Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News Podcast 1st November 2024

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UK Column News Podcast 1st November 2024 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Speaker 1: Good afternoon. It's Friday, the first of November twenty twenty four,
0:11
Speaker 1: just after one o'clock. Welcome to the UK colum News.
0:13
Speaker 1: I'm your host Mike Robinson joining me today. We have
0:16
Speaker 1: Mark Anderson and Debbie Evans. Welcome to the program both.
0:19
Speaker 1: Now we're going to get started today with a new
0:22
Speaker 1: piece of legislation introduced last week. I say it's a
0:26
Speaker 1: new piece of legislation. It's a rehash of an old
0:28
Speaker 1: piece of legislation that the Tory government had attempted to
0:31
Speaker 1: push through but didn't get it through in time before
0:33
Speaker 1: the general election. This is called the Data Brackets, Use
0:36
Speaker 1: and Access Bill, and the scope of this is all encompassing.
0:40
Speaker 1: So it's a bill to make provision about access to
0:42
Speaker 1: customer data and business data, to make provision about services
0:46
Speaker 1: consisting of the use of information to ascertain and very
0:49
Speaker 1: five facts about individuals. Leave people to read this on
0:53
Speaker 1: their own, but it's talking about registers of births and deaths.
0:57
Speaker 1: It's talking about making provision about the disclosure of information
1:00
Speaker 1: to improve public delivery, public service delivery, and make provision
1:04
Speaker 1: about the retention of information by providers of Internet services
1:07
Speaker 1: and connection with investigations in the child deaths. It talks
1:10
Speaker 1: about online safety and all these kinds of things, but
1:13
Speaker 1: really this is all about data protection and the aspect
1:17
Speaker 1: of this today that I want to focus on is
1:20
Speaker 1: digital identity. So just to remind everybody what the government's
1:25
Speaker 1: sort of archetype on digital identity is, they said that
1:29
Speaker 1: one type this is going back a couple of years,
1:31
Speaker 1: one type of digital identity, which could be developed under
1:33
Speaker 1: the Trust Framework is similar to a wallet, but created
1:37
Speaker 1: securely on your device. It lets you store various trusted
1:40
Speaker 1: pieces of information about yourself. We call these pieces of
1:43
Speaker 1: personal information attributes. So that's important, as you will see
1:48
Speaker 1: in a second and at the time I think this
1:50
Speaker 1: is twenty eighteen or so, they said this could include
1:53
Speaker 1: or digital identity could include disclosing details from the government
1:56
Speaker 1: such as your legal name, date of birth, right deside
2:00
Speaker 1: to work or to study, as well as details from
2:03
Speaker 1: other organizations such as your professional qualifications or employment history.
2:08
Speaker 1: The really excellent thing that the government has now announced
2:13
Speaker 1: that everybody will be extremely impressed by this, I have
2:16
Speaker 1: no doubt is the Office for Digital Identity and Attribute
2:20
Speaker 1: to This has been launched in the last few days
2:24
Speaker 1: and well they have a nice blog on their website.
2:27
Speaker 1: This is all about at least this organization is all
2:30
Speaker 1: about enabling digital identity. So they've created a post a
2:34
Speaker 1: blog post on their website called a way to Prove
2:36
Speaker 1: you are sorry, prove who you are that is fit
2:39
Speaker 1: for the UK's digital economy. And they say in this
2:43
Speaker 1: blog post, to prove who you are across the economy today,
2:46
Speaker 1: you have to use a patchwork of paperwork from the
2:48
Speaker 1: government and the private sector. Proving your age in the supermarket,
2:52
Speaker 1: opening a bank account, buying a house. These processes are complicated,
2:56
Speaker 1: time consuming and expensive. There is a better way to
2:59
Speaker 1: check someone is who they say they are. We call
3:01
Speaker 1: this digital identity. Digital identity can make people's lives easier
3:06
Speaker 1: and unlocked billions of pounds of economic growth. And they
3:09
Speaker 1: say in this blog we're doing this without any form
3:11
Speaker 1: of government identity card, so don't worry. It's all absolutely voluntary.
3:16
Speaker 1: This system does not involve a centralized database. They say,
3:20
Speaker 1: using a digital identity will be completely voluntary. You will
3:23
Speaker 1: be in control of your data and who it's shared with.
3:26
Speaker 1: And they say that instead of a centralized database, you'll
3:28
Speaker 1: be able to choose from a ridge of digital identity
3:31
Speaker 1: and attribute providers based in the private and charity sectors.
3:36
Speaker 1: So basically you will go to YOD or a bunch
3:39
Speaker 1: of other companies. Potential companies will come onto that in
3:42
Speaker 1: a second and you'll say I need to verify my
3:44
Speaker 1: ID identity to this particular government agency or that particular company,
3:51
Speaker 1: or to YouTube or whatever to prove that you're over eighteen,
3:55
Speaker 1: and YODI will provide the attributes to the third party
3:58
Speaker 1: company that that is needed. So no centralized database, but
4:03
Speaker 1: you've got to trust these companies that are holding your
4:07
Speaker 1: digital ID. So if we come back to this, the
4:11
Speaker 1: government in the meantime has launched through UKAS, which is
4:16
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom Accreditation Service, they've launched something that they're
4:20
Speaker 1: calling the UK Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework, and
4:24
Speaker 1: they have been encouraging these trusted providers to join up
4:28
Speaker 1: and register with them, and so far they have around
4:32
Speaker 1: fifty companies, YODI being probably the one that people are
4:35
Speaker 1: most commonly used to. Fifty of these companies have registered
4:42
Speaker 1: with the Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework. And so
4:48
Speaker 1: of course the question is is it voluntary And the
4:50
Speaker 1: answer is well, no, it isn't is it really? Because
4:53
Speaker 1: of course the UK government saying that well, you can
4:56
Speaker 1: always fall back on using the telephone if you want
4:59
Speaker 1: to get access to government services, but increasingly government relying
5:02
Speaker 1: on digital identity in order to access government services that
5:06
Speaker 1: everybody has to do every day. And also, of course
5:11
Speaker 1: if you want to go traveling, this is increasingly a
5:14
Speaker 1: problem as well, because biometrics and digital ID becoming a
5:19
Speaker 1: feature of entry into the European Union. Also if you're
5:22
Speaker 1: coming from the European Union or other countries into the UK,
5:24
Speaker 1: digital ID an absolute feature of getting across the border
5:28
Speaker 1: if you're not coming across on a small boat of course,
5:32
Speaker 1: So digital ID is effectively going to be mandatory because
5:37
Speaker 1: basically you won't be able to do anything without it.
5:40
Speaker 1: So just coming back onto the Data Use and Access Bill,
5:44
Speaker 1: then we've got to remember that this is a really
5:47
Speaker 1: great piece of legislation because the Government tells us as
5:50
Speaker 1: it is, and they say that the bill will unlock
5:54
Speaker 1: and secure the effective use of data for the public
5:57
Speaker 1: interest without adding pressures to the countries an answers. The
6:00
Speaker 1: measures will be central to delivering three of the five
6:04
Speaker 1: missions to rebuild Britain set out by the Prime Minister,
6:07
Speaker 1: and those three are kick starting economic growth, taking back
6:10
Speaker 1: our streets and de Wi will love this one. The
6:12
Speaker 1: building of an NHS fit for the future. So that's
6:15
Speaker 1: what this bill is going to enable. But I'm going
6:20
Speaker 1: to say to everybody right here that this bill can't
6:23
Speaker 1: be allowed to pass in its present form. It is
6:26
Speaker 1: all encompassing. It not only covers digital ID, but it's
6:31
Speaker 1: a talking about data sharing abroad data taking your NHS data,
6:35
Speaker 1: for example, and spreading it right around the world with
6:38
Speaker 1: various providers in various ways. Dew's been talking about this
6:43
Speaker 1: over quite a number of months now, with this bill
6:45
Speaker 1: needs to be stopped and I would just encourage everybody
6:49
Speaker 1: to get involved in stopping it. But Debbie, let's move
6:53
Speaker 1: on to the NHS and say welcome to the program,
6:56
Speaker 1: and well what's the latest on well life and death.
7:01
Speaker 2: Well, yes, good afternoon everyone, lovely to be here. And
7:05
Speaker 2: of course we had the autumn budget, so Sky News
7:07
Speaker 2: have been reporting that it's the biggest day to day
7:10
Speaker 2: increase in NHS spending since twenty ten. That's what was
7:15
Speaker 2: announced and so I think to myself, well, this is
7:18
Speaker 2: a lot of money going into the NHS, but where
7:21
Speaker 2: has our money been going? And you might remember on Wednesday,
7:24
Speaker 2: Charles was mentioning at the time the budget was being
7:27
Speaker 2: delivered that there was going to be a COVID corruption Commissioner.
7:32
Speaker 2: So I want to just remind people that actually this
7:34
Speaker 2: isn't new news. The BMJ announced back in July that
7:38
Speaker 2: there was going to be a COVID Corruption Commissioner to
7:40
Speaker 2: be appointed to recoup the billions lost to contract fraud.
7:44
Speaker 2: And on top of that, Civil Service World also announced
7:48
Speaker 2: around the same time that recruitment had been gout had
7:52
Speaker 2: begun and they went on in the article to say
7:55
Speaker 2: that Rachel Reeves will not tolerate any waste and will
7:59
Speaker 2: treat payers money with respect. Well that's a big comment,
8:03
Speaker 2: isn't it. But apparently she did talk about the COVID
8:06
Speaker 2: corruption Commissioner back as Shadow Chancellor. So this isn't a
8:11
Speaker 2: new thing. But where's our money being wasted? And I
8:13
Speaker 2: want to introduce you to an organization called Transparency International
8:18
Speaker 2: UK who produced this report called behind the Masks and
8:23
Speaker 2: it lists the corruption red flags in the COVID nineteen
8:26
Speaker 2: public procurement. Now, before I show you a few figures
8:29
Speaker 2: from their key figures, I just want to because I
8:32
Speaker 2: haven't got time in the news to go into Transparency
8:35
Speaker 2: UK in depth, I just want to tell you that
8:37
Speaker 2: they are a registered private limited company and charity. They
8:41
Speaker 2: are the UK's leading anti corruption organization. Big statement. They
8:46
Speaker 2: are a global movement and interesting language here. They have
8:50
Speaker 2: one hundred country chapters, right chapters, and they want a
8:54
Speaker 2: world free of corruption. And in case you want to
8:56
Speaker 2: know who they advise, they advise NATO. And in case
8:59
Speaker 2: you wants to know who runs them, they're run by
9:02
Speaker 2: CEOs from all sorts of private organizations, big companies and
9:06
Speaker 2: ex government political advisors. So just to give you the
9:08
Speaker 2: lowdown on Transparency UK. But the report does go on
9:12
Speaker 2: to say some very worrying statistics. So key figures. From
9:16
Speaker 2: February twenty twenty to February twenty twenty three, the UK
9:20
Speaker 2: signed one trillion pounds worth of contracts through five bodies,
9:24
Speaker 2: the Department of Health and Social Care, Collaborative Procurement Partnership,
9:28
Speaker 2: the UKHSA and Crown Commercial. And what did this money
9:32
Speaker 2: go on? Well, let's look at Testing for a start,
9:35
Speaker 2: Testing twenty three point six billion and PPE fourteen point
9:41
Speaker 2: five billion. And the problem is is that the UK
9:44
Speaker 2: had no competition. We just went for the first deal
9:47
Speaker 2: we could get unlike Europe who stopped that practice, probably
9:50
Speaker 2: quite sensibly. But let's look at some more statistics, because
9:53
Speaker 2: there are currently one hundred and thirty five high risk
9:57
Speaker 2: COVID nineteen contracts three or more with corruption red flags,
10:02
Speaker 2: totaling a huge fifteen point three billion, would you believe,
10:08
Speaker 2: and this money has got to be somehow recouped. If
10:12
Speaker 2: we go on to the next slide, which will tell
10:14
Speaker 2: you about how many contracts and how much they were worth,
10:17
Speaker 2: we're looking at ten contracts worth two hundred and twenty
10:20
Speaker 2: three point seven million. They went to micro suppliers. Now
10:23
Speaker 2: these were the supplies that couldn't roll out the large projects.
10:28
Speaker 2: And I mean, please go back and look at this
10:30
Speaker 2: report because there are too many statistics to talk about
10:32
Speaker 2: in the news. But finally, on waste, we're looking at
10:37
Speaker 2: fourteen point nine billion has been written off in the
10:41
Speaker 2: last two years. Some extraordinary statistics there and perhaps we'll
10:45
Speaker 2: talk more about them in extra So in summary, what
10:49
Speaker 2: did they realize, Well, they thought that it would probably
10:51
Speaker 2: be a good idea to investigate these one hundred and
10:53
Speaker 2: thirty five highrisk contracts that have cost you and me
10:57
Speaker 2: fifteen point three billion, and they to maybe think about
11:01
Speaker 2: how the UK changes its procurement system, which isn't rocket science,
11:06
Speaker 2: is it really, And they're going to strengthen safeguards against impropriety.
11:11
Speaker 2: So that's what they're going to do, and that's where
11:13
Speaker 2: your money went during COVID. Now I just want to
11:17
Speaker 2: go on a little bit more about the budget and
11:20
Speaker 2: how it affects the NHS. And the Sky News have
11:24
Speaker 2: brought out the fact that we're going to get the
11:26
Speaker 2: biggest tax rice since nineteen ninety three. So as quick
11:29
Speaker 2: as we're trying to recoup money, we're going to shovel
11:31
Speaker 2: money into the NHS. But where's it going to come from?
11:34
Speaker 2: Largely it's going to come from National Insurance which goes
11:37
Speaker 2: up from thirteen point eight percent to fifteen percent, which
11:41
Speaker 2: is meant to be raising twenty five billion for the treasury.
11:44
Speaker 2: But at what cost and to who? And why am
11:47
Speaker 2: I concerned about this? We'll let me explain. Let's go
11:50
Speaker 2: back to assisted dying and the Daily Mail have just
11:53
Speaker 2: brought out this article saying that MPs and peers are
11:56
Speaker 2: calling for a public inquiry into assisted dying. People are
11:59
Speaker 2: getting the getting cold feet and they want a Royal
12:02
Speaker 2: commission set up which the Prime Minister can do. Why
12:06
Speaker 2: are they getting cold feet? Well, I just want to
12:08
Speaker 2: remind you about Canada, and in Canada we've got the
12:12
Speaker 2: Medically Assisted in Dying scheme, the MAD scheme and what
12:17
Speaker 2: happens in the MAID scheme are a number of things,
12:19
Speaker 2: but in particular, life ending drugs are sent to patients
12:23
Speaker 2: with no follow up as to what happens to these drugs.
12:26
Speaker 2: So they're being used for self administration death at home.
12:30
Speaker 2: So where are we going to be dying? Death at
12:33
Speaker 2: home alone? Possibly or maybe a death hub, which brings
12:36
Speaker 2: me on to hospices, because just recently in the House
12:39
Speaker 2: of Lords there was a debate on the twenty first
12:41
Speaker 2: of October regarding the funding of hospices because although hospices
12:45
Speaker 2: are free, they're not fully state funded. Only a third
12:49
Speaker 2: of funding comes from the state. The rest they have
12:52
Speaker 2: to get for themselves. They're deemed private organizations. And on
12:57
Speaker 2: July the twenty sixth, Hospice UK reported an urgent call
13:04
Speaker 2: to save the end of life care because the hospices
13:08
Speaker 2: are going to be threatened by cuts and there have
13:11
Speaker 2: been a House of Lords debates. Sorry if I missed
13:13
Speaker 2: that slide, but there was also a House of Lord's
13:15
Speaker 2: debate on hospices. But ironically Hospice UK think that labor
13:21
Speaker 2: are going to help them and they're really not, because,
13:24
Speaker 2: as the I News reports, the end of life care
13:27
Speaker 2: is to be stripped back because if the NHS can't
13:30
Speaker 2: fund hospices then basically they're going to close because they
13:34
Speaker 2: have to use their own funding to cover that national
13:38
Speaker 2: insurance rise. And this brings me on to even more
13:42
Speaker 2: about assisted dying and where we're going to die and
13:45
Speaker 2: how people are going to die because the Telegraph report
13:48
Speaker 2: that terminally ill people are being coerced to end their
13:51
Speaker 2: lives for insurance payouts. The article in the Telegraph goes
13:55
Speaker 2: on to say that terminally ill people are risk being
13:58
Speaker 2: pressured so that reves get a payout because assisted death
14:03
Speaker 2: is treated exactly the same as death from any other
14:06
Speaker 2: illness with regards to insurance companies. They also go on
14:09
Speaker 2: to say, what if the policy is near to expiry,
14:14
Speaker 2: what happens then? Are relatives going to be pressured by
14:16
Speaker 2: their families to take their own lives before the insurance
14:21
Speaker 2: policy expires? And Professor Bill Noble says that many will
14:24
Speaker 2: die before their time, So what does this all mean. Well, basically,
14:28
Speaker 2: it means that if someone dies because they've been legally
14:32
Speaker 2: helped to ingest a lethal substance, insurance companies are likely
14:36
Speaker 2: to pay out. And what do the insurance companies say, Well,
14:40
Speaker 2: Zurich have said that no formal policy regarding assisted dying
14:45
Speaker 2: has been set up, but they do consider any claim
14:49
Speaker 2: sympathetically as a case by case, but they do highlight
14:52
Speaker 2: that most people will have been terminally ill and will
14:54
Speaker 2: have claimed on that policy prior to that. However, I
14:58
Speaker 2: do feel we're going down very slippery slope and I
15:01
Speaker 2: do feel that death is going to cost us an
15:04
Speaker 2: awful lot more over to you.
15:07
Speaker 1: Yes, But as we were talking about it on Wednesday,
15:09
Speaker 1: with the level of debt that we're carrying at the moment,
15:12
Speaker 1: maybe death is the only option for the country. That's
15:15
Speaker 1: probably why there's so much pressure coming on and so
15:17
Speaker 1: much propaganda in the mainstream press about it as well.
15:20
Speaker 1: But sticking with the assisted dying situation, if you remember
15:25
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago, we were talking about this this
15:27
Speaker 1: arcle pod and the fact that it had been used
15:30
Speaker 1: for the first time in Switzerland to enable somebody to
15:34
Speaker 1: kill themselves, and that the people involved in enabling that
15:39
Speaker 1: had been arrested by the Swiss authorities. They are still
15:42
Speaker 1: in custody on remand in Switzerland, but the creator of
15:48
Speaker 1: this device has decided that he wants to make another one.
15:51
Speaker 1: This was all three D printed and so on, so
15:53
Speaker 1: he's taking it to the Netherlands instead, since Switzerland is
15:57
Speaker 1: clearly unsafe forum and that's being reported by the Mail online.
16:01
Speaker 1: Who could consider this to be an exclusive. But what
16:05
Speaker 1: I find particularly interesting about this is that this whole
16:10
Speaker 1: process is being enabled by two organizations, one called the
16:13
Speaker 1: Last Resort and the other called Exit International. Will come
16:16
Speaker 1: on to that in a second, but this I just
16:21
Speaker 1: find this coverage of it extremely interesting because this is.
16:24
Speaker 3: In the Netherlands.
16:25
Speaker 1: They're talking about the fact that the next one is
16:27
Speaker 1: going to be built in the Netherlands, and just looking
16:30
Speaker 1: at the if you go and look at this website
16:32
Speaker 1: and look at this article on the website, the background there,
16:35
Speaker 1: which is all beautiful countryside and so on, is all animated.
16:39
Speaker 1: It looks very enticing, very pleasant, very smooth, very soft,
16:43
Speaker 1: very gentle, and of course that is encouraging people maybe
16:47
Speaker 1: to think this way. But if we just have a
16:49
Speaker 1: brief look at Exit International, I just thought it was
16:53
Speaker 1: slightly amusing, perhaps in a rise or of way, that
16:57
Speaker 1: the doctor behind the suicide pod, the circle pod, wants
17:01
Speaker 1: AI to assist end of life. So they are absolutely
17:04
Speaker 1: pushing not only to make it easier and easier for
17:08
Speaker 1: people to end their lives in this way, but perhaps
17:11
Speaker 1: to make it an automated process, so that maybe no
17:14
Speaker 1: human can never be prosecuted under these circumstances. Well, we'll
17:18
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about this an extra I
17:20
Speaker 1: have no doubt, but Mark, let me welcome you to
17:23
Speaker 1: the program now, and let's talk a little bit more
17:26
Speaker 1: about the future of money.
17:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, Mike.
17:31
Speaker 3: A week ago yesterday, the Washington Post hosted the Future
17:36
Speaker 3: of Money, and last Friday I put part one out
17:40
Speaker 3: there in terms of my reporting and that people can
17:45
Speaker 3: refer to that and refer to last week's UK column
17:47
Speaker 3: to see the substance of that. Part two, just to
17:50
Speaker 3: give it a little more depth, was mainly Craigvosberg, the
17:54
Speaker 3: Chief Services officer of MasterCard, and I have a video
17:59
Speaker 3: in a moment, but I think we have a quote
18:01
Speaker 3: first from him. This is what he had to say.
18:05
Speaker 3: I don't expect cash to disappear. I think cash will
18:08
Speaker 3: always play a role in every economy, to some extent
18:12
Speaker 3: every economy. He noted, I do think there is additional
18:15
Speaker 3: opportunity for digital payments to continue to displace cash, but
18:19
Speaker 3: I think there will always be a role for cash.
18:22
Speaker 3: And one detects a little bit, Mike, just a tinge
18:26
Speaker 3: throughout this part too, a little bit of kind of
18:29
Speaker 3: double talk going on. In a way, it's good news
18:32
Speaker 3: because they say cash is always going to have a place,
18:34
Speaker 3: but I do detect a little double talk. At any rate,
18:37
Speaker 3: here's a little bit more about what mister Bosberg had
18:40
Speaker 3: to say.
18:42
Speaker 5: Looking ahead of it, how likely is it that we
18:44
Speaker 5: are headed towards an entirely cashlest future. How soon might
18:48
Speaker 5: that happen? Sort of what are your thoughts there? What
18:50
Speaker 5: are we seeing?
18:51
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's an interesting question, and I heard that ask
18:54
Speaker 6: to the previous speakers as well. You know, if you
18:57
Speaker 6: look around the globe, there are vastly differing levels of
19:01
Speaker 6: cash still in circulation in different country markets. In some markets,
19:06
Speaker 6: markets like the Nordics, which are extremely digitized to the
19:09
Speaker 6: point of cash being very very low, single digits going
19:15
Speaker 6: on the border verging towards non existent, to other markets,
19:19
Speaker 6: including very mature economies where cash is still a prevalent
19:22
Speaker 6: way to pay. I think there's an element of this
19:25
Speaker 6: that has to do with societal preferences and values. There's
19:31
Speaker 6: an element of this that will have to do with
19:32
Speaker 6: government policy. I don't expect cash to disappear. I think
19:36
Speaker 6: cash will always play a role in every economy to
19:39
Speaker 6: some extent. I do think there's additional opportunity for digital
19:45
Speaker 6: payments payments to continue to displace cash, because there's benefits
19:50
Speaker 6: around convenience, particularly as things continue to digitize, commerce continues
19:55
Speaker 6: to go more and more online, you know, as historically
20:02
Speaker 6: cash driven as paying to ride the bus or the
20:05
Speaker 6: subway back in the day when we used to put
20:08
Speaker 6: cash in a machine and get a token. Now you
20:11
Speaker 6: hold your contactless card at the terminal, or you hold
20:13
Speaker 6: your phone and you're making that payment with your credit
20:16
Speaker 6: or your debit card. Those kinds of things. They're beneficial
20:19
Speaker 6: to society, they are beneficial to consumers, they're hugely beneficial
20:24
Speaker 6: to those transit systems that are taking a lot of
20:26
Speaker 6: cost out of the system. And so we'll continue to
20:29
Speaker 6: see areas like that where digital payments will proliferate. But
20:33
Speaker 6: I think there'll always be a role for cash.
20:38
Speaker 3: So that's a little bit more about what mister Bosberg
20:41
Speaker 3: had to say. Now in this next slide, we're referring
20:45
Speaker 3: back a little bit to Part one for continuity's sake.
20:48
Speaker 3: Sar Prasad the noted author of a book called The
20:51
Speaker 3: Future of Money, Cornell Professor and Brooking Senior Fellow. He
20:55
Speaker 3: was asked the likelihood of a US central bank digital
20:58
Speaker 3: currency for the un US. He answered rather surprisingly, highly unlikely.
21:04
Speaker 3: I think the US is going to resist that like
21:07
Speaker 3: any other good central bank, The FED will move forward
21:10
Speaker 3: only if there's broad public and political support for it,
21:14
Speaker 3: and we are not there yet. So this kind of
21:20
Speaker 3: is illustrative, Mike of what went on a week ago
21:23
Speaker 3: Thursday to complete that report in that program hosted by
21:27
Speaker 3: the Washington Post. Clearly they're kind of putting their finger
21:32
Speaker 3: in the wind to see what kind of public support
21:34
Speaker 3: they have for these things. A little bit of double
21:37
Speaker 3: talk in there, I think is detectable. But on the
21:40
Speaker 3: other hand, it's good news in a way because I
21:42
Speaker 3: think there is reasonable public resistance against a cashalist society.
21:47
Speaker 3: So we'll keep an eye on these sorts of issues
21:49
Speaker 3: as they come along, so we can go back to
21:52
Speaker 3: you now make.
21:53
Speaker 1: Yes, Thanks Mark, And well, it's interesting that those comments
21:56
Speaker 1: are mid because they were absolutely echoed by the Governor
22:00
Speaker 1: of the Bank of England, as we will see in
22:01
Speaker 1: a second. Before we get to that, though, let's just
22:04
Speaker 1: bring this up from Juniper, and they're talking about the
22:09
Speaker 1: rise of cbdc's globally and stable coins as they describe it,
22:14
Speaker 1: between twenty twenty four and twenty thirty one, and they're
22:16
Speaker 1: saying that by twenty thirty one, the number of CBDC
22:20
Speaker 1: transactions will have risen to seven point eight billion per
22:25
Speaker 1: year by twenty thirty one. So that's not the monetary value,
22:30
Speaker 1: that's the number of transactions, seven point eight billion transactions,
22:33
Speaker 1: and they're suggesting that the transaction value would be in
22:36
Speaker 1: the region of one point six trillion dollars by twenty
22:39
Speaker 1: thirty one. Well, this was all being discussed a few
22:42
Speaker 1: days ago, well, in fact a couple of days ago
22:45
Speaker 1: at the International Banking Seminar. This was hosted by the
22:49
Speaker 1: Inter American Development Bank and the Group of Thirty in Washington,
22:52
Speaker 1: d C. This is thirty ninth International Banking Seminar, and
22:57
Speaker 1: Andrew Billy, the Governor of the Bank of England was
23:00
Speaker 1: speaking about CBDCs and maybe he was echoing some of
23:04
Speaker 1: the comments that Mark has just been highlighting. Let's listen
23:06
Speaker 1: to a little bit of what he had to say.
23:10
Speaker 7: Are there reasons why in the retail space digital payments
23:14
Speaker 7: need to be done in a newly created central bank
23:16
Speaker 7: to little currency. So that's the point that chat to
23:18
Speaker 7: Kantara was very eloquent on. So a priori I would
23:25
Speaker 7: take a slightly different view and say that actually I
23:27
Speaker 7: think commercial bank money i e. The banking system is
23:30
Speaker 7: the best home for that innovation. But this is very important.
23:35
Speaker 7: But if that innovation is unlikely to happen, then central
23:41
Speaker 7: banks have to decide are they the only game in
23:44
Speaker 7: town and what do they do? And the fact that
23:47
Speaker 7: we haven't reached a conclusion on that question justifies why
23:50
Speaker 7: for me and why in the Bank of England we're
23:51
Speaker 7: continuing to prepare for retail CBDC because, to be frank,
23:55
Speaker 7: we haven't yet seen enough evidence that innovation will happen
23:58
Speaker 7: in the commercial banking system.
24:02
Speaker 1: So that's very clear. If the commercial banks don't step
24:04
Speaker 1: up and bring in the types of attributes that we
24:07
Speaker 1: would expect to see with a retail CBDC, then the
24:11
Speaker 1: central banks will continue to go ahead with it. So
24:13
Speaker 1: when the Fed saying that they won't, well, as Marcus
24:19
Speaker 1: alluded to, there there could be a bit of four
24:20
Speaker 1: tongue going on. So basically he's saying to the central
24:24
Speaker 1: bank or to the retail banks, get a move on.
24:27
Speaker 1: You're not moving fast enough, you're not innovating fast enough.
24:30
Speaker 1: But then he went on to talk about cash.
24:35
Speaker 7: But I think it follows that if we are broadly
24:37
Speaker 7: indifferent whether retail payments are made in central bank or
24:40
Speaker 7: commercial bank money, then there isn't in the retail area
24:44
Speaker 7: so much an anchor role for central bank money. But
24:48
Speaker 7: it doesn't mean there's no role. Let me be very
24:50
Speaker 7: clear on this. Has to be clear on this. It's
24:53
Speaker 7: not about a roundabout webs saying we don't need cash. Actually,
24:56
Speaker 7: absolutely the opposite. We should supply cash as long as
25:00
Speaker 7: the public want cash, and certainly the evidence in the
25:03
Speaker 7: UK is that the public do want cash.
25:07
Speaker 1: So I think that's an extremely important point, and he's
25:09
Speaker 1: making it very clear that so long as there is
25:11
Speaker 1: demand for cash, the central bank will provide cash. So
25:14
Speaker 1: perhaps that gives us a clue as to what we
25:17
Speaker 1: need to be doing in order to avoid being sucked
25:20
Speaker 1: into a retail CBDC, or in fact, even if he's
25:23
Speaker 1: saying we want if he's saying that the Central of
25:25
Speaker 1: the Bank of England wants to see retail banks providing
25:29
Speaker 1: the same types of attributes that we are so concerned
25:32
Speaker 1: about with retail CBDC, then you know, we want to
25:37
Speaker 1: make sure that cash is maintained as a mechanism of
25:40
Speaker 1: exchange to avoid that. Even so, a pretty clear message there,
25:45
Speaker 1: it seems. But that's on the retail side. But what
25:49
Speaker 1: about the wholesale side, Because of course wholesale CBDC is
25:52
Speaker 1: another issue, and as I've said before, I'm not certain
25:55
Speaker 1: we need to be quite so worried about it as
25:58
Speaker 1: we are with retail because the whole se CBDC is
26:00
Speaker 1: all about international transfers between banking systems and so on.
26:06
Speaker 1: This report here from Payments the New Value Equation is
26:12
Speaker 1: talking about this, but they're talking about in fact, artificial
26:16
Speaker 1: intelligence again, and artificial intelligence machine learning no longer being
26:21
Speaker 1: optional extras but essential tools for everything from fraud prevention
26:25
Speaker 1: to customer service. I'm not sure what kind of customer
26:28
Speaker 1: service they're expecting to see from AI, but that's what
26:32
Speaker 1: they're arguing for. But on the wholesale side, we talked
26:37
Speaker 1: a few months ago about Project Mbridge, and in fact,
26:39
Speaker 1: if you're at the Science Beautiful Festival, we were talking
26:42
Speaker 1: about the fact that Project Mbridge had reached minimum viable
26:46
Speaker 1: product status and this is a project or it was
26:49
Speaker 1: a project or the Bank for International Settlements to allow
26:52
Speaker 1: for wholesale CBDC transactions internationally and so on. Well, here
26:58
Speaker 1: is the man himself, mister Arsons, and well he has
27:02
Speaker 1: announced that, in fact, the Bank for International International Settlements
27:06
Speaker 1: has handed Operation m Bridge over to the retail banks
27:12
Speaker 1: or the company of the country. Sorry that the central
27:14
Speaker 1: banks of the countries that were involved in this in
27:16
Speaker 1: the first place. Apologies. So that involves five or six
27:21
Speaker 1: different countries because basically the Bank for International Settlements doesn't
27:25
Speaker 1: seem do we want to be terribly involved with that anymore.
27:28
Speaker 1: So we will keep this related now that the m
27:31
Speaker 1: Bridge project, of course is led by China, and we'll
27:36
Speaker 1: see whether what's actually going on here is that there's
27:39
Speaker 1: a problem because bricks is also wanting to create its
27:42
Speaker 1: own CBDC bridge for wholesale cbdc's. But we'll keep we'll
27:49
Speaker 1: keep an eye on that. Okay, now let's just move on.
27:53
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28:29
Speaker 1: but we're going to be coming onto online safety again
28:31
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Speaker 1: the uk caled material everywhere you possibly can. And of
28:39
Speaker 1: course if you want to see the comments, there's a
28:41
Speaker 1: link there for that as well. Now, yesterday the interview
28:45
Speaker 1: with Montgomery Tom's went out and well we have a
28:49
Speaker 1: short clip for that. If you haven't seen this, have
28:52
Speaker 1: watched this short clip and then watch the full interview
28:55
Speaker 1: later on if you possibly can.
28:58
Speaker 8: Got a wake up, I have that blitz spirit If
29:01
Speaker 8: you like you've got to, you know, put a nice
29:05
Speaker 8: suit on, get out and speak to people and keep.
29:09
Speaker 9: Going on, because if you don't, what's the point. We
29:11
Speaker 9: can't live. Even if we feel that the situation is determined,
29:15
Speaker 9: we still have the free will and power to push
29:18
Speaker 9: on and win. We can do that and hopefully people
29:24
Speaker 9: will follow suit. For the likes of you, for the
29:26
Speaker 9: likes of myself maybe, or for the likes of Remis
29:29
Speaker 9: who you've mentioned, who had been fighting or who've met
29:32
Speaker 9: who had been fighting against all the lockdown stuff, for
29:34
Speaker 9: the likes of Alan Miller who we're together, For the
29:37
Speaker 9: likes of Andrew Bridges, Figures out there that are fighting
29:40
Speaker 9: hard and still every day even as there we are
29:43
Speaker 9: pushed down and pushed down and pushed down, wake up
29:46
Speaker 9: and go no, well I ain't doing this and fight back.
29:48
Speaker 9: There is definitely hope, but only if we kind of
29:50
Speaker 9: pull together in unity, because as people we have power.
29:53
Speaker 2: We are the majority.
29:57
Speaker 1: So do watch out of you possibly can, and very briefly,
30:00
Speaker 1: your blog should be uplated this afternoon. What have you
30:02
Speaker 1: got this week?
30:04
Speaker 3: Well, I'm going to.
30:05
Speaker 2: Be asking everybody a question. Are we heading towards federalism?
30:09
Speaker 2: Is the UK heading towards federalism and what's the difference
30:11
Speaker 2: between devolution? Loads of of other stories, but also I'm
30:15
Speaker 2: particularly concerned with are we going to have a sick
30:18
Speaker 2: winter ahead?
30:20
Speaker 1: Thank you, Debbie. Right, Mark, let's come back to you.
30:23
Speaker 1: The question is does anybody trust the media anymore?
30:29
Speaker 3: Very few, Mike, And this is one of the most
30:32
Speaker 3: significant examples that the media is losing the people's trust.
30:36
Speaker 3: This is quite the story. Here's Jeff Bezos, the owner
30:40
Speaker 3: of the Washington Post, and he wrote this October twenty
30:43
Speaker 3: eight opinion piece, the hard truth Americans don't trust the
30:48
Speaker 3: news media, pretty straight ahead headline. In the annual public
30:51
Speaker 3: surveys about trust and reputation, journalists and the media have
30:55
Speaker 3: regularly fallen near the very bottom, often just above Congress,
31:00
Speaker 3: and that is a feat. But in this year's gallup pole,
31:03
Speaker 3: we have managed to fall below Congress. And let me
31:06
Speaker 3: tell you that is an achievement. Our profession is now
31:09
Speaker 3: the least trusted of all. In those words, something we
31:14
Speaker 3: are doing is clearly not working, you think. Moving on
31:18
Speaker 3: from there, of course, Jeff Bezos is the Amazon founder.
31:22
Speaker 3: He bought the Post from the Grand family in twenty
31:24
Speaker 3: thirteen for two hundred and fifty million. During his tenure,
31:27
Speaker 3: the news organization has focused on digital subscriptions as print
31:31
Speaker 3: has declined. Anyway, he goes on to say in this
31:33
Speaker 3: very same editorial, and this is worth quoting at length,
31:37
Speaker 3: let me give an analogy. Voting machines must meet two requirements.
31:40
Speaker 3: They must count the vote accurately, and people must believe
31:43
Speaker 3: they count the vote accurately. The second requirement is distinct
31:46
Speaker 3: from and just as important as the first. Likewise, with newspapers,
31:50
Speaker 3: we must be accurate, and we must be believed to
31:53
Speaker 3: be accurate. It's a bitter pill the swallow, but we
31:56
Speaker 3: are failing in the second requirement. Most people believe the
31:59
Speaker 3: media is biased. Anyone who doesn't see this is paying
32:03
Speaker 3: scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose.
32:07
Speaker 3: Reality is an undefeated champion. It'd be easy to blame
32:10
Speaker 3: others for our long and continuing fall and credibility and
32:14
Speaker 3: our decline and impact. But a victim mentality, he says,
32:17
Speaker 3: will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must
32:21
Speaker 3: work harder to control what we can control to increase
32:24
Speaker 3: our credibility. So mister Bezos is bearing his soul here.
32:28
Speaker 3: It's confession time, and he went on to say presidential
32:32
Speaker 3: endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No,
32:35
Speaker 3: undecided voters are going to say, I'm going with newspaper
32:39
Speaker 3: as endorsement. None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create
32:43
Speaker 3: a perception of bias and non independence. Ending them is
32:48
Speaker 3: a principal decision, and it is the right one. And
32:51
Speaker 3: of course mister Bezos is a Builderberg regular. I believe
32:54
Speaker 3: he was on the steering committee of that secretive organization.
32:57
Speaker 3: And this is just a sample mic of some of
32:59
Speaker 3: the news reports flashing their headlines and ticker tape headlines
33:04
Speaker 3: across the screens. Bezos defends Waypo, which is Washington Post
33:08
Speaker 3: as subscribers flee and board members resigned. That's CNN and
33:13
Speaker 3: CNBC noted on one of their flash let's go back
33:17
Speaker 3: to that. CNBC noted bezos defense decision not to endorse
33:23
Speaker 3: Washington Post sheds two hundred thousand plus subscribers since this decision,
33:29
Speaker 3: which would be electronics subscribers or digital two hundred thousand,
33:33
Speaker 3: they're claiming two hundred k. Anyway, there was a link
33:36
Speaker 3: in mister Bezos's editorial to Gallup, and the link leads
33:40
Speaker 3: you to this. Americans trust in media remains at a
33:44
Speaker 3: trend low trust in political and civic institution's highest for
33:48
Speaker 3: local and state governments, lowest for the media and the
33:51
Speaker 3: US Congress. A little bit from that Gallup article, Americans
33:55
Speaker 3: continue to register record low trust in the mass media,
33:59
Speaker 3: with thirty one per expressing a great deal or fair
34:02
Speaker 3: amount of confidence in the media to report the news fully,
34:05
Speaker 3: accurately and fairly, similar to last year's thirty two percent.
34:09
Speaker 3: Americans trust in the media such as newspapers, TV, and
34:12
Speaker 3: radio first fell to thirty two percent in twenty sixteen
34:16
Speaker 3: and did so again last year. For the third consecutive year.
34:20
Speaker 3: More US adults have no trust at all in the media,
34:23
Speaker 3: or thirty six percent than trusted a great deal or
34:26
Speaker 3: trusted a fair amount. Another thirty three percent of Americans
34:30
Speaker 3: expressed not very much confidence. So there is some nuance here.
34:34
Speaker 3: But there's a chart with This chart basically shows Mike
34:37
Speaker 3: is Starting way back in nineteen seventy two, there was
34:42
Speaker 3: three basically three things to indicate. The top one is
34:47
Speaker 3: a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in
34:49
Speaker 3: the media, the middle one is not very much confidence,
34:53
Speaker 3: and the bottom one is none at all. You'll notice
34:55
Speaker 3: that the one that was none at all way back
34:57
Speaker 3: in the seventies has only risen a little bit, the
35:00
Speaker 3: one that's not very much has been almost a flatline,
35:04
Speaker 3: and the one that was a great deal or a
35:05
Speaker 3: fair amount of confidence in the media has had the
35:08
Speaker 3: most precipitous decline. All meeting in kind of a mediocre middle,
35:13
Speaker 3: but thirty six, thirty three and thirty one a very
35:16
Speaker 3: significant having little or no confidence in the media a
35:18
Speaker 3: very significant percentage. And as we wind up here, it's
35:22
Speaker 3: worth recalling that the Washington Post was bought and I
35:27
Speaker 3: should say created, excuse me. It was created by a
35:32
Speaker 3: former Federal Reserve banker, Eugene Isaac Meyer. He was Chairman
35:35
Speaker 3: of the Fed from September of nineteen thirty to May
35:38
Speaker 3: of nineteen thirty three. After excuse me, after leaving the
35:42
Speaker 3: Federal Reserve Board, mister Meyer became the publisher of The
35:45
Speaker 3: Washington Post, serving in different positions for the newspaper until
35:49
Speaker 3: his death in nineteen fifty nine. So he actually created
35:53
Speaker 3: the Post. He was publisher of the Post from thirty
35:57
Speaker 3: three to nineteen forty six, and according to Bezos, he
36:00
Speaker 3: thought the same way and he was right by itself,
36:04
Speaker 3: declining to endorse in presidential candidates is not enough to
36:08
Speaker 3: move us up very far up the trust scale. It's
36:11
Speaker 3: a meaningful step in the right direction. I wish we
36:14
Speaker 3: had made the change earlier than we did, in a
36:16
Speaker 3: moment further from the election and the emotions around it.
36:20
Speaker 3: That was inadequate planning and not some intentional strategy. So,
36:25
Speaker 3: in other words, he's saying mister Meyer, who founded the
36:27
Speaker 3: Washington Post, would have agreed with him. Just to make
36:29
Speaker 3: that clear, I would also like to be clear that
36:32
Speaker 3: no qui pro pro mister Bezos wrote of any kind
36:36
Speaker 3: is at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was Neither
36:41
Speaker 3: campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level
36:45
Speaker 3: or in any way about this decision. It was made
36:48
Speaker 3: entirely internally by the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos said in
36:53
Speaker 3: his all important announcement. So this, Mike, is a the
37:00
Speaker 3: most significant admissions I've seen by a flagship journal of
37:04
Speaker 3: the American media that the trust in the media is
37:07
Speaker 3: at an all time low and people just don't believe
37:10
Speaker 3: them anymore. So if there's anything that you would call
37:14
Speaker 3: good news is this. So at this point we'll go
37:17
Speaker 3: back to you.
37:19
Speaker 1: Thanks Mark, And well, that's sort of sticking with this
37:22
Speaker 1: theme because let's bring the World Economic Forum on screen,
37:26
Speaker 1: and they have published an article yesterday entitled why younger
37:30
Speaker 1: generations need critical thinking, fact checking and media verification to
37:34
Speaker 1: stay safe online? So they recognize there's a massive falling
37:41
Speaker 1: and trust in the media. But basically the way that
37:44
Speaker 1: we solve that problem is to indoctrinate our children in
37:48
Speaker 1: the right kind of thinking. Because, of course, the type
37:50
Speaker 1: of critical thinking and fact checking and media verification that
37:53
Speaker 1: the Word Economic Forum is talking about here, perhaps it
37:58
Speaker 1: may not be the same as our own. But in
38:01
Speaker 1: the meantime, of course, in the UK Online Safety Act
38:04
Speaker 1: getting very close to full implementation now, and we're starting
38:06
Speaker 1: to see a flurry of activity in the mainstream press
38:10
Speaker 1: and other places about whether it's fit for purpose. So
38:13
Speaker 1: here's the BBC asking saying the Online Safety Act is
38:17
Speaker 1: one year old, hasn't made children, And he sayer, of course,
38:20
Speaker 1: the answer to that is no, because it hasn't actually
38:22
Speaker 1: been implemented yet. Although it was given royal ascent a
38:26
Speaker 1: year ago, it has taken this long for Offcom to
38:29
Speaker 1: get their act together, and many people suggesting that even
38:32
Speaker 1: at this point it hasn't got attact together yet. So
38:35
Speaker 1: here's Holyrood the Holyrood Blog, a digital type rope, the typrope.
38:39
Speaker 1: Will the Online Safety Act deliver on its promises? And
38:42
Speaker 1: they say within With two months left until the Online
38:45
Speaker 1: Safety Act comes into force, it seems the bill could
38:49
Speaker 1: punch well below its weight. Since it received royal ascent,
38:52
Speaker 1: campaigners have been warning the Act does not go far enough.
38:56
Speaker 5: Well.
38:57
Speaker 1: The main campaigner warning about this is the more Rose Foundation,
39:01
Speaker 1: and this was set up by the family of Molly Russell,
39:04
Speaker 1: who ended her life at the age of fourteen in
39:07
Speaker 1: November twenty seventeen. Tragic case, but as a result the
39:12
Speaker 1: family have run this campaign in order to try to
39:14
Speaker 1: get social media companies, in particular to take certain types
39:19
Speaker 1: of content down. Now, this is part of the argument,
39:22
Speaker 1: and perhaps this part of the argument could be supported,
39:24
Speaker 1: but of course alongside this comes an art of about
39:28
Speaker 1: misinformation and disinformation and the whole censorship situation. Now, the
39:33
Speaker 1: Molly Rose Foundation has published this article one year on
39:37
Speaker 1: from Online Safety Act, Strengthening the Act to protect young
39:40
Speaker 1: lives and they're talking about actually revisiting the Act in
39:43
Speaker 1: order to strengthen it and so on. But the question
39:47
Speaker 1: is what have the media company, the social media company
39:50
Speaker 1: has been doing so far to deal with this particular
39:52
Speaker 1: issue of child safety at least. Well, YouTube here just
39:56
Speaker 1: an example, has set up a Youth and fam These
40:00
Speaker 1: Advisory Committee. It's stacked at with what they describe as
40:03
Speaker 1: independent experts that they're working with to try to deal
40:06
Speaker 1: with these issues. TikTok has set up its Youth Council,
40:11
Speaker 1: which has held its first meetings. They call this a
40:15
Speaker 1: new initiative with an organization called Presidio Safeguarding, and that's
40:21
Speaker 1: made up of young people between the ages of fifteen
40:23
Speaker 1: and eighteen, representing a range of communities and countries. Apparently,
40:28
Speaker 1: we have Meta introducing Instagram teen accounts, which is supposedly
40:32
Speaker 1: tailored for youngsters. And then we have of course the
40:37
Speaker 1: online digital ID companies helping Instagram in this case provide
40:41
Speaker 1: new ways to verify age. So the regime is rolling
40:46
Speaker 1: out as we speak. What else have we got TikTok, Well,
40:50
Speaker 1: this is just before the general election, launching a UK
40:54
Speaker 1: General Election Center. I'm quite sure equivalent situations are happening
40:58
Speaker 1: in the United States, but sticking with the UK, this
41:01
Speaker 1: was the first platform at least they claimed they were
41:04
Speaker 1: the first platform to launch a dedicated election center. But
41:09
Speaker 1: in the meantime, of course, the other organizations that are
41:12
Speaker 1: out there trying to claim that trust is with them
41:17
Speaker 1: are the fact Checkers. And here's full fact talking about
41:20
Speaker 1: the need to revitalize the Online Safety Act in order
41:24
Speaker 1: to help fact checkers turn the tide on misinformation. And
41:30
Speaker 1: so they're saying that one year on from the Online
41:32
Speaker 1: Safety Act becoming law, its clear that the vast majority
41:35
Speaker 1: of misinformation tackled by fact Checkers remains out of its reach.
41:39
Speaker 1: That's out of the reach of the Online Safety Act,
41:41
Speaker 1: but it could have been so much better. So they
41:44
Speaker 1: are really complaining about that. Then we've got We've got
41:49
Speaker 1: on the other hand, the Telegraph here highlighting David Davis,
41:53
Speaker 1: Sir David Davis now talking about the online Safety laws
41:56
Speaker 1: posing a substantial risk to the economy, and he is
42:00
Speaker 1: saying in this that while Online Safety Acts intended purpose
42:03
Speaker 1: to make the UK the safest place to be online
42:05
Speaker 1: is welcomed, its current design and scope post substantial risks
42:09
Speaker 1: to our economy and society. These businesses he's talking about,
42:13
Speaker 1: the smaller businesses which will probably come under the regulatory
42:16
Speaker 1: regime often lack the resources of larger platforms like Facebook
42:20
Speaker 1: and x and that they're disproportionately burdened by this uncertainty.
42:24
Speaker 1: And he's basically saying that the regulatory cost for every
42:29
Speaker 1: user on a smaller platform might be as much as
42:32
Speaker 1: forty pounds, whereas the regulatory cost for each user on
42:36
Speaker 1: the larger platforms, just through economies of scale, are more
42:39
Speaker 1: likely to be about forty pence. And so of course
42:42
Speaker 1: this causes major problems for the smaller organizations if they
42:46
Speaker 1: want to compete with the larger organizations. And of course
42:49
Speaker 1: that's a part and parcel of what the Online Safety
42:51
Speaker 1: Act wants to do, because that the inability of the
42:55
Speaker 1: smaller companies to compete means that the larger companies, which
42:59
Speaker 1: are much more inclined to follow the government narratives, basically
43:06
Speaker 1: maintain their market dominance. But just ending with full fact again,
43:11
Speaker 1: OFCOM should move and I to set up its advisory
43:13
Speaker 1: Committee on Disinformation and Misinformation. Well, this is part and
43:17
Speaker 1: parcel I think is Section fifty of the Online Safety Act.
43:22
Speaker 1: So the requirement to set up an advisory committee on
43:24
Speaker 1: disinformation and misinformation is in the Online Safety Act, and
43:28
Speaker 1: OFCOM is moving ahead with that in the next month
43:32
Speaker 1: or so. So clearly a number of different things going
43:36
Speaker 1: on here, but a lot of pressure building to relook
43:39
Speaker 1: at the Online Safety Act because it isn't doing quite
43:42
Speaker 1: what some people would like it to do. And we'll
43:46
Speaker 1: see how that develops over the coming days and months.
43:50
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, Debbie, you've got more on the
43:53
Speaker 1: same type of theme.
43:55
Speaker 2: Yes, I have. Indeed, let's stay on misinformation and disinformation
43:58
Speaker 2: because I'm going to show you who trained Marianna Spring,
44:02
Speaker 2: who is pulling Marianna Spring and UK sorry BBC verifies strings.
44:08
Speaker 2: We're going to find out. So let's look at an infodemic.
44:12
Speaker 2: What is an infodemic? I'm just going to show you
44:14
Speaker 2: this slide from the WHO, because they obviously are looking
44:19
Speaker 2: at the definition of an infodemic, which is slightly different,
44:22
Speaker 2: but it covers all generous so they are looking at
44:25
Speaker 2: it for health. Too much information, including false or misleading
44:30
Speaker 2: information in digital and physical environment during a disease outbreak,
44:34
Speaker 2: causing confusion and risk taking behaviors can harm health and
44:39
Speaker 2: that lead to mistrust. There we go again with the
44:41
Speaker 2: mistrust in health authorities. Now, misinformation has always been around,
44:47
Speaker 2: but when did this become an industrial complex of its
44:50
Speaker 2: very own? Do you remember this?
44:55
Speaker 9: Since you're attacking as can you give us a question?
44:58
Speaker 1: There's a personal ac President elect.
45:00
Speaker 6: Since you are attacking our news organization.
45:02
Speaker 10: Can you give us a chance?
45:04
Speaker 2: Organization?
45:04
Speaker 7: You are attacking our news organization? Can you give us
45:07
Speaker 7: a chance to ask a question?
45:08
Speaker 8: Sir?
45:08
Speaker 3: Sir?
45:09
Speaker 2: Can you stay?
45:10
Speaker 10: Miss President?
45:11
Speaker 4: Do you stay categoric? Question? Now?
45:13
Speaker 3: President like, can you give us a don't being us?
45:15
Speaker 7: Can you give us a question? Don't be give us
45:18
Speaker 7: a question?
45:19
Speaker 6: And you going to give you a Can you stay?
45:21
Speaker 2: You are fake news?
45:22
Speaker 1: Can you stay categorically that nobody?
45:25
Speaker 7: Now, Miss President Like, that's not.
45:32
Speaker 2: Fake news. That's what he said. And they decided amongst
45:36
Speaker 2: themselves that fake news was not the term to use
45:38
Speaker 2: because it could include satire and click bait headlines. So
45:42
Speaker 2: I want to introduce you to the wardle decur Shan.
45:46
Speaker 2: I do apologize for the pronunciation there framework of information disorder.
45:52
Speaker 2: So no more, no more fake news. That's gone away
45:55
Speaker 2: now and now we have information disorder. And if we
45:57
Speaker 2: look further into it, we can see that information disorder.
46:01
Speaker 2: This was It was a publication that was commissioned by
46:04
Speaker 2: the Council of Europe and it was written in twenty
46:07
Speaker 2: seventeen by Claire Wardle and Hosane decarak Shan. I do
46:13
Speaker 2: apologize for that, so I want to go and have
46:16
Speaker 2: a look at the authors. In particular, let's look at
46:18
Speaker 2: Claire Wardle and have no fear. We don't have very
46:21
Speaker 2: far to go and look. Because the World Economic Forum,
46:24
Speaker 2: she's got her own page. She's a journalist that started
46:27
Speaker 2: at Cardiff University. She's now a professor at Brown University
46:31
Speaker 2: Public Health that's in Rhode Island. She developed social media
46:36
Speaker 2: training for the BBC BBC News. She's advised non governmental
46:41
Speaker 2: organizations and governments around the world, and also she's been
46:45
Speaker 2: involved with First Draft, which i'll come on to in
46:47
Speaker 2: a minute. She's also a senior Social Media officer for
46:51
Speaker 2: the UNHCR, which of course is the UN Refugee Agency.
46:56
Speaker 2: So she's a busy lady. So let's look at First
46:59
Speaker 2: Draft and you'll see here that they launched a website
47:02
Speaker 2: to help journalists work with eyewitness media. Now Claire Wardle
47:07
Speaker 2: here's that name again. She co founded it and she
47:10
Speaker 2: says that she's trained over four thousand people in the
47:13
Speaker 2: field of social discovery, and verification. So when I went
47:18
Speaker 2: to wiki to look at First Draft News, I found
47:22
Speaker 2: out that it was a project that was started to
47:25
Speaker 2: fight misinformation and disinformation online. It was founded in twenty
47:29
Speaker 2: fifteen Open Society, Google News Lab, Facebook, Twitter, and in
47:34
Speaker 2: June twenty twenty two, more interestingly, it closed down and
47:39
Speaker 2: it moved, so it was disguised by another name and
47:42
Speaker 2: it was disguised and moved to the Information Future Lab.
47:47
Speaker 2: So this is interesting. Let's go and have a look
47:49
Speaker 2: at the Future Lab. This is Brown University School of
47:52
Speaker 2: Public Health. They are now the new home to Information
47:56
Speaker 2: Futures Lab. But what do they actually do well? According
48:00
Speaker 2: to the website, they examine more than social media networks.
48:05
Speaker 2: They work with online and offline. They're multidisciplinary, they work
48:09
Speaker 2: with well, they work with pretty much everybody, including governments,
48:12
Speaker 2: and they think in years not months, and all about
48:14
Speaker 2: long term protection. So who co founded this organization, I wonder,
48:21
Speaker 2: Oh surprise, Claire Wardle. Well, Claire Wardle has now been
48:26
Speaker 2: called the world leader in the field of misinformation and
48:32
Speaker 2: verification and user generated content. So when we come full circle,
48:38
Speaker 2: since she is the world leader, we come full circle
48:41
Speaker 2: back to information disorder and her Counsel of Europe report.
48:46
Speaker 2: But what does it actually say, Well, it tells you
48:49
Speaker 2: a bit about the authors. So we've already talked about
48:51
Speaker 2: Claire Wardler a little bit, but there is a little
48:53
Speaker 2: bit about the other author there. He's Iranian Canadian and
48:56
Speaker 2: he actually pioneered blogging. A result, he spent six years
49:01
Speaker 2: in prison and then he authored a book called The Web.
49:04
Speaker 2: We have to say, but what is this information disorder
49:07
Speaker 2: all about? Well, let's have a look further on. We're
49:09
Speaker 2: looking at misinformation, which is false information that has been
49:14
Speaker 2: shared but there's been no harm. Meant, We've got disinformation,
49:18
Speaker 2: which is false information shared to knowingly cause harm. And
49:23
Speaker 2: then we've also got maul information. And this is where
49:26
Speaker 2: it gets really interesting because this is genuine information that's
49:29
Speaker 2: been shared to definitely cause harm. So it's like private
49:32
Speaker 2: information that's been moved into the public sphere. And this
49:36
Speaker 2: information disorder is I mean, please go and read the
49:38
Speaker 2: paper on it, because it's very detailed. But we have
49:41
Speaker 2: basically we move on into three phases, which are creation, production,
49:46
Speaker 2: distribution of information disorder. And there's an agent, a message
49:51
Speaker 2: and interpreter. I mean, there is far too much on
49:54
Speaker 2: this to show on the news, so please go and
49:56
Speaker 2: have a look. But what does it say about how
50:00
Speaker 2: did we get to this point? Because how did we
50:02
Speaker 2: get to this huge misinformation disinformation agenda? Well, they liken
50:07
Speaker 2: it back down to the twenty sixteen presidential election, which
50:12
Speaker 2: of course involves President Trump, which led to the immediate
50:16
Speaker 2: search for answers because there was frenzied reporting and all
50:19
Speaker 2: sorts of fabricated news sites. But she's come up with
50:24
Speaker 2: loads of solutions, Claire Wardle, She's a very clever lady
50:29
Speaker 2: us for everybody. So what do national governments do? While
50:32
Speaker 2: national governments can commission research, they can map information, they
50:37
Speaker 2: can regulate ad networks, transparency over Facebook ads, cybersecurity training,
50:43
Speaker 2: and they can enforce minimum levels of public service news
50:47
Speaker 2: onto platform. But that's not all. What can the media
50:49
Speaker 2: do and this will probably be interesting to you, Mark
50:52
Speaker 2: and Mike. The media can collaborate and agree on a
50:55
Speaker 2: policy of strategic silence. Would you believe they can in
51:00
Speaker 2: your strong ethical standards across all media. They can debunk
51:03
Speaker 2: sources as well as content. They have to talk about
51:07
Speaker 2: information disorder, and they need to produce more news. But
51:11
Speaker 2: that's not all. We've got civil society as well. Civil
51:14
Speaker 2: society need to educate the public into information disorder and
51:18
Speaker 2: they need to act as honest brokers.
51:21
Speaker 3: But what else.
51:22
Speaker 2: It doesn't stop there. We're looking at education ministries and
51:26
Speaker 2: funding bodies, and we need to work with libraries. That's
51:29
Speaker 2: if we've got any left that are open. But you
51:33
Speaker 2: know what, don't take my word for it. What does misinforma?
51:36
Speaker 2: Why does misinformation matter? You know, Claire Wardle is a
51:40
Speaker 2: very busy lady. She's got loads of training videos. Let's
51:43
Speaker 2: look at what she says about misinformation.
51:49
Speaker 11: The who started talking about in infidemic at the end
51:52
Speaker 11: of February, and what they were suggesting was that we
51:55
Speaker 11: were already in a situation where we had dangerous misinformation
51:59
Speaker 11: slating around the Corona pandemic. And so an infidemic is
52:04
Speaker 11: essentially understanding that if false or misleading rumors or hoaxes
52:09
Speaker 11: circulate at speed amongst a population that are already scared,
52:14
Speaker 11: it might lead to offline behaviors that could cause more harm. So, yes,
52:19
Speaker 11: we have seen a number of rumors and hoaxes already.
52:22
Speaker 11: So we've seen one that suggests that in America, the
52:25
Speaker 11: Center for Disease Control are coming door to door, and
52:28
Speaker 11: actually that's a scam that's actually making people nervous. Nobody's
52:31
Speaker 11: going door to door. We've also seen rumor circulating about
52:35
Speaker 11: tanks moving down motorways and interstates and suggesting that there's
52:38
Speaker 11: going to be a lockdown in seventy two hours.
52:41
Speaker 4: Now.
52:41
Speaker 11: Whilst that is concerning and it's definitely elevating the risk,
52:45
Speaker 11: it hasn't necessarily led to real world offline behaviors yet.
52:50
Speaker 11: And imagine a scenario when people say, this hospital has
52:53
Speaker 11: no supplies, but this one does, you can still go there.
52:56
Speaker 11: You can imagine that we would be in a situation
52:59
Speaker 11: that could cause even more problems than we currently are
53:02
Speaker 11: facing with the virus itself. But if we don't take
53:06
Speaker 11: information accuracy seriously, then we have got We're going to
53:10
Speaker 11: see some really serious problems. Say to friends and family,
53:13
Speaker 11: please don't share anything unless you are one hundred percent
53:18
Speaker 11: sure that it is accurate, because right now, you can,
53:21
Speaker 11: in the middle of the night, when you wake up
53:22
Speaker 11: and you're frightened and you start scrolling through Facebook, share
53:26
Speaker 11: something without thinking, and ultimately that kind of sharing right
53:28
Speaker 11: now can have real offline, real world harm.
53:37
Speaker 2: So there's Professor Claire Wardle she's got loads of training videos.
53:40
Speaker 2: And my final slide on this segment, because there's so
53:43
Speaker 2: much more to say, but my final slide is that
53:45
Speaker 2: when she's not busy training, she's busy writing papers. And
53:49
Speaker 2: here we have a systematic review of COVID nineteen misinformation
53:52
Speaker 2: interventions lessons learned where she's talking about microchips. So more
53:57
Speaker 2: to come on, Professor.
53:59
Speaker 1: Claire Wardle, Yeah, I was just thinking that little video
54:04
Speaker 1: clip of first, didn't it'ge very well?
54:06
Speaker 9: There?
54:06
Speaker 1: W we can talk about that an extra as well.
54:08
Speaker 1: But anyway, Mark, let's come back to you and what's
54:12
Speaker 1: going on with the US election?
54:16
Speaker 3: Then, well, this has to do with the irrepressible Garland
54:23
Speaker 3: Fabrito of Voters organized for Trusted Election Results in Georgia,
54:28
Speaker 3: and he gave a presentation this past Wednesday, and it
54:33
Speaker 3: was a press conference and it was Garland Fabrito and
54:36
Speaker 3: David Cross presenting Secretary of State reports, video admissions, and
54:40
Speaker 3: forensic evidence illustrating that the Secretary of State certified the
54:44
Speaker 3: wrong winners in both the twenty twenty presidential and US
54:48
Speaker 3: Senate races. They will demonstrate, or they demonstrated, how anyone
54:52
Speaker 3: can confirm these claims and how a faulty certification in
54:56
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, this election can be prevented. Go on
55:00
Speaker 3: from there. This is just a couple of pictures I
55:05
Speaker 3: took from the presentation screenshots. I covered it virtually the
55:09
Speaker 3: press conference New twenty twenty election evidence, forensic findings by Garland,
55:14
Speaker 3: and there's an interview I did of Garland a while
55:17
Speaker 3: back that's posted on the UK column website. Anyway, we've
55:20
Speaker 3: got a video clip where Garland recaps what was wrong
55:24
Speaker 3: in the twenty twenty elections and these have absolute and
55:28
Speaker 3: total ramifications for this election too. These problems have not
55:33
Speaker 3: gone away. So let's watch this clip and it illustrates
55:36
Speaker 3: the problems that have persisted since twenty twenty.
55:40
Speaker 4: Sach say that this is the least safe, lease secure
55:45
Speaker 4: and least honest election that we have ever seen in Georgia.
55:49
Speaker 4: Here are the facts that every Georgia voter needs to know.
55:53
Speaker 4: A US District court found on October eleventh, twenty twenty
55:57
Speaker 4: that the dominion voting system used in the November twenty
56:00
Speaker 4: twenty election is unverifiable to the voter and in violation
56:05
Speaker 4: of two Georgia statues. There are six sworn affidavits of
56:10
Speaker 4: counterfeit mail in ballots in the Fulton County election results
56:14
Speaker 4: that scale into the tens of thousands of votes. The
56:18
Speaker 4: state farm Arina video shows at least four violations of
56:22
Speaker 4: Georgia election law. Approximately forty three thousand de Cab County
56:28
Speaker 4: drop box ballots have no chain of custody forms true votes.
56:33
Speaker 4: Geotracking research showed evidence abouot harvesting teams driving repeatedly to
56:40
Speaker 4: drop boxes in Fulton and to Cab Counties. All three
56:44
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty thousand plus original in person ballot images
56:48
Speaker 4: in Fulton are missing in violation of federal and state
56:52
Speaker 4: retention laws. All three hundred and ninety three thousand plus
56:57
Speaker 4: original ballot images in Cobb are missing in violation of
57:01
Speaker 4: federal and state retention law. At least seventeen thousand, seven
57:07
Speaker 4: hundred and twenty certified in person recount votes have no
57:13
Speaker 4: ballot images at all. In Fulton County, eighteen thousand, three
57:19
Speaker 4: hundred and twenty five voters had vacant residential addresses. According
57:25
Speaker 4: to the United States Post Office. All are parts of
57:30
Speaker 4: nearly two million original ballot images from over seventy Georgia
57:36
Speaker 4: counties are missing, and.
57:42
Speaker 3: Those numbers pretty much speak for themselves. Again, these are
57:46
Speaker 3: the problems from twenty twenty that are persisting to today.
57:50
Speaker 3: But Darland explained that there's things that people can do.
57:54
Speaker 3: As a note in this final slide, how to prevent
57:57
Speaker 3: such problems in twenty twenty four, monitor interim re election
58:02
Speaker 3: results as they are reported. This is being advised that
58:05
Speaker 3: voters citizens should monitor the interim election results as they're reported.
58:09
Speaker 3: Every interested citizen is called upon to screenshot these ongoing
58:15
Speaker 3: results as they're updated. And there's a website called votifynow
58:19
Speaker 3: dot org and it's an election tracking system and an
58:23
Speaker 3: app where people can share experiences and problems that they've
58:26
Speaker 3: seen and then that can be utilized. And a quick
58:32
Speaker 3: explanation because there's a lot of things that are shared
58:35
Speaker 3: there by Garland and all the missing ballot images. What
58:38
Speaker 3: are ballot images? A ballot image is a digital copy
58:42
Speaker 3: of a physical ballot, typically in a JPEG photo format.
58:46
Speaker 3: They are legally required this is Garland's quote. They are
58:50
Speaker 3: legally required by both federal and state law to re
58:53
Speaker 3: retain for about two years. And Garland added that Secretary
58:57
Speaker 3: of State's office, that's Brad Raffensberger has wrongly told Georgia
59:01
Speaker 3: counties that they need not retain the ballot images contrary
59:05
Speaker 3: to the law. And you might recall Mike, Diane Sayer
59:11
Speaker 3: saw her election results making strange changes. She would have
59:16
Speaker 3: so many votes and all of a sudden the votes
59:18
Speaker 3: would would drop down inexplicably. That's why Garland is advocating
59:23
Speaker 3: that people monitor the interim results and make frequent screenshots
59:27
Speaker 3: to make sure that the numbers are not making inexplicable
59:31
Speaker 3: and hard to explain changes. So that's that's a bit
59:37
Speaker 3: of reality that the Washington Post might increase its credibility
59:41
Speaker 3: by reporting, but I don't I don't expect the Post
59:44
Speaker 3: to do that anytime soon, just as an example of
59:47
Speaker 3: what the what the press could report if they wanted
59:50
Speaker 3: to restore their credibility. But anyway, back to you, Mike.
59:53
Speaker 1: Yes, well, just to demonstrate that this apparently is not
59:58
Speaker 1: going away anytime soon. In a few people sent this
1:00:00
Speaker 1: through to me, and thanks to everybody that did this
1:00:03
Speaker 1: video clip doing the ruins. I don't know if you've
1:00:05
Speaker 1: got any thoughts in this mark, but it demonstrates that again,
1:00:09
Speaker 1: here we are in twenty twenty four and apparently the
1:00:12
Speaker 1: voting machines miss voting on behalf of people, so that
1:00:18
Speaker 1: was very clear that that person was voting for Donald Trump,
1:00:21
Speaker 1: but it ended up being a Kamala Harris vote. And
1:00:25
Speaker 1: of course this was happening in twenty twenty as well,
1:00:27
Speaker 1: And in fact, Kenny earlier on today was looking back
1:00:30
Speaker 1: to see when we're the earliest examples of this type
1:00:32
Speaker 1: of thing, and it was twenty ten was the earliest
1:00:34
Speaker 1: we can find. So this has been well understood for
1:00:37
Speaker 1: a number of years, and it does fascinate me that,
1:00:40
Speaker 1: you know, the United States is the first to criticize
1:00:42
Speaker 1: Georgia or other countries the election processes when they maybe
1:00:47
Speaker 1: are resulting in a result which is pro Russian. But
1:00:53
Speaker 1: perhaps the United States is one of the worst examples
1:00:56
Speaker 1: of election capability the entire planet. But Debbie, let's finish
1:01:03
Speaker 1: also in the United States with Janet Yelland.
1:01:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's finish with Janet Yellend. And for people that
1:01:10
Speaker 2: don't know who Janet Yelland is, she's the equivalent to
1:01:12
Speaker 2: the UK's Chancellor of the Excheque. She's ahead of the
1:01:15
Speaker 2: Treasury in the USA. And do you believe in divine intervention?
1:01:20
Speaker 2: Because when she was doing a press press conference, she
1:01:23
Speaker 2: was asked a question about what the fate of the
1:01:27
Speaker 2: dollar was and keep an eye on the sign on
1:01:31
Speaker 2: her podium, have a look at this.
1:01:34
Speaker 10: More on the near term economic impact of these policies
1:01:37
Speaker 10: and over a longer time horizon. How concerned are you
1:01:40
Speaker 10: about the potential impact of the dollar status as the
1:01:43
Speaker 10: world reserve currency.
1:01:53
Speaker 2: I think that probably speaks for herself.
1:01:55
Speaker 1: Yes it does right. Thank you very much, Dobbie, Thank
1:01:58
Speaker 1: you Mark for joining us today. We got to leave
1:02:01
Speaker 1: it there for now. Thanks to everybody that's been watching.
1:02:04
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a couple of minutes. If you're
1:02:05
Speaker 1: UK column members for some extra. If you're not a
1:02:08
Speaker 1: UK column member, please do join us and then you
1:02:11
Speaker 1: can join us for extra, but otherwise, have a great weekend.
1:02:15
Speaker 1: We'll see one pm as usual on Monday. See then,
1:02:18
Speaker 1: Bye bye