 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. It's widely reported that Facebook has been tempering with its reach, the number of audience it's reaching and also there are issues with the organic reach of the pages associated with left movements, left political parties and all that. To discuss these issues we are joined by Prabir, our editor-in-chief, who has extensively worked on the patent issues and technology. So Prabir, as widely reported in different newspapers that Facebook is inflating its reach when it comes to different age groups in different countries. Can you comment more on it? Well it's an interesting figures, a set of figures that have been released. It appears that Facebook, the advert manager, identifies how many are the potential reach if you are on Facebook and you want to give ads or you want to promote posts. In the US, they set for instance the 18-24 age group. There are about 41 million people that you could reach in this way. Census figures seem to show there are only 31 people in that age group, 18-24 age group that exist in the US. So it's an inflation of about 25% of potential viewers, apart from the fact that everybody in the US on Facebook, that leaving that out. The figures, this 25% inflation seems to be uniform. It's there in the larger other age groups, it's there for UK, it's there for Australia. But it seems to be Facebook is systematically inflating potential viewers, potential viewers on its pages. And if the larger the census figures, then obviously there is something very wrong with this. Facebook has given a very weak answer to this, saying well you know we also take into account potential visitors, other people who could be viewing this and so on. But still doesn't explain that why a 25% higher number is being reported and hey, only 5-6 million people who visit the United States from outside. So this is not really a potential answer to what they are saying. So there is something very wrong with the way Facebook claims to have viewers and therefore the amount of advertising money it charges is also being inflated. So there is a very serious problem with it, but you know this is only the tip of the iceberg. We do not have any idea how Facebook counts, what ads will reach, who it will reach, who are the people who are liking your page, which you are promoting. So the whole bunch of other issues that exist with Facebook, this is one which has obviously been found to be wrong and therefore has been reported widely. But a lot of the things are completely hidden because they are inherent in the algorithms that Facebook uses and we have no idea what these algorithms are. So you think it is only because of that they want to earn more money and promote their advertisements, that is why they are doing this. Because there are news about how left-wing sites, left-wing websites, pages are being, their organic reach is coming down drastically while the page engagement is increasing. Well let us pass this into two parts. Why is Facebook in this business at all? Facebook is clearly in the business of earning ad revenues, as we know that Google and Facebook have overtaken the ad revenues from newspapers. So the newspapers are dying as the ad revenue moves more and more into the digital platforms. Digital platforms are not there for your and my benefit. They are there to make money and Facebook is obviously making money. The more traffic it can get, the more it can promote its ads, the more money it makes. So that is a very simple logic of Facebook. It is not there for our social networking, it is there for our social networking to be used as ad revenues for Facebook. That is the entire business model. There are a whole bunch of things associated with this. Facebook therefore allows much more easier ripping off of videos and playing it on Facebook. All the major YouTube channels have been complaining. It is very difficult to get Facebook to drop the videos, it takes time, it takes effort, a lot of the time they do not address it. And therefore the virality of the videos in Facebook finally may detract from what the YouTube channels could be getting. Newsclick being no exception. The second question you asked that suddenly the reach of left progressive sites had come down. There were a lot of reports for instance from alternate sites in the US as well as what we have seen here. The interesting part of it is that this is supposed to be to weed out what is called fake news. Now, weeding out fake news means that you will give a value judgment and decide what should or shouldn't be seen. And if your value judgment is done by thinking that there are some sites whose news is quote unquote not fake using them as judgments, then obviously anybody who doesn't for instance in the United States agree with New York Times or Washington Post would be considered as fake news, both from the right and the left. Now, this is where the problem lies. What is the truth? Who gets to determine it and therefore how do you are ever going to discriminate between quote unquote fake news and real news or real news in this way. So, I don't think this model is a very easy one and trying to get it to do it algorithmically is only adding to the prejudice that exists amount of the programming people who then program a certain logic in the algorithm and our belief that somehow machine intelligence now is superior to human intelligence because the machine can beat us in chess. So, that I think is a very stupid way of looking at it. So, the problem of this remains and unfortunately the test of what is fake and what is real in this sense would be in the hands of a few companies. The last question, last part of this and I will really end with that is you know we wanted to fight for net neutrality and there is a particular reason we wanted to do it because if you have your own website, you don't have the power of a Google or a Facebook but if you have your own website at least you have an ability to reach any of your users. It may take time, it may take a lot of effort but yes nobody can really stop it. If you are using platforms like Google and Facebook and even for your website they are important. The point is that you can be cut off from the knees very easily. If Facebook changes its algorithm which is it has done a number of times for instance it reduces the organic reach from something which is much higher to now below 5%. So, all of these things mean that you are at the mercy of the algorithm and the algorithm is directed to make Facebook money or Google money. It is not meant for your reach, that is not its primary purpose unlike your website which it is. Therefore, if net neutrality goes then we will be completely at the mercy of the digital platforms and that is the bigger battle that we need to fight to keep net neutrality alive. That is our only corrective against these digital platforms and what shall I say their unscrupulous use of algorithms to make more money for themselves. Thank a lot Praveer and as these things proceed we will be discussing it more. Thank a lot for watching NewsClick.