now. I think all of these details, they

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will have to be solved in the room. Not because discussions around the

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room. But because the responsibility of getting it right is exactly for

:25:22.:25:25.

the people who will be asked to do the deal.

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Time now for Viewsnight, a new feature of Newsnight.

:25:30.:25:31.

All week we've been bringing you new thoughts

:25:32.:25:33.

and ideas from a range of opinionated people.

:25:34.:25:35.

You might agree with them, disagree, or think again.

:25:36.:25:37.

Tonight, the British Senegalese activist and business

:25:38.:25:40.

The widely respected head of the American organisation

:25:41.:27:36.

Human Rights Watch, Ken Roth, expressed his surprise this

:27:37.:27:39.

week at the appointment of the new deputy head of the CIA.

:27:40.:27:43.

As you might have noticed, we follow Trump's moves closely on this

:27:44.:27:46.

programme, and at the risk of breaking BBC rules on bias, we can

:27:47.:27:50.

Mr Roth was concerned that the new deputy had previously

:27:51.:27:57.

been connected to running a CIA black site for torture.

:27:58.:28:01.

We were more concerned at the double identity of those

:28:02.:28:04.

Emily has issued a kind of denial, but whatever

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the truth of the allegations, we here at Newsnight fully support

:28:12.:28:15.

Before we go, you may have read in the papers

:28:16.:28:22.

Storms in the Med have left us without fancy foreign

:28:23.:28:26.

imports like lettuce, broccoli and aubergines.

:28:27.:28:27.

This sceptred isle has weathered fiercer storms than this.

:28:28.:28:31.

There was once even a time when, yes, we had no bananas.

:28:32.:28:33.

We've ransacked the archive to find some advice

:28:34.:28:35.

So, here are some useful pointers when attempting

:28:36.:28:49.

to cook that decent, honest, British vegetable that never

:28:50.:28:52.

goes out of season or fashion - the humble cabbage.

:28:53.:28:54.

Sally's cabbage has been cooked in little water with the lid on,

:28:55.:28:58.

retaining the full value of the vegetable.

:28:59.:28:59.

Sally carefully pours the water into a cup.

:29:00.:29:01.

Jane, on the other hand, has drowned her cabbage in water and

:29:02.:29:06.

apart from losing the goodness, that cabbage is a wet soggy mess with no

:29:07.:29:10.

Now, never put so much water in the cabbage again, it makes it

:29:11.:29:36.

But you'll do it quite all right tomorrow.

:29:37.:29:43.

Good evening. Still some unpleasant weather out there if you are

:29:44.:30:04.

travelling. It could well be icy ones rain, sleet and snow meanders

:30:05.:30:11.

northwards. More rain in the South later. Let's take a

:30:12.:30:12.

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