health workers in ecuador's capital say that hospitals are overwhelmed due to the number of new corona virus infections don't to say that sick people waiting on the streets for medical help families in mexico are demanding justice for 26 people who were killed in an attack on a rehab facility wednesday come an end to the center in the city of it a plot to reportedly only shooting men japan is deploying 10000 soldiers to its southern region to help with severe flooding at least 2 people have died several missing the american football team the washington redskins says that it's already reviewing its name as pressure mounts to change it the redskins as long been criticized as racist and offensive to native americans those the headlines the news continues here on i was era of the listening post next. tool to produce their own. let me ask you how worried you are about the increase in hostilities in yemen we listen this is the moment to stop all b.

30 action this is the moment he goes on fighting we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories the on the edges there are a. growing number of iconic brands are pulling their ad down from states where we think it's going to lead them to rising patagonia just sun on the companies doing stuff for profit campaign that's incredibly strong and advertisers to the point that facebook is for allowing both racist and violent and verifiably all this kind of rooted into a long term boycott. hello i'm richard gere's person you're watching the listening post working from home here are the media stories we're covering this week facebook gets hit by a big brand advertising boycott designed to get hate speech off the site will anything really change. china passes a new law in hong kong that has journalists there running scared well read talking heads and the bookshelves the just lose credibility plus with all those racist

statues getting taken down who or what will take their place the 2 biggest news stories of 2020 the pandemic in the racial inequality protests have triggered what the united nations calls a tsunami of hate speech a surge in a phobia online the social media platforms involved now find themselves the focus of an advertising boycott a campaign called stop hate for profit that is designed to get them to clean up their act by hitting them where it hurts the primary target has been facebook for years mark zuckerberg and company have resisted demands to take a more active approach a harder line on moderating hateful content 909 percent of facebook's revenues 70000000000 dollars last year reportedly comes from advertising however given facebook's size this boycott is unlikely to seriously. damage its bottom line at least in the short term there is another element in this story the us elections just 4 months away now and the donald trump factor the problematic material this

president posts on facebook our starting point this week is the biggest social media network on the planet. were how big is facebook so big that an advertising boycott backed by major brands and a sudden $74000000000.00 fall in the company's market value probably won't amount to very much. on a lives dream. but it got mark zuckerberg attention on june 26th he went on facebook live to deliver a statement on hateful content much of which consisted of familiar sounding platitudes were able to identify 90 percent of the speech that we were. already wanting to deter zuckerberg did promise however to do more to ban openly divisive and inflammatory rhetoric along with

a new policy on flagging hate messages that's more in line with his rivals twitter we're going to start labeling on times that we find newsworthy i don't want to buy i don't know as he has done these are changes facebook has long resist the company's hand was clearly forced by the ad boycott and the changing socio political realities of 2020. and we're in the middle of a well. people have been locked in. and not only bought but we're also in a period of unprecedented civil i'm breath in the middle of a well. we've been seeing more violence against people of color in the faith for years now but we've never seen. president of the united states openly call for about 40 islands and we've never seen a social media platform actually. meant that it says something that's

ok so i think people are finally fed up and they're saying that. facebook has been getting complaints about its relatively lax approach to moderation for years not just in the us the police killing in minnesota that set off the racial injustice demonstrations and provoked threatening and racially charged posts from president trump simply brought it to a board the brands that announced they're pulling ad money out of facebook includes some of the world's biggest. coca-cola and unilever but big brands don't dominate social media and the way they do want to feed smaller brands medium sized boards and local businesses are where most of the money is the organizers of the boycott a u.s. based group called stop pay to for profit maintain that ad revenues are just one

way to measure the impact of their campaign. our main goal is to stop hate in december mation on facebook and this is impacting places we saw last week their stock prices drop 8 percent we saw $15000000000.00 go out of mark zuckerberg pocket mark zuckerberg was a billionaire before we started this campaign he's going to be a billionaire once this campaign is over the truth is that facebook is going to have to reckon with this so brands probably. isn't going to put a realistic dent in anything that we have. and you know. $70000000000.00 . advertising last year. we don't know how much of that is coming from major grantly coca-cola and we don't know how much of that is coming from. business and the truth and facebook knows that these smaller businesses can't

afford to leave a plot or especially in the midst of a global pandemic brand boycotts are always a bit of a performative gesture that certain and we've seen that throughout the years that said they tend to be gestures that firms take quite seriously for the public relations hit that they do represent resawing way to significant lead out of facebook's market capitalization as the share price dropped and we saw investors selling off stock at a time when the u.s. economy is likely set for a fairly significant recession on the whole so i do think that facebook and others are watching this closely and taking it seriously. advertisers value facebook because it knows far more about its users than other platforms do about them it can target them more effectively even though some major brands have pulled their ads off the site they remain heavily invested in facebook their ads are still being

placed through what the company calls the facebook audience net which runs ads using what facebook already knows about its users on a host of external or 3rd party x. everything from news sites to to talk to 10. when the advertisers square money into a stock they can pour money into facebook directly or they can pour money into facebook and then ads play on what's new of an audience. so advertisers can use that and kind of rest easy knowing that their ads are going to be targeted using the same facebook tech that they've come to know and love and it also keeps the general public from knowing about it ad is technically running through facebook spikes. facebook's advertising model is based on getting the attention of its users and keeping inflammatory content works because it attracts

all kinds of supporters to back at home it's to fight in the limited content moderation facebook does carry out the standards are vague the rules are applied inconsistently and in force appears to be selective yet there are critics of facebook who say the ad boycott as a cure is much worse than the deceased's. this is absolutely we're all it's specially on a given. all the communications even if certain speakers are completely removed they simply find other social media platforms where they can continue to disseminate their hateful messages in ways that make them even more dangerous because it then becomes harder to know about them to respond to them to make sure that the hateful ideas do not manifest in hateful or violent or

discriminatory actions facebook is selling us and our eyeballs to advertisers. and the truth is that shape all things get high engagement both from folks who are propagating hate but also from folks who are trying to stand up against hate and so claiming that she. is not a part of the business not all he they can say that all they want but it's simply not true. is calling for a total and complete shutdown of muslims and during the united states hanging over this story is the prospect of the us presidential election in november from his 1st run for office in 2015 when donald trump used twitter to call for a ban on muslim immigrants to the racial unrest story this year when he called pro . tester's thugs and threatening to send in the army trump has relied heavily on social media casting and stretching the rules getting far more leeway than other

political leaders do how does he get away with it it helps to have home field advantage silicon valley usa has more to fear from president trump and the lawmakers and regulators who work under him than any leader anywhere. it has come to light in the past few weeks that mark zuckerberg and president trump do have some sort of personal relationship we know there have been visits to the white house by soccer and we know that there have been phone calls between the 2 trumps public rhetoric toward social media platforms is one to suggest that social media platforms are somehow unfair to conservative viewpoints and in particular unfair to him this seems to be counter to the facts. trump supposed to sustain and even when they are flagrantly violating those rules we know that we have this important presidential election coming up in the united states will facebook and platforms across the social media landscape solve their problems with regard to

trump them with regard to heinous racist invective from here to november that strikes me as highly unlikely and therefore it's very worrisome going into the election. we're discussing other media stories that are on our radar now with one of our producers johannah who's joe this past week china imposed a sweeping new national security law on hong kong what effect will this new law have on journalists there. well this new law truly is historic richard as it marks a decisive break from the so-called one country 2 systems principle under which hong kong has been governed by china it grants beijing broad powers to crackdown on anyone that criticizes the chinese communist party including the media now the law

criminalizes subversion terrorism and so-called collusion with foreign forces but its language is extremely vague and that is deliberate because it gives beijing a lot of leeway to suppress free speech and silence dissenting voices including journalists now this past week richard for example the 1st person who was reportedly arrested under this new law was taken into custody just for carrying a flag that said hong kong independence and what's this about hong kong is going online finding some of their old social media posts and deleting them for fear of it being deemed illegal under this new law yes so a lot of hong kong areas including some very prominent activists have either started taking their social media accounts down completely or have started deleting posts that either tie them to the protest movement or criticise china now there are 2 other issues that really worry home congress when it comes to this new law

firstly where they will face trial because some of them may well end up in a courtroom in the chinese mainland which may be a lot harsher in its judgment secondly how long they could end up in jail for as a maximum sentence for violating this law is life imprisonment. ok moving on to iran now we're journalists this past week was sentenced to death what can you tell us about the case of a real hola zam so exam had a telegram account called news which he ran from paris and he covered politics sometimes even posted. embarrassing information on iranian officials now what we know is that tehran accuses him of fueling anti-government protest in 2017 but what we don't know is how he actually ended up in iranian custody according to the n.g.o.s reporters without borders he was actually kit that was on

a trip to iraq almost 9 months ago since then he has appeared on iranian t.v. several times expressing regret for his alleged crimes now the charges are very vague to say the least he was found guilty of corruption on earth which is a language that is often used in cases of espionage or attempts to overthrow the government this past week he was sentenced to death but there is no word yet on whether or not he'll fall in appeal ok thanks joe. with the pandemic forcing so many of us to work from home all kinds of talking heads news anchors interviewees pundits and politicians have had to redefine their natural environments so you've been seeing a lot of bookshelves they're the perfect solution they provide a little visual texture they don't distract and they create the impression whether true or not that the talking head has actually read the books maybe even written

something creating a backdrop is an exercise in self branding it sends a message and speaks to your alleged credibility before you say a word this book flaunting has led to a new genre of media critique bookshelf analysis it was an abbot of all the listening posts full philips now on judging a person by their bookish backdrop. it's an irony for the ages how this pandemic this time that on precedented isolation has forced us virtually to invite strangers into our home. i have 0 meeting with my students i broadcast my b.b.c. radio program here and interviews and presentations and think it all from here making us consider things about our domestic spaces we've never thought of before and no accent that china needs that easy does it mean that behind me the girlfriends feed i write books and cereal for interview is and interview means

whether or not participants and write something it's all about the bookshelf. let me show you a little chills. so you think a lot of people actually but you studies and have them studies and to be the kinds of experts and cooled upon in television interviews to talk about areas of concern you know in their situated in environments that actually are. it is the same time you can also see when the background has been really clear try. the bookshelf is not a function it is somehow neutral and professional get off it. it conveys messages about who we are and who we want people to think. over 50 years ago erving goffman a sociologist thought about how do we shift from thinking about the world as being

like authentic or fake and instead how is it more about being sincere or cynical so he said well let's think about everything as a performance everything is like a stage play. i actually sit at that grey. tract. for the purposes of any kind of videoing i like to have a nice colorful backdrop so i use this which i change according to who are talking to by the way and so what's really important whether people are believing in that stage play or not in fact the term impression management comes from governments work where we look at how people are selectively revealing things about themselves they're all under want to signal like you know their authority by displaying very big kind of historical books one of the most popular ones i've seen on a lot of. honest. classics is while certain people who have like all the war or the original classics like russian or french and stuff like.

historically and paintings and portraiture carefully chosen and placed visual props have long been used to hint at someone's interests that in a way. dogs can be symbols of fidelity or wealth fruit may represent bounty or desire specific books spell out persons profession or fashion. it wasn't until the 19th century that books for books a large numbers of took on the 70s. whole genre developed in the 1900 century or literate secular male figures and the booked lent a kind of grab a task and expertise for example it got the print impressionist did a wonderful portrait critic and writer in monte on t.v. and he seems to be completely enveloped by bookshelves when manning represented and

we also love the french 19th century naturalist writer and critic as well you sit alongside a table which is allied with books. they mean business nouns or. the credibility that books offer has given rise to a cosmetic industry platforms like zoom and allow you to customize your background virtually so you can adopt any bookshelf you like. if you want the real thing but aren't too bothered about actually reading them there are companies that sell books by the media that even cure rate your collection usually they cater to the hotel businesses in the film industry but the pandemic has led to a spike in sales to individual households. to leave those crazy quick shelves and so. they treat its almost as a kind of interior design and much as

a lot of look i actually think it's much more they get read you know the evening they should be modified to the point where their appearance is more important than the. t.v. producers quickly learn that many of their interviewees working from home often don't have that many framing options so we try to make suggestions and we always ask if they have a bookshelf because we know it works i've become reliant on the book shelf as backdrop for interviews for lives and pieces to camera i generally go for this one for practical reasons it's the right height and the lighting works even if some of the titles might give off the impression i'm trying a little bit too hard. we thought about using this collection of magazine covers it's about british pop culture from the ninety's isn't exactly the listening post by not to mention what it says about me. these shelves say a lot about the other part of my life the colors and the covers

a great but i'm not sure they scream journalism and i'm not the only one reading into what's on the shelf authors have always had their critics now bookshelves. bookcase credibility attracts hundreds of thousands of. reviews and a great backdrop. some trends and of course draws all kinds of conclusions about the people popped in the front. in front of rows of his own but everything is alchemy and out clearly is everything these were simply the surplus that i didn't have room for more like i didn't really want to be showing them all so they would just put up here out of the way as an immediate relatable. and it's also concept is. based on you know how messy or how clean they are color schemes ways in which. blacks alike are separated all that put together and what they say

about. maya build a monday out of public some white space distilling credibility to it purest alibi. i call quality but the having a pretty color code the comments on how to display greedy people seem to be inconsistent rageful use it is like a way to pretty bad my analysis i think almost book is credibility so funny is the way that they've struck late so much from so listen and the nation one of the really brilliant piece of our own jones where he has a couple bookshelves behind him and they're described as being like 2 hands from an you know sort of overseeing the from the station and releasing it to make sure there goes the day's owns way and i think they've got this wonderful way of sort taking an element of truth and then just spinning out into this almost a kind of a fantaisie about what the crowds are. gideon haigh gives us

a decent chunk of getting his favorite sport with this majestic display simply because on face this one that you see my cricket books in the background. i think my head sort of hail. i think it is beginning with the lead of b. and c. it's not because i'm particularly interested in those ones it just happens to be there in a roundabout hit by. a presenter richard gets bit got the case credibility treatment a couple of weeks ago perhaps their way of declining our interview requests. which it gets but seeks to put a city as if he's invited us back to his hotel room to see his credibility if things go well he might give us something i mean they they read a lot into the acoustic guitar which i never play all i do is play my lecture guitar my telecaster but our camera man would let me use that because he likes the wood grain in the shot so you know we make compromises whenever we make television doesn't matter whether we're in a studio or where at home people draw these widespread conclusions and there's very

very little flow that you or i can do about so richard do you agree with the credibilities assessment of you or do you think you want to contest it i would say their assessment would be harsh a little snide but ultimately. and finally it's been a bad few weeks for statues monuments that have stood for centuries have come crashing down as the black lives matter movement forces countries around the world to confront their racist past but there's a business opportunity here think of all those city squares formerly graced by white supremacists they need statues and australian comedy group called the chaser has come up with a few ideas on how to fill up some of those empty spaces that all those slave owners who have fallen out of fashion left behind we'll see you next time here at the listening post. hi my name's john and i'm mike rice the statues.

my great granddad made rice the statues his dad made racist actors on i'm continuing a proud family tradition so what do you make racist stuff. or are because no one will instantly my thing you know as soon as you put up a statue you can't really put up any more statues that sign here you know if the crowd congestion is just just and i mean really so our business model we've been making racist structures sorry the idea is that someone going to want to tear it down for the prices and then when we get in if you like only thank you for the good you know we've we've done all the big ones we did captain cook really proud about on the wall or the local mccoury he's the guy who hung all these aboriginal people off trey's. we did the drug deal victoria she just she just kept killing chinese people until they bought her opium. must have stopped millions of pirates

people these are all the things we will for the micron of my crisis that you. have you encountered any difficulties with your business. it's gone these days you put a price a statue suddenly just like the cops from all around the city just come around to protect it. making it really really hard to get hold. in a 2 part series. 0 observes the lives of 2 children. over 20 years. where insights into circumstances that shape lives. in a rapidly changing world. 20 years of me continues with good morning group announces iraq.

and die fast range of stories from across the globe from the perspective of the next let's journalists announce his era. our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history down in the polls and failing to control a growing pandemic donald trump threatens to battle against what he calls a new far left fascism during a 4th of july speech. a very of forget this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up at the moment we are left without any solution with that kind of emergency situation and will rescue us helping migrants in the mediterranean so that some of the.