 The Swiss resort of Davos, where the movers and shakers from the world of politics, business and culture gather for their annual get-together at the World Economic Forum. Our topic in this BBC World News debate is fake news and the challenges and threats it presents to politics and societies. From influencing voters to fostering divisions and fuelling prejudice, there are growing calls for something to be done. The online giants like Google and Facebook say they're trying to prevent fake news spreading on their sites, but is it too late to stop the rot? Welcome to the World Economic Forum in Davos for our debate on fake news. It is one of the buzzwords of our time because it is such a significant phenomenon of the internet age. Let me tell you who's on our panel. So Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, who's on a mission to fight fake news with the launch of Wikitribune. Joseph Kahn is managing editor of the New York Times that's seen its circulation shoot up. It was founded in 1851 and has received more than 120 Pulitzer Prizes for its journalism. Annabel Keener, deputy editor-in-chief of RT, the Kremlin-backed television network formerly known as Russia Today, and Bilowal Buto Zardari, chairman of the Pakistan People's Party. He's the son of the former Prime Minister, Benazir Buto, assassinated ten years ago. Welcome to our panel and of course to you watching and listening around the world on TV, radio and online. Now you know, first I asked our colleagues on the BBC's technology program, Click, to take a look at what fake news is and how it's becoming more and more sophisticated. The fake news. Fake news. Fake news. This is fake news. Fake news. You are fake news. Fake news. Everyone's using the term these days. And with good reason, while President Trump may have helped put the term in the dictionary, the rest of the world has been struggling to separate the fact from fiction. That was fake. The headline was, this is how Islamic society look like and we are heading to this. That was fake. The most grotesque, stomach-chilling videos. That was fake too. Problem is, it now seems to mean everything from actual lies to just something you don't agree with. So just how do we sort fact from fiction, opinion from satire and from highly skewed and misleading headlines? Tech giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google have spent a year wrestling with the problem. But in a world driven by likes, clicks and attention, do they have what it takes to fight the fakes? It could be that one reason it's so hard to stop this stuff is that there's big money to be made in creating it. This was for a couple of years that I did it. I was so much younger. A lot of fake news that's being written is just by regular people that are sitting down on their computers that have learned this formula, scandalous title, plus false information equals profit. Once upon a time, even a 13-year-old could do this. One thing is certain. Fake news is a lot easier to make and share than it is to find and debunk. And recognizing fake news could be about to get even harder. New technology could soon make us question not just what we read, but everything we see and hear. And we can't get charged more just for being a woman. From stealing our faces to mimicking our voices. I am not a robot. My intonation is always different. What's real has never been so unclear. Fact-checking organizations and technologists are working to identify and flag fake news. Researchers and politicians are starting to investigate its impact and we're all starting to become more aware of the power it can have. Russia is seeking to weaponize information, deploying its state-run media organizations to plant fake stories and photoshopped images in an attempt to sow discord in the West and undermine our institutions. Is it too little, too late? Or is this just the start of a high-tech fake news arms race? Quick question to all of you. How useful the term is fake news? Joe Khan. Well, it's a useful term in the sense, as your clip points out, the phenomenon of maliciously created false information for political or economic purposes is an ongoing and very serious threat when news and information is distributed so widely on technology platforms. Bill Owell. Is it a useful term, fake news, catch-all phrase? You know, I'm not so sure, Zaynep, because I feel that obviously misinformation, propaganda, disinformation have been long-standing components of information warfare. Fake news has recently gained prominence vis-a-vis the American election, but as we saw in that clip, when politicians use it as a catch-all phrase to cover political spin, stuff they don't like, then it gets murky. Anna Belkina. I think the term is absolutely toxic because it muddles the debate and just the public discourse about accuracy and factuality in information. It is also, we see it weaponized by public figures, but also by media organizations as a way to silence dissenting voices, as a way to avoid answering to any kind of criticism. And at the very end, it is harmful to the actual problem that we're trying to solve here. OK, Jimmy Wells, I mean, you know, we put fabricated evidence into fake news and news that simply people don't like. Yeah, I mean, I do think that's a problem. And I'm surprised, I agree with Anna Belkina, except the one thing I would add to that is we should distinguish between fake news generated by teenagers and things like that. And there are actually better terms for propaganda, for something like RT. And muddling those two together is really a huge mistake. All right, Joe Kahn from The New York Times, you were the recipient of a fake news award, a newspaper award from the White House. And, you know, being treated as a bit of a joke, and people are making, you know, playing with it and so on. Is it a joke? Well, that's President Trump's definition of fake news is the real problem with fake news, which is, which is that his accusation of fake news is fundamentally fake. There, the problem with fake news is not journalism, which sometimes makes errors in the process of reporting and writing and then promptly corrects itself. Good journalistic organizations own up to their errors. Every single one of the awards that the president gave out to fake news media were media organizations that made factual errors and corrected them. That to me is the definition of good journalistic practice. Calling it fake news is an all-purpose smear, which has made the term, as people said in the clip, a weaponized term to try to... But you're wearing as a bit of badge of honor, are you? I got a fake news award from the White House. Why not? I wish we had more than one. Below and butto. I mean, that's one side of fake news, but actually in your part of the world, when fake news is disseminated on WhatsApp or whatever media model, it can have actually rather dangerous consequences. I mean, I think that it can have dangerous consequences everywhere. What we were referring to with President Trump is particularly concerning and dangerous, not because it's funny he's handing out fake news award and you're absolutely correct. They've all been corrected. The point is to have the leader of a democratic country demonizing the press in such a way is what concerns me. Coming from a fragile democracy, from a political party in a country is fought for Pakistan to be a democracy. I'm concerned both with the use by politicians of this term to sort of demonize the press. And on the other side... Does that go on in Pakistan then? I mean, who's behind fake news in Pakistan? Oh, yeah, we started rather before Trump. I won't take the politician's name. But attacking and demonizing the media, repeatedly repeating false fiction on a mass scale, that's sort of... And who else is behind it in Pakistan? OK, so I think that, as with everywhere else, it's...there's no concrete way to answer that question. Yes, politicians are behind it. News media in my country and other parts of the developing world are far more commercialized, owned by big business interests who aren't limited in the way it is in the UK, that you can't have a television and a newspaper. They push out their commercial interests. So non-traditional platforms can actually be a source of rather credible news. There are a lot of actors involved there. Jimmy Wells, Wikipedia is part of the digital explosion, of course. But you are, if I could sort of put it delicately, also part of the kind of fake news problem, because there are a lot of inaccuracies on there. There are a lot of inaccuracies on Wikipedia. Well, of course, there are a lot of inaccuracies in everything, but the thing about Wikipedia is that we are diligently and passionately committed to getting it right. And so we have very strong standards about reliable sources. We have a very open policy of correcting any mistakes that come into us. Of course, doing serious research, doing serious journalism inherently involves making mistakes from time to time. But the key is you just have to try to get it right. And I think that's fundamental. And this is very different from... Is there no malicious or malevolent intent behind that inaccuracy? I think that's really important, yeah. And also, you know, a lot of the fake news problem, fake news that gets circulated on social media and so forth, doesn't make it into Wikipedia because the Wikipedia community are very sophisticated about evaluating sources. And so they would see fake news from teenagers in Macedonia or whatever the classic example is and they would recognize immediately, that's not a real newspaper. I've never heard of that. They check around and it doesn't make it into Wikipedia. Anna Belkina, we heard Theresa May in our short film there accusing Russia and weaponizing information. And as you know, there are so many accusations against RT from various sources. I know you'll say it's not the case, but, you know, NATO President Emmanuel Macron or France, Theresa May, the German government, the American government. They all say Russia as a state actor is a perpetrator of fake news and it uses stations such as RT. Well, those accusations, and I'm going to speak specifically about RT because a lot of them are very directly addressed to us, those accusations are false. They're demonstrably false. I'm glad that you brought up the statements by President Macron. RT has actually been a target of false information spread about it. Throughout the campaign, the presidential campaign. So you're accusing President Macron of spreading false information about RT. Well, his campaign repeatedly has made claims that RT has spread false stories about their candidate. However, throughout the duration of the campaign or thereafter, they have failed to provide a single example of such a new story. And now... I know you will say they're all false but they come from so many quarters. NATO, Russia, NATO says it's been dealing with a significant increase in Russian propaganda and disinformation since 2014. Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook has denounced Russia's fake news agency. I could really go on and on and on. This is part of the problem, that we're conflating terms like propaganda, misinformation, disinformation are notably much more subjective and vague than something like fake news. And they are used to dismiss and discredit any kind of dissenting, any kind of inconvenient opinion or even just fact, any kind of reporting. But when presidential candidate or his team repeatedly and without evidence presents these kinds of accusations of fake news and, you know, all the media in the U.S. and really the mainstream media in the West is very happy to point to any kind of statement... Intelligence agencies of Germany and France... But we're again, we're conflating this issue... Provided the evidence... We're scrutinizing differently statements by President Trump and we're not scrutinizing accusations of fake news from President Macron at all. In fact, there has been a single, single mainstream media outlet to call out to question the Macron campaign and that has been of Reuters that they did not receive a single example of a false story Archie has provided. Jimmy Wales, you satisfied with it? You just heard that complete and utter denial and rejection there. I mean, if you just... The evidence is from so many different places. So Columbia Journalism School had a team of graduate students serve at the Project RT Watch and they found multiple examples of completely misrepresentation, false stories, fake experts, outright lies and it's... I mean, it's overwhelming and so it's not really... That's not even an open question. And also, I think it's really important to understand that serious people don't say fake news is news I disagree with and so it's not about silencing dissenting views. You don't see the Wall Street Journal in the New York Times when they disagree on an issue calling each other fake news. It's about basic journalistic standards. Joe, you want to come in here, Joe Conn? I was going to say, Zana, I think Ana's correct and Jimmy mentioned this earlier on one point. There is a semantic distinction between propaganda or news with spin that is put out there by a state or by a news organization for some kind of political purpose or effect which has a basis in fact but it's fundamental purpose is to spin the facts for the purpose of achieving... Is that the case? So, I mean, President Emmanuel Macron said that there were wild accusations about him having secret bank accounts in the Caribbean and that he was secretly a homosexual and that kind of thing. There's no basis in truth in that. There's a spectrum between propaganda and spin and totally false, maliciously created fake news. But that's what he's saying. Well, I'll tell you exactly what he said. OK, just to get this out there. Emmanuel Macron said Russia today, he also mentioned the Sputnik website, several locations spread counter-truths about me personally in my campaign. They behaved like agents of influence and forced propaganda. That's what he said. Take it up with him. Can I just... We've tried. Can I just come to Russia today's defence for a second? Absolutely. Politicians, media outlets, partisan media outlets push out agendas, etc. But let's not forget that WMDs in Iraq was also fake news. Theresa May says on that clip that Russia today is a state... Weaponising information. Fair enough, but she's saying that through state-sponsored media, we're sitting on a BBC platform that's state-sponsored in the UK. We have to be able to sort of see that when we're looking at it from their point of view, we don't seem to notice our own flaws and weaknesses in the West and set up either. Nice try there, below one, buto. However, I have to say... The New York Times... I can only tell you... The BBC, how do you report WMDs in Iraq? Yeah, but when we get it wrong, we say that we got something wrong. After the invasion in Iraq. But there's no equivalence argument. The BBC, yes, you say RT is just a national broadcaster just like the BBC is. BBC is subjected to independent regulator, OFCOM, which is nothing to do with the government. And the BBC regularly makes reports and investigations which criticise the government. Do you do that on RT? We absolutely do that on RT. We are regulated actually by OFCOM as well, all of our programming. And just as Joe is describing the process of... I've been saying for multiple times by OFCOM. Less than the BBC and never find, like the BBC has. But this is the problem. We're moving the goalposts, something. And this is the problem, that errors that RT has made. And of course, we've made errors in our reporting. And we've addressed them, we've corrected, we've issued clarifications to inform our audience. But when it comes to RT or other alternative voices, legitimate alternative voices in the news media, those kinds of accusations become a way to summarily misrepresent the nature of what we do. Let's take a question actually. We have got Iman Usman from Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation in the world, and you work in online education. Your question, please. Many politicians have overused digital media for a short-term benefit of winning the election. And this led to the explosion of fake news, which led to the divisions within those communities. So my question to the panel is that, how much danger does fake news pose to democracy? There was a Gallup poll just this month saying that 73% of Americans believe that fake news is a threat to democracy. Joe, quickly. I think it is. I think I'd twist the question a little bit. I think that the hyper-partisanship in politics, not just in the United States but around the world, produces the fake news phenomenon as opposed to fake news producing hyper-partisanship. We are in an environment where people are lead identity-based political lives where they are affiliating with certain news and information based on the way political parties are using it. I don't think fake news is the cause of the problem to democracy. I think that the proliferation of fake news is one of the most important symptoms of a decline and sort of shared values and a shared sense of truth, quite honestly. Annabel Keynes, what do you do in democracy and politics? Well, I agree with you, Joe, that any kind of false information has a potential to negatively influence not just political processes, but a lot of public discourse overall. However, there have already been several studies in the U.S. and Europe that show that even though people might be exposed to fake news well to false stories and false information, in the grand scheme of things, they still make their decisions, their political decisions, on the basis of factual information and factual reporting, which is encouraging for all of us. It doesn't mean that we should be complacent, but I think this is where kind of the upside lies in the situation. A report on 28 countries by the Edelman Trust showed that 65% of people get their news online or via apps like WhatsApp and so on, so the potential for fake news wreaking havoc is huge, isn't it? It is huge. One of the encouraging things from that Trust Barometer survey was that people's trust from social media has declined substantially in the last year, which means that people are beginning to be aware of the problem that something that just flows by you in social media may not be valid and that maybe you need to turn to a better source. I mean, that's the point, isn't it? I mean, that's a very point. Do people really believe that this story about the Pope Francis endorsing Donald Trump as the candidate is true? That was one of the ones given out by the Macedonian teenagers. I mean, people are intelligent, they kind of think that the Pope Francis, you know, supports migration, left essential and so on. I mean, this is not really going to be accurate. So it should be credit people with more intelligence that they're not so susceptible to fake news. More than a million people shared that particular item of fake news on Facebook, shared it in their own feeds. So more than a million people thought it was interesting enough to share with their communities. It's unclear, you don't know, but in most cases when people share, it's something that they want their friends to see and understand. Do you think that's right, Jimmy? I mean, you know, if people shared, do you think that means that they believe that story is true? Yeah, or they think it's either alarming enough or confirming enough of something they feel at that moment to pass along. How much do they even bother reading it? How much do they just vaguely go away with the notion? I mean, one of the things that I think really hard for people who are news junkies to keep in mind is that, you know, we immediately see that and we say, well, that's ludicrous. There's no way the Pope endures Trump. But people who are not avid news consumers, they're very naive about the news, which, by the way, I think in free societies, people have the right to not be interested in news. However, when they do get some information, it should be quality. They also have a right to quality information. Ana Belkina, I think we have to look at why they're compelled to read and to share those stories in the first place. And I think the big reason for that is that for many years, if not decades, a large part of the audience in the US and Europe felt underserved by their own news media, because they didn't see that as reflecting their reality. And so they would turn to alternative voices, some legitimate and responsible and accountable like RT, but others are not. And until the mainstream media, RT vs. the mainstream media takes a more critical look at why this kind of environment was created in the first place. And by the way, Joe, even reporters and columnists like Jim Brunberg from the New York Times itself have reflected on the wake of the Brexit vote in the US election. Until there is a very honest effort to address this issue and to not discourage legitimate alternative voices from the news discourse, that a problem will persist. Ana Belkina brings up a very good point for the mainstream media. It's a challenge really that citizens and readers go where they want. And it's because the mainstream media failed to give the citizens and the readers what they wanted. So you also do share some of that responsibility. I think there's we have a mission to try to reach as many people as we can with our journalism, but I think we have to understand that a large part of the reading public wants information that is confirming of their biases and the political beliefs. And the New York Times and the BBC are not committed to providing them with information to confirm their biases. We are committed to providing them with journalism. So in a hyper partisan environment, you will have people constantly search for sources of news and information that confirm their prior political beliefs. They will often fail to find that in the most credible news media and they will seek it out elsewhere. But it's not our responsibility to provide them with fake or misleading news simply to confirm their political bias. But the mainstream media is also, people say, it's not possible in the sense that there has been a failure in regulation of standards in the mainstream media which kind of helped the proliferation of fake news. I guess I would not agree with that. Not for the New York Times, but well, I can, you know, I can't speak for every element of the mainstream media. I think the mainstream media for the most part does its best to try to improve itself. It makes mistakes over time. The journalistic process is inherently imperfect, but we are committed to fact-based, you know, well-reported journalism. That is the way that we try to get our audience. We do have a very substantial audience, but you can't look at the entire world of news and information and blame the proliferation of partisan, biased view that circulates online on a failure by mainstream media. Alright, let's go to the audience because there's another question from Rebecca McKinnon who's from the United States an advocate for digital freedom of expression and privacy. Your question briefly please, Rebecca. Sure. My question relates to the previous question, but it deals with business models and democracy. We know now from studies of what has happened over the past year that disinformation campaigns appearing on social media were really the result of people very skillfully using the features and services that social media companies, Facebook and others provide to advertisers and digital marketers. So the question is the over dependence of our media ecosystem on advertising and particularly advertising technology that tracks people all over the internet and enables very targeted messaging to specific types of people. To what extent is that an existential threat to the Democratic discourse? Well we've talked about the Democratic discourse so let's just keep with, do we need to rework the business model because that's what the Macedonian kids did, didn't it? They're trying to get lots of hits so that they could get advertising. Yeah, absolutely. So the advertising only business model has been incredibly destructive for journalism. One of the most encouraging signs that I've seen in the last couple of years is the incredible surge in digital only subscriptions to the New York Times and other quality papers. People are finally understanding, hey, actually we need to pay for quality journalism. The problem with, particularly when we have this advertising technology everywhere I go on the internet I see the same ads. I see ads for boats because I like boats. And in the old days you might say I want to sell boats. I'm looking for 50 year old men in some kind of midlife crisis who want to buy a boat because that too buys boats. And you would think, oh, they read the New York Times and the Guardian and the FD and the Wall Street Journal and you advertise with them. Now the ads can be anywhere. I can be on a message board. I can be on Reddit. I can be on a spammy website. I can be anywhere and I'll see the same ads which means that the serious players here are now competing head to head in a really direct way for ad dollars, for clicks which puts the wrong incentives in front of everybody. So we need to rework the business model. We need to rework the business model. Advertising as a piece of the business model is fine but in this environment with this highly automated advertising ecosystem journalism can't compete if it's just about raw, raw clicks, clicks, clicks. Need to rework the business model? Absolutely. I would agree. I think that not only fake news for many reasons but the business model is a fundamental threat to democracy and to media in a country like Pakistan in particular. That's where I know more examples of. So big business houses control the majority of media in Pakistan, all media in Pakistan that dominates all the space, dominates all the narrative and they don't hesitate to print fictional news, to run fictional news on their electronic media and the quality of journalism in Pakistan. Let me tell you we have some of the best journalists in Pakistan. We've managed to stave off three military dictatorships with the help of some of the most bravest journalists in my country. But with this commercialization, with this, with less with the ads but just sort of the big industries in Pakistan who have the money and the government doling out cash what's produced on television is more acting and spin and propaganda. So you think that there's more sensationalism in the news. Absolutely. And the poor credible journalists who for all their lives do this can barely make ends meet, aren't getting the same packages at these done up actors to read off the telephone. Anna Belkina. I think it's part of the problem but it is not the majority of the problem. In my view, false information is just as harmful if it's created and distributed for just for fun or for the purpose of political interferes as it is when people are trying to make money off of it. The issue again is how can we inoculate the audience against this kind of information regardless of the means through which it is distributed and promoted. I mean, this really brings up the issue when it comes about, you know, the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Google. Are they publishers or are they platforms? Jimmy Wells, you're nodding so come to me. No, I think it's super interesting what Facebook is doing. I think we don't know yet what that will mean exactly . On the one hand, I think serious publishers should be happy that maybe it's not all about click baby headlines that get traction on social media. On the other hand, a lot of publishers are worried about if there's a decline in traffic from Facebook, that's meaningful certainly in the short run. But I do think that the platforms really do need to think and reflect on the role of the information that they're providing to consumers and not just from a public spirited motive, although I hope they take that into account, but also just from a quality of user experience. If people begin to feel like, you know what, actually I find that I go on Facebook or I go on Twitter and I get all these nonsense news stories that I don't even know are true or not. I don't really want to do that. That's not what I want Facebook for. Then they'll stop using Facebook as much and they'll say I just want to service where I can look at photos from my friends, kids, and they all move to Instagram, but I think Facebook owns. But the point is I think that the platforms need to take this seriously. So you think that they've not been doing enough? I think that they have not been doing enough to the extent that their brands are being tarnished. But you refer to them as platforms because that's their fear of being seen as publishers, as I said, because then they're subjected to different rules. Do you think they are just platforms? Yeah, definitely. I think it would be if I want to share something with a friend on Twitter or on Facebook. I don't think it's fair in any way to assume that Facebook is responsible for that content. Joe Kahn? Facebook are absolutely determined not to be reclassified in the business ecosystem as a publisher. That really takes responsibility for what all of its 2 billion users around the world post, the accuracy of it, the reliability of that information. They would essentially need to hire every available human being in the world to police that content in order to have any assurance the way a good publisher would that what they're publishing on that platform meets their standard. So it's literally impossible for the Facebook business model to become a publisher business model. At the same time, they're feeling some of the pressure that publishers feel because they do feel a certain sense of responsibility for the most malicious fake news that may have an impact on the political debate. I think that explains why Mark Zuckerberg announced this change in their algorithm to some extent they're stepping back from trying to be or even present themselves as a primary provider of news. It doesn't mean news won't show up on the platform but they want to be a social media site, not a primary source for people to consume news and information. But they could see a real drop in their income as a result if they do rework their business model. They could even disappear conceivably, couldn't they? That seems unlikely but I do think that they could become a somewhat less significant source of news and information and they would not, at least according to what they're telling us, be that reluctant to be viewed as a less significant source of news and information. What has this Facebook's recent decision on this, how is that impacted publications like the New York Times because surely sort of when this stuff was being promoted actively on Facebook they would drive traffic to organizations? We're watching it closely, we're concerned, we think that it will impact us somewhat less than the ecosystem of true sort of fake news providers that Rebecca was describing who are looking for click-baity returns from advertisers that was never our business. We never got enough revenue from Facebook to support the gathering and the reporting and publishing of real news anyway. Annabel, can you note on this issue of the business model, time to rework it? Well I think the one danger that we need to avoid when discussing the role of these platforms is to not put three American companies three platforms essentially in the positions of global censors of news. Obviously absolutely no idea when patently false information is going to be taken out of the discourse and I hope that this happens because it's harmful for all of us. But they should not be deciding that one point of view is more valid than the other. Then Washington Post should be promoted over the New York Times, over BBC, over France, over RT when it's based, when it's discussing and publishing legitimate reporting. That's a very valid point. I mean you talked about Joe said, Joe Khan said you just can't have enough fact checkers to just deal with the volume of news and trying to see what's fake and what isn't fake. I think there's a temptation to make them de facto censors. So what are the solutions? You've got this idea of the Tribune. Yeah well, Wiki Tribune is my effort to play a small part in helping think this thing through. The idea I have is to say look we know that communities can do incredible positive work and we see that at Wikipedia. Of course it's not perfect but it's great people trying really hard to get it right and I want to see if we can bring in a community, pair them with paid professional journalists to do something new in the space of news. So you kind of get citizen journalists along with professional journalists working together. Together as equals and you know true citizen journalism has produced some interesting things now and then but it always hits a wall. There's a lot that you can't really do as a thoughtful person of Goodwill sitting at home working in your spare time. You can't drop everything and chase a story for and things like that. At the same time we know that there's a lot that thoughtful people can contribute and in the past the structure of most news sites hasn't really done anything useful to bring a community. The classic news community is here's the news article and at the bottom are the most horrible people in the world screaming at each other and a lot of journalists are actually afraid of the community because of that because their experience has been I published something and I got all this abuse in the comments and that's not healthy those people, those angry people in the comments don't represent the whole of humanity. Alright, let's go to the audience again and get a question from Zuned Ahmad Palak Minister for Information and Technology in Bangladesh. Your question please. I thank to the distinguished panellists for your insightful discussion. So in my views there are two tools to tackle the fake news. One is definitely tough regulation and the other is self-censorship. So my question to the panel so what would you suggest for a country like Bangladesh although there is a strong argument from the government to regulate the fake news but it can actually damage the freedom of speech or freedom of press. Thank you. I mean we've seen I mean in fact Downing Street the United Kingdom British government has just announced that it will rebut fake news and we know that France and Germany have actually brought in regulations Germany in particular with very, very heavy fines if you're found to be perpetrating fake news. So there are some examples there of government regulation but below with buttoe let me put it to you you've got to strike that right balance between regulation hate speech versus free speech. I mean I look forward to seeing how this goes forward forward in a country like Germany in protecting freedom of speech and fundamental rights and it will be an interesting place to see how this sort of regulation goes forward, same with France but just with the minister from Bangladesh my gut reaction is the fear of undermining freedom of the press especially in young democracies like ours where the tendency to authoritarianism and why I'm much preferred and really excited about the idea of things like Wiki Tribune because a lot of citizen journalists in Pakistan that would allow sort of credibility and authenticity and help with the training I like also this Africa check and see Ukrainian ones stop fake where journalists have got together this is sort of this traditional politifact angle of of checking fake news perhaps this will develop into a more community driven So you want the grassroots to kind of police fake news rather than governments doing it? I would say I'm more comfortable with something like that You've got elections in Pakistan Absolutely We've historically been dealing with fake news in election cycles Bangladesh and Pakistan dealt with fake news even back then So it is that component but I personally do not trust my state to be regulating this But when you've got really detrimental effects and harmful consequences of fake news in your part of the world where you can result in death Don't you need a heavier hand of just grassroots policing? No absolutely grassroots policing on its own One important component I think that we're not addressing is education I think we need to re-look how we're teaching our kids in school I don't remember being taught about journalism in high school or anything you would take an elective at university If you're taught about sourcing, if you're taught about bias If you're taught about how to research and check multiple angles What does fake news look like? I think education is a really strong component Another tool I've come to Annabelle Keener on this issue of hate speech versus free speech and the role of government in regulating fake news Well A lot of traditional news platforms such as the press such as TV broadcasters are already pretty thoroughly regulated in all the countries where we operate This is true for RT, it's true for the BBC where I most certainly don't think that additional regulation is the answer But speaking as a member of the media community I think that a lot of the solution lies with the news media community and holding each other accountable Now this is not something that is viable when Donald Trump accuses somebody of fake news the media takes as the badge of honor but President Macron does the same thing and it's not even examined and it doesn't exist without these kinds of double standards without lumping some editorial mistakes as dismissal of fake news of entire organizations and excusing repeatedly mistakes of others But if there is a real honest, open approach and examination when mistakes that our team makes can be pointed out in a constructive debate by the likes of the New York Times but RT's in position to point out mistakes in the New York Times reporting that is the most constructive approach that I see Joe Cohen the United States under President Trump and the Russian government under Vladimir Putin have actually taken upon the political leadership to some extent to combat what they call fake news which I think is emblematic of the risk of having the state get involved in policing this. The Russian Foreign Ministry has a stamp a big red stamp that they put on pieces of news that they consider fake Donald Trump has his fake news awards These are not the people that we the broader community should be looking to tell us what's accurate and what's not accurate in the news media. I think that is a very slippery slope to authoritarian sense. So no government regulation? I would say that I have very little to no faith in government regulation as a way of ferreting out fake news. The only thing that's really going to work with fake news is more quality news more attention to quality news better traction for quality news on online platforms and ultimately simply more information that's out there to combat the maliciously fake news. So it's a shot in the arm for things like the New York Times which is why your circulation has gone up you think because people think you know around since the mid 19th century I do think some people are gravitating to reliable brands and I think it's reaffirmed in the kind of social media age the value of true original reporting and over time we just have to continue to reemphasize that. Jamie Wales? Yeah I think particularly in countries where there are fragile democracies or there's a lot of potential problems with pressure from the state on publishers strong regulations is an incredibly dangerous and incredibly bad idea. I also don't think self-censorship is the answer. I don't even know what self-censorship means. I think that's a completely false dichotomy. I think what we need is a robust ecosystem you need to have the independence of journalism to speak truth to power but also to ferret out fake news and to speak truth about that. Minister you've got some good answers there go back to your ministry and you've got your blueprint there to work out with your civil servants let's take our final question from the audience Victor Ochsen, a youth activist from Uganda. Your question please. Thank you very much I'm from Africa probably the biggest victim of fake news what I wanted to ask is in a continent like Africa where across the countries there's that strong tribal loyalties to politicians the point that it doesn't necessarily mean citizens are questioning whether the news coming from their leaders are fake or true I'm asking in such narratives how can you enforce change in cultural norms of that time. Thank you. Joe Khan I think it was you who said earlier on you wanted to seek out opinions that reflect their own values and so on so in the context of Africa and that question where people have tribal loyalties how can you try to I don't think it's only Africa where people have tribal loyalties I mean I think it's well since you put it in the context of Africa but I mean the question is how can you bring about a cultural change I think it's a generalized problem that's getting worse which is the hyper partisanship of politics and news media debate I mean I think basically the idea of unpartisan facts even science is itself being questioned or subordinated to partisan politics you will believe what I your political leader or spokesman say you ought to believe about climate change about the performance of the economy about what's happening in your own community about the threat from immigrants the idea of having a truly independent fact-based for democratic discussion has been eroded in recent years so that tribal loyalties a real fertile breeding ground it's become more rather than less important and that to me is an enormous dilemma for mainstream media which is not by its nature partisan so we cannot by our nature truly satisfy the demand for that kind of tribal affiliation is that the case we know lots of newspapers I mean in the United Kingdom you've got the daily telegraph which is referred to as the daily Tory graph that's the conservative party but if we go in that direction if wikipedia or wiki tribune go in that direction we will have such a sharp deterioration but they don't peddle fake news anyway I think what's important here is that yes people do like to buy the Guardian for example if it confirms their world view and so on that's a left of centre newspaper in the United Kingdom or they buy the telegraph but I find wikipedia is incredibly popular and New York Times is incredibly popular BBC News is incredibly popular people get that and they also really do have a strong desire for clear facts clear unambiguous as neutral as possible facts I mean it's basically the echo chamber and its effect on fake news so Annabel Keenan and then Bilal Wilbuto Annabel Keenan? Sure I think the solution is diversity of stories diversity of points of view and in legitimate accountable credible reporting that is what RT seeks to deliver and exploring news and topics and issues outside within the US for example outside of the partisan divide as a way of providing the audience with the widest range of legitimate news stories possible. Bilal Wilbuto? I think raising this partisan tribalism issues is really really important I think internationally a partisanship has gotten so toxic that that's probably a more fundamental threat to our democracy but I wonder if President Trump by engaging in these awards are sort of rounding up and painting as partisan the previously seen as objective news organisations by sort of engaging and hitting you in a politically partisan manner almost forcing them to react in the same way Alright just very quickly to all of you fake news however imperfect a phrase might be you think it's still going to be around that we're not going to find a way of combating it yes or no? Annabel Keenan is it going to be around? Yes but not for much longer I think we're all starting to find to see the issues with it. Jimmy Wells I think the the true fake news spammy websites generated by teenagers will be algorithmically sorted out you know by Google and Facebook and everyone else the deeper problem of financial problems in the news media, low quality media we've still got a lot to deal with Been around for ages going to be around for a long longer I just hope we educate ourselves and empower our citizens to deal with this Joe Conn. Actual fake news is on the decline the fake news as a political smear is on the increase that's the threat at the moment. Well gotta leave it there. Thanks very much indeed to my panel thank you to my audience here at the World Economic Forum for me, Zaynab Badawi and all the team on our world debate. Goodbye