 Underestimated outcomes have divided the world. Are we in a new era where truth and facts are hollowed out by hysteria? In a world of 24-hour news and the wealth of information, separating fact from fiction is becoming increasingly difficult. How have we ended up in a place where falsities and half-truths have become the reality? It's a reflection of something deeper, which is the basic lack of authority or the decline of authority of institutions across the board. The things that defined our society, they were corporations, labor unions, the family, churches, you know, political parties. Every single one of those institutions has seen a decline and a number of people saying they trust those institutions. Not only social media giants are using big data, political campaigners know exactly who to micro-target with what type of message. Does technology have implications for our democracy? I think actually technology plays a role, because a lot of these institutions have actually become much, much more transparent. And when people actually see the way that they function in reality, they don't like it, even though there's actually been no change. Our beliefs, whether based in fact or not, are reinforced through complex algorithms and spread throughout the social networks. When people are getting their news from social media, shouldn't their literacy include the skills to also evaluate information for authenticity and validity? Whether fake newsmakers are politically or financially driven are fake news laws an appropriate countermeasure? In a democratic society, freedom of expression is fundamental. But we also need facts, transparency and the truth. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to a panel of the VEF Open Forum. My name is Patrice O'Leary. I'm the anchor of the Swiss public television. And I'm good to have honest people here. On the podium at the panel, hopefully, to speak about this age of lies. And actually, on the one side, we have more the startup side and millennials, of course. And on the other side, we have government and established business side. And I would like to introduce to you, you may ask me if I have a question, and I would like to introduce to you, you may, everybody knows him, of course, like the president of the most democratic country in the world. It's Alain Bersen. And he is also like Federal Chancellor of Home Affairs in Switzerland. And he is a member of Socialist Party. And next to him, we have, like, Iqbal Survi. Businessman from South Africa is here. He's executive chairman of Sekun Jalo Investment Group, owning among other companies independent newspapers, which include the Cape Times and the Star. And he used to be, like, physician, and is a former doctor of Nelson Mandela. And we like to welcome Pia, like the microphone put up here a little bit. And we would like to welcome Pia Mancini. And she's kind of rock star of the civic movement. And the civic movement tries to close the gap between establishment and voters digitally. And they consist mostly on non-profit startups. She developed technology for democracy around the world. She founded an open source platform, Democracy OS in Argentina. And she founded the party, the internet party in Argentina. Partido de la red. And actually she's based now in New York and is chair of the Democracy Earth Foundation. Welcome here. And next to here, we have Iman Usman. I think just turning 25 now. 26. 26, okay. I made you even younger. So he's an editor tech guru in Indonesia. He founded rankuru.com, an award-winning tech-enabled education provider in Indonesia. Iman has co-founded and led some of the largest youth-led movements in Indonesia, such as the Indonesia Future Leaders and the Indonesian Youth Parliament. So welcome. And last but not least, we have Mike Allen. And I welcome the probably best informed political journalist of the US here, delivering countless groups from within the White House. And after leaving Politico, he has founded the media startup Axios, which serves short stories, short enough to be fully read, not skimmed. That's it. And he's enormously energetic as journalist and writer and sees himself as a savior of journalism. And I'm 27, so a little older. No quite. So welcome everybody. So, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Actually, could I just ask the audience quickly? Has anybody ever been fooled by fake news? Hands up. Be honest. Not lying here. So I was... So, okay. So let's start with a little fake news warm-up test for everybody of you. Can you tell fake news from real ones? So let's start maybe from... For the journalist, it's easiest. Let's maybe start with you, Mike Allen. Is it true or false? Put in issues international arrest warrant for George Soros. False. Yes. Okay. So, okay. Maybe it was easy for you. So, and then, Iman Usman. Next one for you. True or false? Texas Mosque refuses to help Hurricane Harvey survivors. Is it true or fake? True. It's fake. That's fake. All right. How you follow? Three Pia Mancini. Police believe Venezuela's zoo animals stolen for food amid crisis. What was that? Police believe Venezuela's zoo animals stolen for food amid crisis. Is it true or false? True. It's true. Fortunately, it's true. Then Iqbal Suve for something for you. Harambe, a dead gorilla, got over 15,000 votes for president of the United States. False. Is it true or fake? False, I think. False. Yeah, correct. Good. And it was like... And the last but not least one from Ale Berse. In Macedonia have been launched over 100 US politics websites publishing sensationalist and false pro-Trump content. True or false? True. True. Oh, you're really doing good. Very good. In most test readers could only identify like half of the news. As a millennial, I'm probably easy on to be fooled. Yeah, no. It's really hard. So, let's dive into discussion now at the serious part of it. We would like to divide the talk in two parts. The first part to look at threats and risks concerning misinformation and fake news. And the second part would be about the solutions, more about constructive ideas, how to tackle that. So, we have like five people from five different countries here just to summarize is or are fake news and misinformation a problem in your country? And since we will have like regional and presidential elections in Indonesia, Iman, we start with you. Are there a problem in Indonesia? Sure. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Iman. So, just to give a bit of context of Indonesia. So, Indonesia is the fourth largest, you know, country in the world, most populous country in the world. As the most populous Muslim country in the world, we have 260 million people in the country. And there are over 500 regions. And this year is particularly exciting and also interesting for Indonesia because over 170 regions in the country will help direct election. So, we will select governor and mayors. And in the past, I think in the last few years, we have seen, you know, how many politicians have overused digital media for the short-term benefit of winning election. And that leads to, you know, the explosion of fake news which later on leads to, you know, division within the communities. So, people just believe what they see and what they hear without really, you know, double-checking the information. For me, I think in particular, Indonesia is very interesting because I think unlike many, you know, many European countries or probably in the U.S. where fake news are spread mostly through, you know, like formal media or even to fancy technology like BOT and all that, but in Indonesia, fake news are spread particularly through chat groups, messaging app, and then also Facebook. So, it is really based on the people that you know. So, that is, I think, more dangerous because then you somewhat believe what, you know, what people will say to you because it's coming from someone that you trust, someone that you know. It's kind of different from, you know, getting information from, you know, the media that maybe you have some curiosity, but if you got information from the people that you know, then typically you believe it. And then for me, it is just dangerous. And then what is also interesting is that it's not only just about the personality, it's not just only fake news about, you know, one or two percent, but fake news has been used particularly during the election season to target hate to certain target audience. So, we've seen basically, you know, a lot of deficient within the communities. And even it's not just bitwin, the people who are, you know, different in terms of religion or in terms of race, but even within the family. So, for instance, I'm coming from a big family. I have five sisters and no brother. And just because I say my mother was fooled by the fake news, we can fight, you know, about it. And we can take it to micro level. It's really micro in the family, but in micro level, it like we see people and friend, you know, on Facebook, people, you know, even send hate message, death threat and all that. So, I think that's quite concerning for me. So, you say it's an explosion of fake news and it's dangerous. What does it mean for the election? I mean, is this like Islamic extremist groups that gain like relevance like? I think what I've seen is that there is a tendency, you know, if you would like to generalize that there are two groups basically. So, those who are more religious and those who are more, I think, moderate, right. And I think, you know, for the conservative, they're still like very afraid that the moderate will take a lead. And that is why they're trying to basically, you know, bury these people with basically a lot of fake news against the personality of these people. So, for instance, maybe they can say, oh, that person is gay or this person is lesbian. And because coming from Indonesia, those things are still, you know, sin as something that is not common, so people take it very seriously. Or maybe they can say, oh, they're not, you know, they were not born in Indonesia. A lot of things that maybe do not really make sense, but people take it as like it's a truth. Okay, this sounds not very okay. Irritating and dangerous, you say. Let's go to the U.S., Mike Allen. So, I mean, is it going to be better? I mean, even the big tech giants testified that there are lots of millions of accounts have been exposed to fake news. There was Russian backed information. There was propaganda, Kremlin propaganda. It's all testified now. Is it somewhere the awareness better? Is it getting better, the fake news situation in the U.S.? No, is the short answer. But first, I'd like to thank the World Economic Forum for hosting us. And thank you for setting up such a great conversation and thank all of you for coming out in the middle of the day. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being here. Thank you for talking to talk to you. I'm very honored to be here. So, thank you. The tech giants are more aware of the fake news, but I'm not sure that that's going to mean less of it. So, Facebook, which has a house right here on the street between here and the Congress Center. You may have seen it. It looks wooden. It's a completely sustainable building. But I'm going to give you a brief description. And Cheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, had a conversation there and talked about how aware Facebook now is of what they call false news and underestimated what could be done with the platform. But is that really going to stop it? So, next time it may be a different actor, someone else behind it. But if you think about Facebook and the point that we're talking about apps, what do we share? We share something that we feel passionately about. And the headlines that you read, which are very clever and fooled some of us, were likely to feel passionate about those. And so, that's why fake news often winds up being shared more often than real news, because it touches an emotional coordinate. And that's what we want to do on social media. That's what makes the media social. So, as the U.S. looks ahead in November, we'll elect all 435 of our House members of Congress, and we'll elect 1 third of our senators, so 33 senators. As we think ahead of those midterm elections, and very consequential, because right now, President Trump's party, the Republicans control both the House and the Senate. I think it's likely that Democrats will take over the House, and they could take over the Senate, less likely. But so, big stakes in that issue. And I think it's likely that Democrats will take over the Senate. I think it's likely that they mean that these outside actors or people who are trying to cause trouble will have an incentive to play once again. And actually, I mean, the symbol of the age of lies is leading the country. I mean, President Trump made according to Washington Post over 2,000 falls or misleading claims, or it's a unique selling point, this line. Well, and what's fascinating. Alternative facts, I'm sorry. Yeah, some people picked that as the phrase of the year, definitely in Orwellian overtone to that. But what's interesting is if you look at the polls in the United States, the people who voted for President Trump, they mostly don't care. So here's an amazing stat, and this comes from a Wall Street Journal NBC News poll, one of those. If you voted for Donald Trump in the Republican primary, so when he was running against Jeb Bush and others, if you voted for Donald Trump in the primary, and you voted for him in the general election against Hillary Clinton, 99% of you are still with him. So President Trump has a very long leash with the people who elected him. And I think something surprising about his presidency is he hasn't done more to reach out to the people who voted for him. I think 54% of people didn't vote for him, and he probably has not added one of those since he was elected to office, but he has kept the people he started with. And they just don't care about the statistics that you just shared. So, I mean, this is the first step to authoritarian style and dictatorship that you don't have to persuade people. You just demonstrate them that you have the power over truth. So, you create your own truth. I mean, this is maybe the concept. We cannot talk about it maybe later, but just I'll let Pia Mangini add to that, because you live now in New York, but how are fake news in Argentina or maybe also in the U.S.? Yeah. I mean, Argentina didn't have a problem with the type of fake news we're discussing. So, like, you know, Macedonian powerhouse is generating fake news. I think we need to divide a little bit what's fake news and used for clickbait and to interfere in an election and fake news used by government as propaganda. So, we had a lot of that. We had a lot of in the previous government of Argentina using media, state-owned or state-supported media very strongly to manipulate public information. So, I think that that's another type of fake news which I'm much more concerned about than the, you know, Macedonian powerhouses. So, we had that very strongly in Argentina, and that's much harder to control because it's state-sponsored, essentially, propaganda. And I think that going back to Anna's point about Trump keeping his base, I think that fake news is not the root of why Trump is in government. I think the problem is that Trump was a viable candidate and he still is a viable candidate. And that has to do with a decline in institutions and a decline of trust in our political institutions and a decline in how citizens feel represented and their problems being addressed by our democracies. Okay, she already raised and challenged the democracy and Alain Bercé and maybe if we look at she says, of course, there are a lot of government-sponsored news and that's propaganda as well and sometimes fake news, we have to watch that as well and take into account so what would you say how is the fake news situation in Switzerland? Well, it's nothing new ladies and gentlemen and allow me to just take a moment so that my colleagues can get their headphones on and that will give me the opportunity to say why I've decided to speak German which is a foreign language for me as well because my mother tongue is German and the reason I'm speaking German is to support the diversity we have in Switzerland to emphasize that and I'd like also to use it to thank the people of Davos. I know how important it is for us to be here and I'd like to thank the people of Davos for supporting that. Now fake news is absolutely nothing new, nothing new at all, it's not some kind of new discovery it does however have a new dimension which is how it is spread how information is both disseminated and who can produce that information we used information technology 20 years ago which required a huge amount of effort to produce and spread information very few such information producers and there was a kind of code of ethics if you like today with the means that we have our disposal it's completely different, every individual is a producer of information and they can spread that information throughout the world so the situation is completely different. President Macron we saw on the screen was saying that we needed a new law to attack fake news but I think speaking quite frankly that's the wrong approach because you can never really control fake news, what you have to do is invest in how you interpret it you have to give people the resources they need to be able to properly understand how to distinguish between fake news and real news and where does that come from it's in education and that's where we're investing in education of young people but to social media there's also the question of what truth is, all of my tweets for example are pro-truth I never tweet anything false but at the same time you have to say well hold on it's a bit more nuanced than that because you have to interpret reality and you can have different interpretations of reality which are all valid, very important to remember that, but however there is some kind of dividing line which is when you think or you try to confuse people in order to reach an objective if you look at the media in Switzerland I think we have a relatively good situation and that's very important because in a direct democracy you need a very high level of quality of information, at the same time you can see that this flow of information does develop we've seen a very different situation today than 10 years ago there's more of a mixture of information with opinion and it's not clear for example if you pick up a newspaper where the news is and where the opinion is when I was young perhaps as young as some of my colleagues here on the podium it was a lot easier to distinguish between what was information and what was commentary not so easy today so we need to be in a situation where we can distinguish so education is the answer so fake news isn't a problem in Switzerland well no of course it is a problem but I don't think that it's a new problem it's not like we've discovered fake news overnight it's always existed false information has always been spread the thing today is the technology we have for spreading information is completely new it's in the hands of people who never had it before so it's a lot more democratic as well now everybody can spread information to the entire world that's completely new and it relates obviously to technology but it shows also that technology isn't neutral technology itself has an impact and that's something that we need to fully understand in a direct democracy like Switzerland so fake news is a problem for us and it's difficult to sometimes draw the line between what's interpretation and what is fake news we have to can you give an example of that drawing the limit for example the defeat of the 24th of September and the reform of social insurance in Switzerland it's a simple example many opponents said it's not a problem if you see no of course there's a plan B it's prepared it's ready to get a majority wrote that and spread it knowing that it was wrong we have the proof of that six months later and we need to develop it and that kind of information definitely had an impact on the voting and the result saying that it's fake news he has to deal with it daily it's daily business as well but it's not new and actually in South Africa how is it in your country firstly thank you very much for inviting me and thank you to all of you for being here I want to be a little bit provocative in a sense agreeing with Alain I don't think fake news is a new phenomena that's the first thing propaganda in various forms has always been there the only difference is that it was centralized it was often political or corporate interest that represented media institutions that gave a particular point of view I was a political activist during apartheid against the apartheid system and we were up against a system which included the media which misrepresented the views of the majority of the people so I don't think fake news is anything new the only point to make is that I don't also believe fake news has become very prominent with Donald Trump but I don't believe that there's a linear relationship between the two now of course Donald Trump tweets a lot of fake news but that's not the point the point is was Donald Trump elected because of fake news and I don't think that has been unpacked properly so whatever he says or doesn't say I don't know if it's on people or not I think the third point which this debate frames somewhat I would say wrongly is that it doesn't give ordinary people the benefit of the doubt people are not stupid I mean people sitting in this room are not stupid I know some of you may not have answered those questions but because they phrase in a particular way the reality is every single person is between what is real and not real and you can make that decision based on a number of factors so people sitting in this room of course you're going to get gossip you're going to get propaganda you're going to get fake news but ultimately you'll be able to make that decision because you understand what's going on the last point I want to make and this is the point about Africa is that should be seen in a contextual rational way in other words whatever news you have must be in the context of where you are whether it's in relation to a job in relation to the environment in relation to being employed etc Africa itself at the moment fake news in the way it's described in the US certainly isn't that big a phenomenon because Africans are concerned with the issues of poverty issues of corruption issues of dealing with conflict issues of just improving the lives I mean the majority of people on the African continent are like you, young people under the age of 35 in fact Africa is the continent with the most young people under the age of 35 so the issue isn't so much fake news the issue is are we able to provide people with news with information with knowledge, with skills which is relevant to themselves and relevant to them being able to improve their lives and the lives of their communities so fake news if we think of fake news purely in a strategic sense that hey here's fake news it's a problem that's not going to solve the problem fake news has to be seen in the context of the overall ecosystem in which people are operating and if you fix the overall ecosystem and I think someone mentioned it a lot of that ecosystem is trust fake news only thrives because there's a trust deficit between powerful institutions whether they are in government or whether they are in the private sector or for that matter sometimes in diffused networked organizations so it's trust it must come back between people and you build trust by addressing the needs of people so I think fake news will come and go I think once Donald Trump comes and goes fake news will become less of an issue I mean this sounds really nice and optimistic but actually critics say I'm not sure I think this side is a little bit downplaying fake news really because there are like people who are using fake news but I think we really have to see this as cyber attacks now these are US the US election have been hacked I mean there is obviously was like a Russian hacked election and we have a lot of proof by that and it's not only that it's I mean of course it's not a new it's not new more it is the reach the algorithms now that they take unfair advantage of all the algorithms now I mean fakes are sexier than facts so you click it you post it you share it and you just the reach is unbelievable and the time is crucial it spreads all over and this is now for a lot of companies now this becomes a cyber security matter fake news are not just fake news I'm not sure maybe this side is it more dangerous as I got maybe Mike you wanted to add something yeah thank you and I agree with the cyber security point what you hear politicians in America saying a lot is that if we had been the US have been physically attacked if there had been either a military attack or even if our power grid or our communications grid have been affected there would be much more of a response where as people here have said arguably the election was hacked and people see it as more abstract less real less solid and as a result of that you'll find that the states and the federal government have taken less action to protect the polling places because all of our elections are done at the state level so people in Virginia where I live the election for president is run by Virginia very little has been done or much less has been done that you might think by the states to prevent this and certainly the federal government hasn't mobilized the way you think that they and you heard people in the US blaming president Obama partly for this that some of the hacking was known in the fall while he was still president but that he was slow to respond partly because he didn't want to interfere with the election but that was the failure of imagination not treating it as you say as a cyber security issue so they should take it more serious the problem the message what would you say for instance the way the government of Indonesia responds to this issue is that they just recently created cyber crime agency in a way that basically they're trying to monitor not only the media but even the conversation of the people and I think that is dangerous as well because that means we're getting into the issue of privacy the issue of data security and all that we're able to respond to this issue delicately and not just yet as like other issues I have to agree here I think that the danger of the fake news the election was hacked it's a cyber security issue the country was attacked the states should have protected the polling stations I think that it's unclear to me at what level the polling stations were hacked by fake news I'm not entirely clear what the states could have done there but I think that the risk with that is to support his point saying what actions do we take do we monitor more do we raise the surveillance do we have more data are governments going to be monitoring what we say the traffic that goes what actions are they going to take and at the same time fueling this idea that fake news is responsible and I'm sorry to go back to this but fueling this idea that fake news is responsible for having populist governments around the world I think it's a distraction from focusing on what we really need to focus about that it's what's going on with our democracies around the world and so we're immersing this kind of self-fulfilling prophecy at the same time because the more we talk about fake news the less people are going to trust news obviously and then at the same time of an attack of a country and then we're giving people like the President of the United States more tools to use to smear publications or news that are real but he just simply doesn't like so I would just urge everyone to be extremely cautious when we talk about these issues and when we we blame fake news for putting Trump as President of the United States Thomas Jefferson III President of the United States already said information is the currency of democracy and if we have now misinformation disinformation I mean is this the beginning of the end of democracy? I mean you raised the question by no means I think is the beginning of the end of democracy I do think that the misinformation issue is an issue that we can address I think we can address it I don't think it's the end of democracy by any means of consideration I think it's a problem I think we need to look at it I think there's a couple of you know more than a couple of ideas around about how to manage these I would prefer the ideas that do not involve the state regulating news or information but again but I think that the core problem of why we are having populist leaders emerge around the world of why we have demagogues in government it's not a problem of fake news it's a problem of the institutions that we have and I think that that's the conversation that I think we need to be having I mean and it's of course you're also influenced by your country because there is not a situation that in Switzerland the world press freedom index of all of your countries and I mean there are big big differences so Switzerland is leading there of course it's ranked 7 from 180 countries 180 is North Korea and Switzerland is on rank 7 South Africa is the second ranked is on 31st then US is behind South Africa and Switzerland it's 43rd and Argentina is even behind the US so it's 50th and then we have Indonesia catastrophe far far behind I mean this is I mean there you don't have actually you don't have to have censorship if you have editors like in Indonesia just to say to be provocative alright yeah I mean you know it is much better than 10 years ago even 10 years ago it's just way way worse but I think I also like to touch upon your previous questions whether basically fake news is a danger towards democracy is at the end of democracy I agree that it's not necessarily means that it's the end of democracy but it is it gives a danger of democracy because I believe that democracy is contingent upon informed citizens and we don't have informed citizens even 10 years ago but with the fake news then it becomes much more difficult because if the citizens are not informed then they cannot make good decisions so for instance if the data point is wrong then how are you going to select a good leader for instance during the elections season so that's the first one but my second point is that aligned with what Pi has mentioned before as well is that it alienates us from what really matters from the truth from what the issue that we should really talk about and I think that brings difficulty in terms of how we are going to engage the public how we are going to mobilize the people for social goods for the issues that really matter and the third one is that by calling the press agency or media as a fake news distributor for me it's also undermines the legitimacy of a credible institution of genuine reporting and the problem with that is that it's so important for democracy then who are we going to rely on who are we going to trust and that creates other problem with the public as well I think it's good to react for Alan Bersee who do we trust and how can we find trust again in the institutions and rely on what First of all I wanted to say something about the impression that we've perhaps given with my colleagues here that we might be underestimating the scale of the problem we're not it's wrong to say that we shouldn't underestimate it but also we shouldn't overstate it at least on the side of information allow me to explain this a little bit better I think that we need to have a structured debate on this there's a difference between fake news on the one hand and cybersecurity on the other hand and but there are critics who say that these are terrorist attacks promoting the geopolitical interests of countries like Russia well if you let me get to the end of what I'm trying to explain in the past there have been many examples of elections for example in the 90s before where a president was elected with something like 99% of the popular vote now that was prior to this whole discussion about fake news so that's got nothing to do with fake news not fake news cybersecurity not cybersecurity that is about manipulation of elections and that's been with us for a very long time sometimes you can spot it sometimes you can't but we've lived with it for a long time and now the potential has got greater because with electronic voting you can have new forms of manipulation now the same applies when we're discussing fake news we've always lived with false information propaganda that has a lot to do with the development and the holding on to power now that had its own technology and today that technology has changed if you mix up these ideas of cybersecurity and fake news then well yes you can spread information to pursue certain ends and it's quite possible that in another country there are official web pages that open that spread fake information and which influence what's happening elsewhere but allow me to emphasize again this is not an invention of the 21st century that's something that has been done for a long time but different means are being used now as a result of digitalization so I think in order to understand that we need to recognize that difference there's a question about information and the quality of information and cybersecurity and the consequences of living in a digitalized world today in Switzerland it's extremely important because we don't just have elections every four or five years four or five times a year we have votes on the most important issues facing the country because we are a direct democracy and it's very important therefore for us to look into these issues we need strong structures and reliable media we need diversity of media which reflects different world views and which all take the principle of good information being important as a central principle down a little bit so it's you take it serious and look at it I think isn't it a real problem also because it's economically such a good idea to produce fake news fakes are much more sexier than facts so I mean this is really this is something the business model and they take unfortunate advantage of all these business models and algorithms in social media because you earn with fake news as well because you click share like it and you earn with every click so isn't it this business aspect also a dangerous part and I think that we do take it seriously it's just that we contextualising everything what we're saying is that there's a context to everything and the solution to this issue has to be far more comprehensive than simply trying to use cyber security or specific methods to stop fake news the point I want to make and I agree very much with what Elena said is that you're not going to stop fake news it's like trying to stop the internet the technology has given you the ability to disseminate information far more quicker and far more effectively than any other point in the history of humankind I'm a medical doctor just to give you some background I trained at one of the top universities in the world the world's first heart transplant Cape Town University and my medical training is based on what we call evidence based medicine or scientific based medicine but it doesn't stop thousands of people that are not scientifically trained from claiming to heal you claiming to do all sorts of things to you and over the ages many people sometimes we call them quacks sometimes people put tea leaves there sometimes they throw bones sometimes they just talk about things make smoke and all these things they can heal you and over time you discover that they can't heal you that in fact there is no signs to what they are doing in some cases it may well be therapeutic because mentally it helps you I'm a firm believer that the issue is not fake news the issue is trust and trust must be established between media organizations and the public and you establish that trust by doing evidence or scientifically based news in other words you always tell the truth and if you tell the truth properly and you contextualize the truth then over time people will begin to believe in what you're saying if you don't tell the truth if you try and write propaganda if you try and disseminate propaganda if you try and represent only certain interests and you don't declare the fact that you are representing those interests then the public will in fact reject you I think fake news is a phenomena which is good for us you know why? it's excellent because it means that increasingly we're going to have to examine who we are historically powerful institutions like the media, like governments like other institutions had at carte blanche they could say whatever they wanted to say because they had the power today people are questioning that power and fake news has caused people to question that power and that is why it's up to us to reestablish the trust between the media and the public and the readers and others out there so I think fake news is an important pressure point inflection point for us to reflect on who we are and the kind of world we want to have the kind of society we want to have and the kind of dialogue we want to have in this world today and that's why I'm very optimistic that you are not going to be fooling yourselves setting here today you are not going to be fooled by fake news you're going to think about it you're going to put it into context you can discuss it you just have a different way of doing it but certainly you're not going to be fooled by it so fake news are a good thing because it makes you think and ask more and actually this is a good point to open up the discussion now with the audience I mean we're still with a part of the problems, risks and threats of fake news and misinformation does anyone have a question there are questions the middle over there Hello, my name is Simon and I'd like to ask Mr. Allen we live in an age where sensational headlines and the sorts of fake news often go hand in hand with reality would the idea of a purely factual news outlet with clearly stated sources be realistic or is that something that just isn't possible No, Simon, thank you for that Simon, right? Thank you for that question are you from Davos or where are you from? From Czech Republic Oh terrific, so I appreciate your having your here and yes it's possible to have a news organization that you can trust that's just based on facts and it's called Axios it's the website that we just started and I say that because I apply this also to the other news organizations on this stage and to take the point that fake news causes us to re-examine ourselves which I like that it also creates an opportunity for news organizations will be fair to both sides that will explain both sides that will stick to just the facts so our website which is called Axios AXIOS and it means worthy in Greek and we have a feature that's called facts matter and the idea behind that is there are some things that are just true there are some things that you don't have to argue about and too little is exhibited in the media these days the other end of that telescope though is that for our journalists that means there's even more responsibility on you to be worthy of that trust so a small example of that are there any journalism students or journalists here in the audience something that we talked to our young journalists about is that if you think about your everyday life it's all good or all bad very few things are all black or all white and so when we read something that portrays someone as all good or all bad or portrays something in a very binary way we don't trust it because it doesn't comport with our life experience similarly we teach our journalists that if you have the other side in your story that makes people trust your story more young journalists sometimes think the other side they say it will undermine my point no the opposite is true if you give both sides their say if you explain the facts then our audience will trust us more so there's definitely an opportunity in this world but also more of a responsibility for us to be worthy of that trust that we're trying to get thank you for the questions are there any more questions here and maybe here in front have you seen one the lady in the middle there I just saw here in the middle hi my name is Alva and I'm from County Barton and my question would be there's also a thing called micro targeting so that different parties only provide their information to their potential voters and would you say that this is also fake information or fake news maybe it's something for Alain Perce and his social party do you use micro targeting as well as political party and how is it used yes I have it as well yes I have it's been talked about but there has to be a dividing line you need to recognize that you can't talk about everything to everybody in democracy what I would like is to have a situation where you do feel you can talk about everything but you have to prioritize some issues so in that sense you do prioritize information now if you put that in the context of micro targeting there was also allegations of targeting fake news directly at specific individuals who were vulnerable to it so how can we ensure that that doesn't happen here in our election campaigns well first of all I have to say that I probably have not nearly enough information on this kind of technology to be able to give a detailed answer but what I can say is that we have probably better protection in Switzerland against these kind of phenomena and that's because of our federal structure the involvement of local communities the very strong decentralization that we have the result of that is that we know who we are we have 2,500 communities we have some major cities Zurich with half a million people which you can't really compare with the biggest cities in the world which are 6,200 times larger and in a city it's perhaps more difficult to stay in close contact with people and I believe that our contact the contact between individuals is a factor in limiting the spread of such information now I know that there is IT technology which is capable of disseminating false information the best way of countering that is by making that information available to the public revealing it reporting on it and your generation, the young generation are going to have to deal with it I see this with my kids because in the world where fake news is a phenomenon and they are fully aware of the need to identify the quality of their sources of information now when I was young everything that you read in the newspaper was the absolute truth I would never have had the idea to cast doubt upon that so we live in a different world and the generation that is growing up is used to this phenomenon we who have seen these developments come about also need to contribute to ensuring that everybody is aware of them but as I say, trust is the key issue and I don't think it's a traumatic issue in Switzerland because they did psychological targeting if they can analyse you if you have shared like 40 likes then they can analyse you in like six different types they did that is there anyone more into this maybe Mike, Alan do you know the techniques they did or I would just generalise this to marketers of all sorts are going to use increasingly sophisticated targeting more and more marketers are able to match our online identity with our real identity often they can now match up your social networks with your email can match up a cookie on your browser with your real identity so we are only going to be targeted more and more I just want to pick up on one point and I so agreed with your point about understanding the sources and the importance of education about sources I think I talked to my nieces and nephews and they think news comes from Facebook and you have to stop and think about the fact that news that I'm getting from the economist on Facebook is very different from news that I may be getting from the guardian on Facebook or from some source we haven't maybe heard of when I was growing up there was a kid on our street who was named Scott and Scott was kind of a dope and he didn't know what a cow was and he thought that milk came from the grocery store and that's how I feel when I listen to people who think that news comes from Facebook so it's our responsibility both in our own lives and also for young people who we have the responsibility, the opportunity to guide the importance of knowing what the source is and whether you're seeing on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook or on a chat app to know where our information is coming from because that is going to be the weapon against fake news but there's always going to be fancier new targeting techniques fancier new ways to do fake news and that's why having organizations you can trust and paying attention to them is going to be so important for news consumers in the future Thank you and I've seen there is an urgent question as well Hi, thank you for taking my question basically do you consider fake news as would you treat it the same as free speech do you consider it free speech and if so isn't it counterproductive to kind of ban fake news because for every healthy democracy free speech is like the pillar and also when we talk about fake news how come we're not talking about big corporations like CNN or Fox News who really spread fake news on an almost daily basis and for example I consider the whole Russia story fake news so so even if Facebook and Zuckerberg testified it and and took it into court I mean this is some of course that is some conspiracy theory a lot I would say like I mean he says but it's a good I mean it's a good way of thinking is it kind of a form of art even I mean just to create fake news and I mean fake news are really creative so it's nice to be creative and it's an expression of freedom of speech I mean he's challenging our vision would you like to respond? Yes I'd like to and I think that this is an extremely interesting conversation because the freedom of expression freedom of speech is a key part of democracy yes it is a fundamental part of civil life you need to be able to talk about many things and in parliament we have immunity even which protects us and enables us to say absolutely anything at the same time however we need to recognise that democracy depends on the quality of information so if you say well yeah hold on fake news is a kind of cultural development it's kind of happening an art form it's an interesting view but it's quite hazardous for democracy once again the central question here is being able to recognise the structure of conversation that we have because if you recognise what fake news is and you place it in a context of say an exhibition or a study of fake news that's not the same information as finding fake news in the middle of a newspaper or on your Facebook page so once again trust is important the context is important and the place of dissemination is important if you want to understand fake news you need to understand these phenomena and fake news has always existed in conversation as well if you go into the pub or a bar you're likely to hear people talking about conspiracy theories etc but now we have this new way of spreading that ask our friend just because I'm curious in what sense do you feel like the Russia story is fake news well in the sense that it sort of feels like it's more based on sensationalism rather than anything else like facts or actual proof and there haven't been any indictments so far so no one really knows where that is going I mean okay thank you I thought you weren't going to take that out oh no I'm just curious because I don't think that it's been disputed that Russian accounts used through Facebook distributed information that wasn't accurate so I was just curious I take your point that's all I was just curious so I'm not entirely sure how you can ban fake news and I think what you're saying is it shows my concern with all this conversation there's two things the first one is banning fake news which is very very close to banning news right and who's going to be the censor of that who's going to have the authority to say what's truth or fake I think that's a consequence of this also that's my concern and my second concern with that is with the whole fake news conversation now everything can be fake you just don't believe in something so it's fake news I don't know there's been a lot of there's an investigation special investigation happening in the United States at the moment regarding this issue that Robert Mueller is taking on so I think that there's more than enough grants of concern but now we can just say that anything that we don't like is fake news and I have a big problem with that because I think that undermines the very little trust that we have left in society and it's we keep undermining institutions, we keep undermining information and that in my mind that is the real problem so yeah looks like it's the real problem so do we have one last question and then we go to the solution part there's so many questions maybe we take one I don't want to I'm not the censorship here so whoever the microphone's next maybe a woman there is a woman there is a woman thank you hi I was wondering if you think schools should play a role in teaching young people how to distinguish real news from fake news and if they should how effective you think that might be I think you made this point as well that it should be very important in schools education maybe you want to emphasise or add yes I'd like to it's a very important question we've developed a response in Switzerland which do you understand German okay so what we've done is at the cantonal level we've developed a programme called youth and media and we're trying to support that now at the moment it's far too small it needs to be made a lot stronger and I'm sure it will be in the future because I think that's where the real solution lies I think the technical approach of blocking fake news is not only extremely difficult it's also can be seen as a limitation of the freedom of expression which can be applied not only to fake news but might limit genuine freedom of speech so I think that we need to equip young people to be able to operate in this world and distinguish between what's true and what isn't if I read something on Facebook and see one source is the economist and one source is a dubious individual well I need to be able to distinguish between those two to recognise which sources I trust and that requires education and discussion like the one that we're having now this discussion is very helpful I believe in raising awareness we arrived at the second part of the debate we heard about solutions already you said in education in schools we have to start earlier any other solution to tackle that I mean we heard regulation you said no regulation this is I think you made a point already unfortunately this will be my last contribution because I have to run off now I won't be able to be with you for the last quarter of an hour because I haven't been able to rearrange things so thank you very much for your understanding we heard President Macron saying we should have a law and that should be dealt with at the government national level that's extremely complicated so it's quite easy to say yes we can do this I'm not sure whether that's true I think what's far more effective is the idea of citizen empowerment people the means to do this themselves and to be able to distinguish between what's fake and what isn't I am very interested in what we can do with education in this regard very much Alain Berset he has to leave now and he has to leave now he's meeting President Trump it's it's fake news don't be bothers it's fake news but we didn't find out they're very secretive I was also invited to the meeting of President Trump but I declined just to add the point with regulation as he said this is crazy this is not going to stop fake news these laws I mean Germany has already a law this is kind of against hate content in social media content and of course we heard President Merkel he's planning as well I don't think you can regulate fake news that's the first thing it's a bit like marijuana cannabis people tried for decades to regulate it and all of you smoke it so the point is the point is that that over time you learn it can be beneficial you know when I was a young doctor and there was a professor of neuroscience who said that marijuana can be used for cancers and for helping patients she was really pillied by the mainstream medical fraternity and the media professor Francis Ames and today she's been proven to be corrected you can use marijuana or cannabis for cancer therapy alleviation and those kind of things so I think over time you know what I want to say young people in particular is that you are not technologically impotent in other words don't believe that because technology is there it makes you not have power you have immense power you can decide what is fake news and what is not fake news and I always remember the statement from both Bishop Desmond Tutu won the Nobel Prize for peace President Mandela they both used to say this very famous thing they said that look a knife is a tool and a knife is a tool that can be used to cut a loaf of bread and you can distribute the pieces or slices to lots of people to feed them or a knife is a tool that can be used to kill somebody you can decide how you want to use that tool you can't ban knives it's the same analogy you cannot ban fake news because it's like banning the internet it's not going to happen you know Macron and others are going to try this and they are going to come up with regulation after regulation eventually they are going to realize the answer is not in regulating fake news the answer is in building trust the answer is in citizens taking ownership of themselves and realizing the power you have to the man in the red t-shirt if someone micro tags you I think you said it is with fake news stand up and say if your party micro tags me with fake news I will never vote for you again and if every single young person says if you send us fake news by micro tagging us we will never vote for your party again that is the most important statement you can ever make the last point because Donald Trump has arrived the last point Donald Trump was not elected because of fake news I think that is fake news Donald Trump was elected because there was no viable candidate in America that could connect with ordinary people and could address the concerns of ordinary people in America that is why he got elected and people no longer trusted the establishment media the no longer trusted corporate interest and that trust deficit resulted in people voting Donald Trump into power and that is what we got to focus on and sometimes media owners like myself and publishers and big corporate interests are like young children having tantrums they had all the power over the last few decades they had all the power to control the news over the last few decades and that is what happens at the great power now suddenly that power no longer exists and suddenly they are trying to regulate that power again that is not going to work the way to actually make yourself relevant in this day and age is to be balanced is to be fair tell the truth tell both sides of the story inform readers and then you build a trust and people will begin to be able to understand I wish this vision could become true but I'm not sure if everybody can really tell and detect even journalists it's really hard to detect falls from truth and fakes so is it really so easy that it's all relied on our self responsibility I think we have a mixture of ways to address these I couldn't agree more I think that we also we as citizens need to take responsibility and ownership in a role and step up to this and use our common sense to be able to see through what they're trying to do and to understand what's real and what's fake so that's a big part of it but I agree with you as well that there are other things that can help and might not be always that easy to do so from a technical perspective I think that this is a problem part of this problem is going to be solved by the large platform companies like Facebook and Google that algorithms are going to be able to detect very quickly if a newspaper source is real or is in the United States or is in Macedonia that's going to happen very quickly so that kind of fake news is going to be debunked and it's going to be brought down from the internet I think rather quickly and the pressure is big on them on the tech giants so yeah they're taking stock of it and they are absolutely trying to address this issue it's complex for them because they don't want to be perceived as a media company because then they would be regulated as a media company and their kind of model is that they're not a media company that they are platforms and they're not responsible for the content that they have but they are taking stock of this and they are taking steps towards doing this so I think that on the one hand algorithms are going to be able to help solve part of this problem and then the other big part of the issue has to do with the ad revenue model in media as long as clicks are we pay for clicks we're going to keep having this problem so I think that another part of that has to be with how do we go to how do we go to how do we go to the how do we go to the how do we go to the description model for media where clicks are not what's bringing them money but the advertising model that the internet has and media relies on so heavily I think that's part of the problem as well and needs to be part of the solution it's really about the this is a fairly common citizen fact checkers organized in the project that Jimmy Welles has of a wiki tribute and so having a wikipedia kind of system where journalists work together with citizens that are fact checkers that are analyzing different things, but I think that, and the last thing that I'm going to say that I think will improve this, you know, fake news situation, it has to do with supporting local news organizations. Local news organizations are still one of the most trusted institutions, at least in the United States, and they're way more trusted than national sort of big media companies. So supporting local news organizations, I think it's also a big chunk of how we can address this. So it's a big mixture, and I think of measures taken and responsibilities, and with Iman, can misinformation be like handled with even more technology, like blockchain or so, that we somehow find a way to verify the sources and just to handle that? Well, I believe we're getting there, but I think I would like to emphasize as well that I think we need to treat this issue very delicately that we have to spread the importance of critical thinking, you know, matters more than ever. So we need to approach every single information with more critical approach as well. And so basically as a responsible citizen, we need to be able to be responsible with whatever we consume and what we share, and I think taking more practical approach in terms of how we are going to solve this problem, I think we are not only talking about how we prevent this to happen, but I think it's also very important for us to touch upon how we are going to solve the impact or the consequence of the fake news itself. So for instance, we're from where we're coming from, where the communities are already divided, then how are we going to build trust again? How are we going to basically rebuild the connection among the people? And I think just to give an example, that's I think what we're doing as well as one guru. So we're running an education platform currently consumed by 6.5 million students in Indonesia. And what we're doing is that aside of, you know, all the math, physics, science, and all the, you know, subjects that students are learning, we're also trying to bring, even frame the content to also expose the students with diversity because most of the students in Indonesia, for instance, they get used to seeing people with the same color, with the same, you know, rays and all that. And I think by giving them exposure to new content that... Like filter bubbles. Sorry? You refer to filter bubbles or echo chambers so that you always mean... That is true. And I think that is a responsibility not only for the government, but I think for everybody who has, you know, it's our responsibility, yeah. Actually, we're running out of time already. Is there anything or questions concerning like solutions and how we can solve it? Yeah, over there? Yes. You said we have to be responsible while consuming the news. And you also said that we can ban fake news. But don't you think fake news is an exploitation of freedom of speech? Because just because you have a freedom of speech doesn't mean you can say whatever you want to. And when you're in such a responsible position of giving news to the whole world and when you know that these people have trust in you, you can't... Why don't you make those people responsible for giving the right news instead of the false news, instead of us becoming responsible to consume the right news? Because what are we going to refer to when we think something is fake? What are we going to refer to? We might as well refer to other fake news, right? So don't you think it's an exploitation of freedom of speech? I think you raise a really important point. There is a blurred line increasingly between freedom of speech and regulation of speech or fake news, truth, all of these things. They are very blurred these days. Partly because the speed at which information gets disseminated. So people don't have time to process it. But at the end of the day, you have a choice. You really do. As long as you realize you have the choice. And you have a choice to educate yourself. You have a choice to understand what's going on. You have a choice to only support those institutions, be it media, academic or others, that tell you the truth all the time consistently. You know that you can lie to some people, some of the time you can't lie to them all the time. So eventually over time, give yourself the benefit of the doubt. Don't be so hard on yourself. You can make this choice. Don't allow people to believe that technology can make you impotent or because algorithms, who decides what's fake news, by the way? I mean, because fake news itself is not just complete lies. It's a mixture of a bit of truth and a bit of lies. I always like quoting the very famous philosopher. Some of you might know him, Bob Marley. And he used to say and sing, in fact, none but ourselves can free our minds. You all remember that, right? So that's what life is about. You know, you have power. You have the ability to reason. You have the ability to think. It doesn't matter how rich you are, how poor you are, what color you are, what religion you are, where you come from, man or woman or whatever you are, at the end of the day you have got power. And when you recognize that you have power, you have the ability to choose what news you're going to consume, what news you're going to believe. You also have the ability to decide what you want to distribute and what you want to say to others. And I think when you have power, you also realize that you will not abuse that power because power to make decisions is the most... You know, democracy evolves. I mean, I listen to people say, well, democracy is in danger because of fake news. No, no, no. Democracy is not in danger because of fake news. Democracy has evolved because we live in a networked society. We live in a devolved society, a society where a few people no longer have the power to make all the decisions anymore. They can try, but they'll have immense resistance if they try and do that. And because of that, democracy must evolve. And democracy must take a different shape. And the kind of shape that democracy will take is wonderful for democracy because people are going to become more informed and the ability to be able to differentiate between that which is false and that which is truth. I'm very hopeful about the future. I made the point earlier that fake news is an inflection point in our society for the media in particular because it means that people are going to want to... We are going to have to get the trust back from people. We as the media are going to have to examine ourselves because the media is, you know, if you go back 30 years, it's not a long time. There were secret adverts in huge newspapers from the New York Times, by the way, various other major newspapers of the world which said that if you smoke the cigarette, you'll live longer. If you smoke the cigarette, you'll have a wonderful life. If you smoke the cigarette, you'll get more friends. And if you smoke the cigarette, you'll be more beautiful. Now, that was 30, 40 years ago. And those were big adverts. If you smoke a camel, you know, you'll become like a major star or something, right? These were the things. So fake news has always existed. But over time, science, evidence base, facts, truth will always, you know, always dominate the sort of social sphere if you like. People will eventually understand lies or they'll differentiate between the lies and the truth. But that's the power you have. And if there's one message I want to give, right? It's a long message. Just one short message. It's that everybody is making a noise about fake news. What you mustn't forget, you have the power to decide yourselves whether news is fake or truth. Iqbal, it sounds always so wonderful, easy, if you explain it to us. But it's just last question to the audience. Who feels like influenced? And who feels powerful? So, hands up, who feels influenced? And who feels powerful? Oh, okay. More feels powerful. So, that's wonderful picture. I should have pictured it and we should have posted it here up. More people feel powerful together as they're powerful. I would like to thank you. You've been a wonderful audience, really. Thank you for all the questions. Of course, thank you so much, dear participants, for this lively debate, for provocative thoughts. And thank you for giving us some courage and vision for the post-truth era. Thank you very much.