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The Current Transcript for April 24, 2019

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

I couldn't be prouder of this day am here tomorrow as The Premier elect of Prince Edward Island, the leader province that cares so much about their neighbors, their friends and about their family. Let's be proud of this province and let's make it the best we can make it. [Cheers]

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Another province ousts the ruling party and brings in conservatives. Dennis Kings win in Prince Edward Island now adds to a growing coalition of conservative premiers ready to take on a liberal Ottawa. There's another twist. The Greens are the official opposition in PEI and it's all coming in the midst of a national meltdown over the federal carbon tax and a news cycle with an acute link to the realities of climate change from flooding in the east to the first sign of fires in the West. In a moment our rotating cast of [unintelligible] people that we call our national affairs panel tackles all of that. And then when the politics of climate change gets person.

SOUNDCLIP

Our planet is in a kind of collapse. The natural world is collapsing around us and that's actually happening right now. Basically last year I came to this decision that I could bring a child into that.

AMT: Blythe Pepino has launched of what she calls a Birthstrike movement of people who say they are choosing not to have children because of political inaction over the ravages of climate change. She has had hundreds of people sign up, but what happens when she is confronted with the views of a committed environmentalist who is happily pregnant. Here is the debate, in half an hour. Also today, Sri Lanka reeling from Sunday's deadly multiple attacks, has shut down access to social media ostensibly to curtail rumors and misinformation online.

SOUNDCLIP

The nature of social media is passing things [unintelligible] between people without any kind of verification. I see where the government is coming from. Let's put it that way.

AMT: But put it another way. Grieving citizens have been denied a key way to connect socially in the midst of a national drama. The government decision has divided media, tech and free expression experts here's their perspectives in an hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Currents.

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'People don't like change': Tough action on climate change is a hard sell, says journalist

Guests: Mia Rabson, Jason Thistlethwaite, Sarah Roberton

SOUNDCLIP

The Green Party at this election asking Islanders to put their faith in us to introduce a new way of governing a government based on the core principles on which the Green party is founded. Living within ecological and financial limits, local self-reliance grassroots democracy a just society, active Citizenship and self determination the culture of peace. Islanders responded by granting us a record number of seats, by far the most seats ever won by a Green Party in Canada.

[Cheers]

AMT: Green Party under leader Peter Bevan Baker marked in historic first in Canada last night becoming the official opposition in a provincial legislature for the first time. At the end of the night in Prince Edward Island Dennis King had the votes to form a minority government with the conservatives. The conservatives won 12 seats to the Greens eight. The ruling liberals were reduced to six seats, third party status. The Green Party's gains come in a province where the liberals and conservatives have historically swapped power. The Greens campaigned on a wide message as you heard there but a party known widely for its environmental stance has made these gains at a time when climate change issues are front and center. This week thousands of residents in New Brunswick and Quebec have been forced to flee their homes due to extreme flooding. The community of bigger Saskatchewan has declared a state of emergency over a raging grassfire. Yet even as climate change affects the daily lives of more Canadians, climate policy continues to be a political football. Our rotating cast of a national affairs panel pundits is standing by. Mia Rabson is the energy and environment reporter for The Canadian Press in Ottawa. Sarah Roberton is vice president corporate and public affairs at Environics Research. She's been tracking public opinion on environmental issues and Jason Thistlethwaite is a professor of environment and business at the University of Waterloo and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. Hello to you all and welcome.

MIA ROBSON: Good morning.

SARAH ROBERTON: Good morning.

JASON THISTLETHWAITE: Good morning.

AMT: I've called you my panel of smart people. So let's start, Mia, another liberal government turfed another conservative government in a province and now a minority Green Party opposition. What are you thinking out of Ottawa?

MIA ROBSON: Absolutely. I mean I think there's a lot of happy conservatives this morning looking at these results particularly for a party that just a few months ago seemed to be in complete disarray. I think this leader is in the last several years I think it was. They seem to have really gone through sort of a downtime, for the conservatives, and to come back and sort of come up and win this election. It is the first minority I believe that PEI has had I think in more than a century. So this will be interesting for them and also a big embrace of the Green Party and a big thumbs down to the liberals. This is another blast for the liberals and it affects federal politics in the sense that there is a sense that on the doorsteps. People were not thrilled with Justin Trudeau. They didn't want him to come campaign there. This wasn't just about saying goodbye to the PEI government that had been in power for so long. There was also some concern about the Federal Liberals as well.

AMT: And of course this comes on the heels of Jason Kenney's win in Alberta, Mia.

MIA ROBSON: Yes absolutely, Jason Kenney's win in Alberta. We had the New Brunswick conservatives win, in Ontario last year. Now there is there's three provinces now they don’t have a conservative government`. So I said a lot of happy conservatives and maybe some liberals having to do some soul searching about what exactly they're doing.

AMT: and we can look at this through the prism of climate issues. Sarah Robertson, first of all, talk to me just a little bit about the Greens. How the federal greens might be seeing this and what this says to you in on retirement?

SARAH ROBERTON: So what I find interesting about this is, from a public opinion perspective, that Canadians are really telling us that they want to have to choose between those two issues that really come up the most between the economy and the environment. Perhaps it's naive from their perspective but they want to be able to achieve both. So when push comes to shove, the top issue on their agenda is economy and jobs. But they don't feel that they should have to make the trade-off between the two pieces of that puzzle: the economy any environment. Where I think the Greens are coming in from the perspective of pushing that environmental agenda. What I question is whether there's that economic side sufficiently addressed from the perspective of what Canadians are looking for.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Jason Thistlethwaite, the campaign in PEI as we look at it, where the Greens fit in with the conservatives, what message do you think those Green Party gains have sent to political leaders in other parts of the country?

JASON THISTLETHWAITE: Well I think the election really reveals the growth of some left and right populism finding a pathway to express a growing economic anxiety in Canada. On the one hand you have a group of Canadians Italians were very controlling the climate change is causing a great deal work and anxiety, it is destabilising our economy and our environment and limiting the quality of life for future generations. On the other end you have a group of Canadians who are concerned the government is taking actions to address climate change, the carbon tax or whatever carbon pricing it may be and that is threatening the well-being of the current economy now and future generations. And one of the things I'm concerned about is that we're having the wool pulled over our eyes a little bit here with a focus on governments being sort of the cause of these issues. And really what it comes down to is unchecked corporate power. Corporations are continuing to emit significant emissions, pushing as fast as they can to make these quarterly results, and at the same time they're not increasing wages. And we're seeing that their all their wealth and growth is going to a certain section of the population that isn't available to the wide majority of the population.

AMT: Mia Rabson, what do you think of that?

MIA ROBSON: To go back to the environment and the economy and that is that is definitely one of the things that no party has yet found that balance, the liberals that's their constant phrase. You will hear environment minister Catherine McKenna say that every day that the environment and the economy go hand in hand. You can't really get away from it. But there is some feeling that that idea or that sort of general balance that the liberals have been trying to take where you can build pipelines and still reduce emissions failed, but the Alberta election that they're sort of grand experiment didn't go very well. And that no party yet has figured out this ability to balance reducing emissions and addressing climate change without freaking everybody out that they are going to have to pay more, that they're going to lose their job, that the economy and a society that we are comfortable with is not going to have to change significantly. And the answer to that is because we actually do have to change significantly if we're going to address this.

AMT: Sarah Roberton, with the images we're seeing right now in New Brunswickers and Quebecers some of them standing knee deep in floodwater, how much do you think people make connections between the kinds of love lived experiences that we see - and that's the example right now. We've seen wildfires last year. We know that everybody's bracing for more trouble on that front this year. How much do people connect with the politics, like the disaster and the climate change and the politics?

SARAH ROBERTON: I think that they make a connection but I don't think that they make a sufficient connection to motivate change at this point. And so I'll explain what I mean by that. When we ask them what they're seeing in their communities that show them that climate change is happening, they really talk about those things like force fires and floods and the things that are happening from that perspective. What they aren't communicating or understanding is- the problem that they're having is that they don't actually see climate change as an immediate local or personal issue. So from a communications perspective this is a real issue. I don't see this as happening now. I see this happening in the future. I don't see this happening in my community, it's happening in other communities, other parts of Canada. And I don't see this as a risk for me and my family. It's going to happen to other families. So from a risk communications perspective how do you get people to focus on the here and now and make changes now? I think that's the issue that the governments, including the Federal Liberals, are struggling with.

AMT: Well it's interesting because I've got a clip here of the Quebec premier, Francois Legault, speaking over the weekend about introducing measures to encourage people to move out of flood zones including putting caps on the amount of compensation people can get. Specifically flood zones are an issue when it comes to climate change. Listen to him.

SOUNDCLIP

I think it's important that we cannot have every year compensation to solve problems but only on a temporary basis. We really need to have incentives to move the people when it's happening every year almost

AMT: Jason Thistlethwaite, how much of that can be seen through the prism of a government doing something about climate change damage? I know the flooding has continued but this is a very specific thing that he's talking about, against the backdrop of environmentalist saying we don't have good maps anymore and there is more flooding that's going to happen.

JASON THISTLETHWAITE: Sure. I think this is a very strong and smart idea on the part of the government to actually take some responsibility and coordinate a response to climate change risk, that we need to start moving people out of harm's way. So whereas previously on the mitigation site I really think this anxiety about unchecked and corporate authority where governments are really the underdogs. When it comes to the increase in risk and impacts of extreme weather, we have the opposite problem. We tend to absolve governments of their responsibility. We tend to think that these are acts of God or that they're natural events. They're totally anomalous and they're not likely to affect my family, when in fact they are a consequence of poor coordination and neglect by governments through inadequate public policy. So it's a good sign to see that the Quebec government is recognising that, well, these people may have not known that they were going to purchase or live in a house in a high risk area. So the governments we taxpayers who have benefited from them paying property taxes, the local municipality and so on, have to take some responsibility and make sure these people have an opportunity to move out of harm's way, make room for the hazard, be it river or wildfire.

AMT: Mia, most of the conversation about climate policy these days is focused on carbon pricing and that's the wedge issue. The climate scientists have a view on this as well, don't they?

MIA ROBSON: Yesterday, a hundred different people: scientists, academics, business leaders, corporate executives who signed this letter. Their big concern is that were all were talking about is the carbon tax, that it is becoming a distraction. Although they support the idea of a carbon tax, they're fearing that the political rhetoric around it is just drowning out all of the other things about climate change that people need to know and think about such as rising water levels that are forcing people - not just from their homes now - but maybe permanently. A lot of these people built in places that they never expected to flood but the water levels are rising. In the Ottawa Gatineau area where I am this is the second major flood in three years and they hadn't had one in decades before this. So it's becoming the norm where it just never happened before. Two years in a row in New Brunswick. Quebec dealing with it. These are things that are becoming more frequent and so it is true that people are not understanding or thinking necessarily that it's going to affect them, but slowly but surely it is starting to affect everybody. And not just once and not just twice but every year. And so the thinking is starting to change, but people dont like change. They don't like the idea that they have to maybe pay a carbon tax or or do something differently or move their homes. And so governments convincing people for change and a massive change like this one is a hurdle that no government has figured out yet.

AMT: You know Sarah is nodding her head when you say people don't like change. What do numbers show you, Sarah?

SARAH ROBERTON: The patterns are fascinating. So people are concerned about climate change. That's a given. They are, I would say extremely concerned about it, but they lack a certain awareness or understanding of the issue. There is a lack of familiarity. Carbon taxes, climate change, the whole issue, the science behind it is very complicated and people don’t entirely grasp that. So they are looking for easy ways to understand this and easy messages. And what they’re not getting from experts, from government is what is it you actually want me to do in order to change. I may not be able to afford an electric vehicle right now. That may not be something is possible for me to do. I'm already turning off all my appliances when I leave the room. What exactly do you want me to do that's going to have an impact on this problem? And I think one of the aspects of carbon taxes is that it puts the emphasis where it should be and on the cost to the household, to the individual. That's a message that they can get across is: 'I need to be able to reduce the cost this is putting me', and a carbon tax is an easy way for them to understand that, because right now other governments haven't shown them the other path that they need to take if it's not permanent carbon tax.

AMT: There are so many conservative premiers who are opposed to the carbon tax and they say, look, we have the votes to prove that the people our province don't want this. Does that play out in your polling?

SARAH ROBERTON: Actually the majority in every province in Canada, except for Alberta and Saskatchewan, are in favor of a carbon tax. They are in favor of it. The issue that we see is that they are not yet convinced it's going to be effective. So they are holding back full support, I would say, until they see is actually going to make a difference in terms of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. And the aspect of the carbon tax and the turning against the carbon tax that doesn't get talked about a lot is the other things that people talk about do to deal with climate change: regulations, clean fuel standards, things like phasing out coal. They come with a cost. They have a cost. Many of them can't even put a per ton cost on it. It's not going to be what you're paying necessarily directly at the gas pump. I mean there was last month there were some [unintelligible] the chemistry industry said that the clean fuel standard is going to cost them two hundred dollars a ton as a carbon tax of sorts. So the regulations have a price. It's not that the carbon tax is the only thing that's going to make people pay more. It's just the most visible thing and it's the easiest thing to attack politically.

JASON THISTLETHWAITE: I think that could have been communicating a bit of a better way. What actually this carbon tax was doing. To a certain extent, there's a lot of self-blame and guilt that goes on with climate change. Canadians are going 'well what can I do?' Well to a certain extent, you can't do very much. 70 percent of Canadian emissions there are industry related. There's a collective action problem around this. And so when all these little individual things don't necessarily, changes in behavior, what may have you, don't add up that as a justification for governments to step in. And that's exactly what the carbon tax is doing. So to a certain extent you can pay that tax. You can buy as big a truck as you want. You can drive as much as you want. You are doing your part by paying that tax to help take some responsibility and protect the future well-being of next generation. So I like seeing that the governments are taking some leadership over this issue and it could come at some short term cost as we get used to this new era where we really need - no more of this incremental action on climate change, but much more transformative and significant efforts. And until we start recognising that we need to be holding our elected officials accountable for that, I don't think we're in to see the change that we need.

AMT: Sarah you wanted to jump in.

SARAH ROBERTON: Yeah I just wanted to add to what Jason said in that there is a growing recognition on the part of Canadians that the governments do need to step in. We ask the question: do you think that voluntary action is sufficient to motivate change on climate change? Or do you think the government should take up more of a role and step up to the plate in terms of regulations, policy initiatives, those types of things? In the past it was always, no, voluntary action is going to be sufficient. And we've seen that trend change over time to now the majority are saying it has to be the government that leads this effort.

AMT: Which is exactly what you're pointing out, Jason, that that's necessary on the level that you need to make change.

JASON THISTLETHWAITE: Yes individuals - I know that some of the faculty environment and all the time you have people think, well, you know maybe I could be doing a little more here or there. You do, you feel that. But ultimately it's this big organisation, this big institution of government that has the authority to do that. So I think that's a great question and it's fastening that we're seeing that difference. And I know also there's generational differences on this. We see both millennials and the next generation, generation-Z the asking for more government in their life. It's not just climate change but it's also inequality that they're dealing with: access to the economy, access to jobs. No matter how hard you work, no matter how many side [unintelligible] you have, that inequality isn't going to be fixed without some real help on the part of the collective and Canadians through their governments.

AMT: So Mia Rabson, as we as we see another conservative party win a province, as we see the green party become the official opposition in Prince Edward Island, provincial opposition anywhere for the first time, what do you think the Trudeau Liberals are thinking today?

MIA ROBSON: They're thinking that they have only a few months until the federal election and they just sort this out. The dislike of the Federal Liberals right now has very little to do with climate change and the carbon tax. The people who are very edgy carbon tax and won't vote for the Liberals or the majority of those people probably wouldn't vote for them no matter what they did. That's the base of the Conservative Party to some extent. So what the liberals need to do is they need to figure out how they're going to overcome the other issues they've had - the SNC Lavalin issue in particular - and this sort of downgrading of Justin Trudeau's reputation so to speak, and sell to Canadians that their plan going forward on climate change, on the economy are actually going to come together. They've waited so long in some ways to cut this carbon tax out there that people haven't had a chance to see that it's working and they're still skeptical.

AMT: Okay well lot's more questions raised by this. Thank you all for being part of this. Mia Rabson, energy and environment reporter for The Canadian Press. Sarah Robertson vice president at environed Environics Research and Jason Thistlethwaite professor of environment and business at the University of Waterloo and Centre for International Governance Innovation. This is The Current Stay with us. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti.

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This woman won't have children because of climate change. She says she's not alone

Guest: Blythe Pepino, Emma Pinchbeck, Kelli Korducki

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, as the extent of the carnage became clear after multiple bombings in Sri Lanka, one of the government's most controversial actions was to shut down access to social media sites. We will go to Sri Lanka in our next half hour for the latest on the aftermath and have a discussion about whether a ban on the spread of misinformation outweighs the benefit of closing a vital channel of communication. But first, children may be the future but, to some, the future is looking grim.

SOUNDCLIP

I'm bored by the government not doing enough, basically. I am worried about the future. Right now we have to do something. You can't sit by and wait and wait for the government to do it. There's plenty of stuff that they could be doing but it is not doing it. [Cheers] And I just wanted to come here and tell them that I am angry with them and that I'm sick of them doing their job properly and ruining my future. And one day I want to be able to have kids but at the moment I don't think I can because I don't see a future that is livable at the moment. So that's why I'm here.

AMT: One of the thousands of protesters who have gathered in London, England this month as part of what they're calling the extinction rebellion. And as that protester told Sky News they are out in full force because they fear for the future. And not just their own future. That is what has motivated a smaller number of women to take an even bolder course of action. They're calling it a bird strike. Blythe Pepino launched the Birthstrike Movement and she's with me from Bristol, England. Hello.

BLYTHE PEPINO: Thanks for having me on.

AMT: What are you pledging to do?

BLYTHE PEPINO: Well all the people that have joined Birthstrike have- they already make the decisions themselves personally. They've come to a decision to not have children basically as a result of ecological breakdown and fear of what kind of a future that would be for their child.

AMT: And you've made this pledge. When did you make this decision?

BLYTHE PEPINO: Myself personally last October, November after a lot of the very severe reports of last year came out, like the IPCC report and the Met report'.

AMT: And what were you thinking? Like why was that your reaction?

BLYTHE PEPINO: Well I think if anyone looks into the science in any depth you will understand how you could come to the point where you sort of rationally ask yourself Is this a safe thing to do. Not only for the child but yourself. You know we're looking at. Famine and we're looking at mass displacement. We're looking at severe weather systems. We're looking at general drought and sea level rise. I think once you kind of combine that and you see how destabilized our climate will be if we don't turn things around. Indeed even if we do turn things around things are going to be very destabilized. So once you have a look at all that it becomes quite obvious why these men and women are making this decision.

AMT: So what about you, Blythe, had you wanted to have a child and then you changed your mind over the last year or so?

BLYTHE PEPINO: Yes. I mean it's a bit unfortunate for me because I love my partner, we've beeeb together for a couple of years and last year I's started thinking about all the steps that I would need to make to get myself to a position to have a family, so you know where were going to live, the kind of income that were going to need and that sort of thing. The two things really combined my wanting to have a child and also coming to realise that actually I don't think the future is looking stable enough for me to make that decision.

AMT: And are you angry that you made that decision or that you feel that you had to?

BLYTHE PEPINO: Yes you know why? Because of the amount of money that has been put into lobbying for denial and lobbying against this conversation being made and even in the action being taken by the fossil fuel industry and other like electric utility industries. They've been pouring billions of pounds in to undermining the conversation and the actions that would have maybe put us in a different position now, so that we're having to make extremely drastic moves now that look to some quite impossible. Whereas if we had acted on that 30 years ago then it would be a lot of a smooth transition. So I have to be honest I am pretty angry because I apportion quite a lot of blame on those companies for doing that lobbying and think tanking.

AMT: The decision to have a child or not to have a child because of the fears of what's going on with climate change is a conversation from many people but why have a group? What's the significance of the Birthstrike group?

BLYTHE PEPINO: Well when I made my decision obviously it was quite a monstrous time emotionally, and I threw myself into direct action because it seemed like the only way for me to kind of channel my energy. And I met lots of other people, especially women, who are my age and aside asking around and that's when I realised that this was a growing thing. There was a lot more people were making this decision and that's when it became clear to me that a group would not only be good in terms of trying to get this conversation out to the mainstream - let's not forget that last year climate change and environmental concerns were still very much a kind of niche topic. So were trying to push this sort of right wing media where they wouldn't usually talk about environmental concerns. But also as a solidarity group. So a lot of people that join up are really relieved to have a space that they can come in to where they can, just online, we have a private Facebook group where they can talk about their individual concerns and their journey and their stories. And I think that's really great for people's mental health too.

AMT: How many people sign up?

BLYTHE PEPINO: So far 323 from around the world.

AMT: And what sort of people are signing up?

BLYTHE PEPINO: And we've got all sorts. I've spoken to a lovely chap recently from San Diego and also recently spoke to an Indian lady from Chelmsford. Some of them are scientists. A lot of them have a reason why they're so aware, particularly aware, of the evidence and the science so they're might work in the environmental sector or they have parents who work in the environmental sector or other members of the family that do, or perhaps they grew up in nature. And then there are other people who were just coming into that awareness now and feels that this completely- some of them are very alone in their communities in terms of what they've realized and how much they feel that their friends and family are aware of this.

AMT: Well Blythe Pepino I want you to stay with me here. I've got two more people I want to bring into this conversation. They have also given a lot of thought to the issue of having babies in a time of climate change. Emma Pinchbeck is the deputy CEO of renewable UK that is a trade association for the renewable energy sources such as wind solar wind tidal power. She used to head the climate change department of the UK office of the World Wildlife Fund. Emma Pinchbeck is five months pregnant and she joins us from London. And Kelli Maria Korducki she is joining us as well. She's an author and editor who is grappling with this issue trying to decide what she wants. She's joining us from New York City. Hello to you both.

EMMA PINCHBECK: Hello.

KELLI KORDUCKI: Hello.

AMT: And so Emma let me start with you. I guess we know where you come down on this but why have you decided - you're a committed environmentalist and you are going to bring a child into this world - what kind of back and forth did you have?

EMMA PINCHBECK: Oh so much. And actually everything Blythe's has resonated with me. In fact last summer we had a very long heat wave in the U.K. and the media wasn't really talking about climate change and a lot of us in the environmental movement went through a big existential crisis of the kind that Blythe is talking about and I came home and said to my husband 'we're not having kids' and I'm pregnant. And I think I pick up on the anger point in that it doesn't matter whether you choose not to have children because you're worried about their carbon footprint, you choose not to have children as a form of direct action right now, you choose not to have children because you're worried about how you have the conversation with them about what's coming. Or you have children and - as I am alternately wracked with guilt and joy about it you should be angry that we have to have this conversation and that's sort of where I am. Actually inasmuch as our individual choices matter the thing that we really need is a system change, and we are very very clear that we have all of the technologies and I work on many of them that we need to solve this problem and literally all we are lacking is political will. And so I think channelling my efforts at the system change I know to be possible in my child's lifetime is where I came down. And if we do that there is every reason for hope that they will have a different kind of life to the one that I've had for sure, but one that is rich and full and hopefully safe.

AMT: Blythe Pepino what do you think of what she's saying there?

BLYTHE PEPINO: Yeah absolutely concur. And you know one of the things in Birthstrike that I really try to get across is that you know any one of us could fall pregnant, even accidentally, at any point really so if that did happen then we would celebrate that. You know many people are choosing to have kids and it's such a beautiful thing to do and I totally concur that no system changes the way. And this lovely chap that talked about from San Diego really gave me that impression because he knew this really hammering home, that we have the resources, we have technology we have theories. The only thing that's missing is the political will. So I totally agree on that. And I would certainly change my position if I felt that that political will was actually changing and we could see that being put into action.

AMT: Kelli Maria Korducki, what are you thinking as you listen to both of my other guests?

KELLI KORDUCKI: Well I'm nodding a lot. I mean I think that a believe that Blythe and Emma and I are all roughly the same age, kind of early to mid-thirties, and so we're kind of freshly foisted into this position - we have this position this dilemma foisted upon us, rather - where a life milestone that we are sort of probably took for granted as something that would happen around this time in our lives has suddenly become much more weighted. I mean even what we know now as opposed to what we knew about the climate situation, I don't know, a year ago even, we just know so much more and the circumstances has become that much more dire. And we really are I think generationally, those of us with the position of privilege to make kind of an informed reproductive decision, I think it's important that we that we vocalize that this is a privilege and that it comes with responsibility.

AMT: So what are you weighing, Kelli?

KELLI KORDUCKI: So I kind of come at this from two sides. You know I think Blythe and Emma do too from what I'm hearing. On the one hand I am really afraid for the next generation, for what the planet will be for them. I am very discouraged by the lack of political will and really kind of lack of collective will to recognise the gravity of the situation. At the same time I don't want to advocate for the mass cessation every action because - you know for obvious reasons - I think there is a real necessity to have some kind of hope that there will be a future. Without hope you dont have hope. So I am torn between these two sides. On the one had I am terrified and on the other I want to believe. There is a hopeful story here. One of the reasons I moved back from working in the NGO world, in a job that I just loved and on international climate change was firstly I had to read the data on the southern Antarctic ice sheet. That was making sleeping quite hard. Also because there is positive change happening but sometimes it’s quite hard to see it, and that is why the scientists are all saying change is really possible and really possible by mid-century when my kid will be my age. And a really good example of that is what's happened with renewables. In the past five years renewables have gone from being an expensive outlier technology to the cheapest form of generation of electricity all around the world whether that's solar or wind. And there is this remarkable moment that were all on a knife edge and having to take an almost 50-50 decision about whether were going to take advantage of that really positive opportunity and change the world for the better, or whether we're not going to do anything and the science is going to be right and we're going to fall into ecological collapse. But it really genuinely is on a knife edge. I mean for me unfortunately my biological clock is also on a knife edge and we've gone the way that we have. But I'm an eternal optimist which is hard in this job and I can genuinely see a future for my child which is a positive one from the work that I do.

AMT: So as I said to you, Emma, I want to ask Blythe, is your main concern Blythe that a child - if you have a child - that child would add to the world's carbon footprint more that the child would face a grim future if climate change continues to answer this pace?

BLYTHE PEPINO: Yes I'm definitely not a carbon footprint Birthstriker. And in fact actually birthstriking as a whole this is about the latter. So we're all about system changing and fear the future basically. But there are some people who I can understand make a decision based on quite an emotional reaction, I think, to humans just seeming addicted to so many things. I use the word addiction because I feel like the emotional reaction to kind of like reduce your carbon footprint by not having a child, it seems like quite an emotional reaction to me in the sense that I know and I try to spread this, as well that we can't really mitigate the kinds of consequences that stop me from having a child by reducing population at this point because it's so late in the game. So it's like practically not really useful to do that at this point, but I understand those people who are making that decision because of that reason. But personally yes, it's not about that.

AMT: I wonder what kind of pushback you're getting, Blythe?

BLYTHE PEPINO: Oh a lot. You know I think it's part of our problem as communicators at the moment that we try to think about in black and white terms. There are so many grey areas in this conversation it's really new ones. I'm really glad to be having it actually because I feel like I'm getting a real insight into people's fears around reproduction and patriarchy, feminism and all of the rest of it. It's quite interesting. There's been quite a lot of hateful stuff but then that was pretty much after the Fox News interview and now it's kind of petered out now and most people are fairly balanced which is lovely. But it's really great to hear Kelli and Emma. Thanks to Kelli and Emma first thinking about this as well.

EMMA PINCHBECK: Blythe, on the Fox News point, I just think the reason - if I'm being honest - the reason my husband might have come down on the side of having children is that because were in love and I'm an optimist and - let's hope this goes well, but it's there and also the science and my work. But it's also this, more recently, which is how sad is it four women are sitting having a conversation about their uteruses again, rather than talking about changing a system which is, firstly, going to be better if we change it. Secondly, will produce an economic model which is hopefully fairer, and thirdly, at the moment largely in the control of men.

BLYTHE PEPINO: Absolutely.

EMMA PINCHBECK: As a feminist as well as anything else I think that I felt really strongly that I didn't want my personal choices as a woman being complicated again by a system which we could change for the better and which is largely in the hands of men to change.

KELLI KORDUCKI: That's a good point.

AMT: What do you think Kelli?

KELLI KORDUCKI: I am in total agreement but also at the same time that fact is partly why I struggle to maintain optimism. There's just so much disincentive for the people in the position of power and wealth to to enact any change or to facilitate a new change or to acknowledge that change is necessary. But that's kind of what I what I've been struggling with. But this absolutely is a feminist issue. I think that climate and women's rights and women's agency are very in-extractable from one another.

AMT: Kelli you've had your pushback. You wrote a piece in Globe and Mail that not everybody was happy with it.

KELLI KORDUCKI: Yes. So basically I came down on kind of a side that I'm expressing now which was one of tremendous ambivalence and not really a strong either or, very grey area. This is the thing that we need to talk about and really think about. And even though I was certainly not advocating for people to stop having children and quite the contrary. It was interpreted as such by great many people. Some people accused me of being a eugenicist and anti-natalist. And you know in fact I actually think that the real conversation we need to be having is one that's the exact opposite of what drives eugenics, which is that really this is an issue that those of us in the wealthy industrialized north have the privilege to ignore. We aren't really experiencing the dramatic effects of climate change quite yet. We're not experiencing necessarily the droughts, the famines, the mass devastation. So it's easy for us to kind of ignore what is going on with the poor brown people in the south.

BLYTHE PEPINO: I just want to come in there and agree. And also say that I think that is another factor that I am seeing in a lot of people deciding not to have children is a deep deep dissatisfaction with the injustice that is still happening in this world and that is really characterised by the Climate Change dilemmas, that the poorest people and the people who have always been oppressed the most will be the first and the worst affected by this whole thing. And the people who are dragging their feet and that have the power to make change are the people that started it all in the industrial revolution. And I really do think it's not something that I often talk about because I end up talking about other things first. But personally it's one of the things that make me feel I don't want to bring a child into this society actually because I feel that everything I touch is sullied by this sort of historical colonial event that haven't been [unintelligible] for. So there is this whole other political side of it as well. And I'm really glad you put that up.

AMT: So what is your goal in the Birthstike movement?

BLYTHE PEPINO: Well we've already achieved it to be fair. I mean at the moment what happened was what we wanted to happen which was what we want. 'Oh some women don't want to have kids anymore' and right wing media went: 'What? White women don't want to have kids. Oh my God. Western women stomping around children? Crazy.' And that enabled us to get the environmental crisis and the ecological breakdown onto Fox News, onto BBC, onto a lot of other programs. And that happened like a month before [unintelligible] rebellion are doing without protest and stuff. And that was kind of the purpose. Well it was half of the purpose and then other half is what we're left with now which is this kind of group of us who are kind of creating this solidarity and talking about really positive things as well, like reaching visioning motherhood, what does it mean to share motherhood and parenting and how can we move forward. So that's what we're doing now basically, is kind of like what can we do with this group of people who are really passionate about the whole thing.

AMT: Emma, what will you tell your child if they ask you why?

EMMA PINCHBECK: I don't know. I mean I will raise my child in the same way that my husband and I live which is preferably inside a 1.5 degree foot print, trying to encourage them to see what we do which is not fly and think about our transport and our diet and how we live. Interestingly my husband actually works internationally on reproductive healthcare. So he works in the parts of the world that we've just been talking about and I do think that part of this conversation still needs to be consumption, thinking if you care about the environment, having one fewer child, and thinking about global impact and will do all of that. And then I think honestly. You know I understand the science. I have that terrible privilege through my job and I will tell them the truth about the decision right now which is at this moment in time. We had every reason to believe that we could change the future and build a fairer cleaner society for them to grow up in. And that I intend to work every day of my life to realize that.

AMT: Blythe, we're almost out of time, do you worry you might regret your choice?

BLYTHE PEPINO: No because I still am holding out hope. I am going to fight really hard to get this to change. What we're doing and hopefully in the future I'll be able to make a different decision. It's definitely not binding for me so I don't think I will, no.

AMT: We have to leave it there. Thank you all of you.

BLYTHE PEPINO: Thank you.

EMMA PINCHBECK: Thank you.

KELLI KORDUCKI: Thank you very much.

AMT: I've been speaking with Blythe Pepino the founder of Birdstrike, the group pledging to not have children in the face of climate change in action. She's in Bristol England. Emma Pinchbeck is deputy CEO of Renewable U.K. She's in London England. Kelli Maria Korduck is an arthur and editor are in New York City. What do you think? Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Go to the websites cbc.ca/thecurrent.

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Blocking social media could do more harm than good for Sri Lanka, journalist warns

Guests: Paul Barrett, Meera Silva, Ashwin Hemmathagama

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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[Singing]

AMT: The voices of mourners at St. Sebastian church in Negombo, one of the several sites attacked across Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday. 350 people were killed, another 500 injured. And yesterday that church welcomed mourners there to bury the dead. As Sri Lanka grieves in the wake of the Easter Sunday bombings there is also a conversation happening beyond questions of why this has happened then to what can possibly be done to prevent more bloodshed. There is also both concern and support for actions the Syrian Lankan government has taken since these attacks plural. In the hours after the many bombings the Sri Lankan government quickly imposed daily curfews; they've blocked major social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp. And they remain down as authorities continue to investigate. The President has given the military's special powers to detain and arrest the suspects, powers that were also used during the long civil war. Ashwin Hemmathagama is a senior journalist and Parliamentary correspondent for The Daily Financial Times an English language newspaper in Colombo and that's where we have reached him. Hello.

ASHWIN HEMMATHAGAMA: Hi.

AMT: Ashwin when you were on The Current on Monday you said that Sri Lankan police and government officials had received intelligence briefings that the attacks were coming. What more do you know now?

ASHWIN HEMMATHAGAMA: Ah basically Ah this was the question which came up, even today in the Parliament of Sri Lanka people and lawmakers actually questioning why the lapses were [unintelligible]. Because if the intelligence chief act prudently and if the security chiefs - especially the secretary of defense - took measures, this sort of lapse wouldn't have happened. So this is a big question and public off course Sri Lankans are pretty angry about it and they are they are worried. And now President Sirisena has reportedly asked the secretary as well as the police chief, inspector general of police, to step down.

AMT: And as that plays out of course the investigation continues. What more can you tell us about the suspects who's been arrested?

ASHWIN HEMMATHAGAMA: Well already up to now are forces were able to arrest 40 people related to these explosions. And apparently according to law makers today in Parliament there are more to be arrested. If I may go first guess it could be around 100 because already it was revealed in the Parliament because around 30 youth have left Sri Lanka to obtain military training under IS, and some of them have returned to the country and some have started recruiting others.

AMT: So IS or ISIS had claimed responsibility. What do you know about any direct involvement in the planning or carrying out of the bombings with that group?

ASHWIN HEMMATHAGAMA: Well according to the investigations this particular group known as National College Jamath has carried out these particular explosions as a retaliation to the Christ Church attack which took place recently. So Sri Lanka of course being a peaceful country for the last 10 years without incident at all, we have off course dropped those security levels and yes they have taken advantage of it.

AMT: And as you point out the public as it is very upset about the fact that there had been intelligence that suggested this was going to happen, and we're not just talking one piece of intelligence. It looked like it came over several days, uh?

ASHWIN HEMMATHAGAMA: That's right. Now of course these things off course that have upset the normal lifestyle of Sri Lankans whereas now nobody wants to parl their vehicle in the street for long hours because now if authorities received a call from somebody saying that there's a vehicle parked, being unattended, they would come there and of course do a controlled explosion and destroy the vehicle. Because yesterday there were two incidents and today we found two motorbikes parked and all got destroyed by officials, exploded.

AMT: So there is an imminent threat of further attacks, is that what you're telling me?

ASHWIN HEMMATHAGAMA: Yes of course because time to time, to be precise, we found eighty some detonators abandoned in a major bus stop, the central bus stand in Colombo city, and then off course another van was found loaded with explosives and from the information retrieved from those who have been arrested. Police have vigilant and they are looking for a lorry and a van we believed to contain some explosive devices and could be used in the days to come.

AMT: It must be- people must be reeling at that level, that volume of violence.

ASHWIN HEMMATHAGAMA: Yes of course so it's very scary here because people- Now the streets are pretty empty. Well the schools will not be started until next Monday and the universities are closed and the curfew of course will come back on nine o'clock today we believe. Yes everybody is vigilant and in a sad mood because we never expected this sort of things to take place in Sri Lanka, because of war ended almost 10 years ago and that 30 year war off course brought us a lot of devastation and loss of lives and property. And it's a nightmare.

AMT: I mentioned that Sri Lankan authorities have blocked several popular social media sites in the wake of the bombings. What is the rationale for that?

ASHWIN HEMMATHAGAMA: Well from our experience we know that, well to be honest with you, Facebook, Viber, WhatsApp and YouTube is widely popular amongst Sri Lankans which is like 21 million in number, population. So these things were used some time ago to spread racial hatred and you know to displace other groups. So authorities off course have prevented these by blocking, temporarily freezing them, so hate speech does no longer take place until the matters are sorted out. Some people off course do think it is unnecessary move and it affects the freedom of speech. But if you want my personal opinion I do believe this is a good move because there are so many television stations and newspapers and radio channels here, but those are privately owned and they of course do a good job giving their actual situation to the Sri Lankans. So there's nothing hidden. So everything is transparent. So everybody is kept informed.

AMT: Okay well Im going to bring in another perspective for this conversation. Meera Silva is a director with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford and she's joining us from Oxford in England. Hello.

MEER ASILVA: Hello.

AMT: Oh I want to ask you specifically about that temporary ban. The government says it's temporary to stop the spread of misinformation following the attacks. Do you agree with AShwan, that it's justifiable?

ASHWIN HEMMATHAGAMA: I can completely understand why people might support it. It was a terrible, terrible attack and the country is in shock and the understandable reaction of people, which is a very admirable one, is to say let's not make things worse. So let's, in a country that had a long history of ethnic tensions and civil war, let's not create any kind of forum that would make these awful attacks divide us even further. So I do completely understand why people support the ban. I do however feel that it is not going to address the problem of the spread of mis-- stopping the spread of misinformation, rumors. This a lot of research that shows that these social media bans do not stop violence in societies when they happen. What it does is stop people who want to organize any kind of nonviolent gathering from being able to coordinate and mobilize. It doesn't stop the people who are intent on violence.

AMT: And the government says it will be temporary. Do you believe that?

MEER ASILVA: Well it'll be very hard to have complete indefinite shut down because [unintelligible] country with trade links and with media and the Diaspora that it communicates with, but the government has said that the crackdown will last for as long as the investigation continues which is quite open ended. And there is now a state of emergency declared by the President which means that the shutdown could last for quite a long time.

AMT: How have social media platforms changed the way Sri Lankans communicate, Meera?

MEER ASILVA: Well they have created a space I think for intercultural dialogue in the years after the war. The war was very divided by geography and by language. And I think social media platforms have created a new form of journalism that can speak to people across the country which has been important. I think it's allowed young people in particular to reach out to each other. And it's been a way to spread- digital news sites have sprung up in the wake of the war. So they've relied a lot on social media to have a distribution platform.

AMT: Tell me a little bit more about the Youth Connection.

MEER ASILVA: Sri Lanka has an Internet penetration about 31 percent, so only one in three people are online. So most of these people are in urban centres and they tend to be the younger population as they are in most of the world, who are digital natives basically. And there are several very good websites like ground views that have spoken to this audience and said let's create a kind of Tamil, [unintelligible], Buddhist, Christian, Hindu narrative of the country and look for reconciliation. I also point out that these Web sites have also done a lot to highlight the dangers of misinformation, and have done a lot to try and promote the concept of digital literacy and media literacy and trying to get their audience, to help their audience understand how to analyze the information they see online, how to verify it, what to trust, what not to trust.

AMT: Ashwin, do you see that as well?

ASHWIN HEMMATHAGAMA: Yes. I agree with her to a certain extent because those particular websites that you mentioned of course they're doing a very good job. But the issue here is there are so many individuals, those who would use our native language and certain pictures being touched up and edited, and those are the most damaging pictures. There's a reason that government of course have taken this, but as you correctly mentioned, yes, we still don't know how long it will last, which is quite alarming. Now this of course has gone to another step. It has taken another step. There are certain parliamentary members are looking at bringing in a private member motion to ban the 'burqa' or the 'abaya' which covers the Muslim ladies faces, because in Sri Lanka there are few who would use a black long costume that covers her face. So this is another issue that we are facing right now. Yes it is debatable. I know it wouldn't do some more harm to the relationship between the Muslims and the other ethnicities, but at the moment more feel - even the Moslem leaders are saying that the 'burqa' is not a traditional Muslim attire in Sri Lanka. And yes, they have agreed that this is needed.

AMT: Is that a conversation that would have been had online, a debate that cannot exist now? Is that what you're saying?

AMT: Yes exactly. Yes.

MEER ASILVA: Meera, what do you think?

MEER ASILVA: I think this is the absolute heart of the matter. This is a very very complex situation. This has been a devastating terror attack that it's hit parts of the country. All groups have been affected very directly by this. And Sri Lankans need to have this conversation together amongst themselves and that is best done on social media. And while there is some very good journalism and very good newspaper and TV channels it's run on, historically there's also been some very badgered some and the government has a long history of suppressing any journalism that is critical to its message, and in many cases killing editors. And we need to be very careful that we don’t go back to the bad old days where information was polarized, divisive and very limited. That's exactly the moment when Sri Lankans naturally want to speak to each other and find a way forward on this.

AMT: And of course there are those Sri Lankans and their diaspora who need to reach out. I have a clip that I'd like you both to hear. This is Ashitha Nagesh, a journalist with the BBC. Her parents and sister were in Colombo the day of the attacks and she grew extremely worried when she was not able to reach them.

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Facebook was completely dead I couldn't get reach of any of them and my sister had WhatApp intermittently. So there were a few times I message her saying like 'hello, hello, are you safe? Is everything okay? There's been another explosion.' And then I just not hear from them for hours. It would be left on single tick. And I knew that there were social media blocks though I was obviously hoping that it was just that. At the same time what was actually going through my mind was the worst. There is just no real way of knowing.

AMT: Ashwin Hemmathagama, I am guessing that a lot of people ran into that problem on Sunday.

ASHWIN HEMMATHAGAMA: Yes of course yes it is but, well, there's another go to this. Because according to statistics are active mobile connections 25 [unintelligible] whereas the population is much less than that. And yes people those would need to or would like to contact their loved ones, yes of course they could have reached them over the phone. They could easily use these traditional mobiles or telephone fixed lines. Yes.

AMT: You know [unintelligible] the social media set down as a form of censorship that will make it harder for people to criticise the government over its handling of these attacks and what it does going forward. Meera, what do you think?

MEER ASILVA: Well it certainly has the potential to do that to limit criticism of the government and the questions over intelligence failures, the question of how coordinated the prime minister's office was with The President's office. These are all questions that are being played out in parliament. It's worth pointing out that The President did attempt to unseat the prime minister last year in October and the protest- that decision was only reversed after mass protests across the country, many of which were organized via social media. On the point about the telephone lines still being up and text messages still working. This kind of illustrates my point. There is messaging that will still happen but it will happen through private channels. So you can still send a text full of rumors and lies and misinformation. The difference about those text to social media is that they're private. We as the public don’t see what's been said to certain groups and to certain individuals. So in this climate what you end up with is messages still don't get across, the harmful messages still spread to a society, but we cannot see what they are.

AMT: What should Sri Lankan authorities be doing to strike a better balance, do you think?

MEER ASILVA: I think there needs to be a clear softer flow of information from authorities. I know it's a moving situation. You know they don't know what's going on. But the first thing to do is to create a sense of calm and a sense of trust. The sense that we know what we're doing. We will handle it. We will work together as a community. Hoaxes and rumors will happen with or without social media. The idea of someone leaving a kind of a dummy package somewhere that's something you do with a telephone. You don't need social media. You make a phone call to the police saying I've left something. So that will be there in any society and it is awful that people do it and it is something to waste the authorities’ resources and time. But it is something that happens with or without social media. In the wake of a terror attack, one of the key things certainly in country in the West, one of the key messages is once we've been attacked we still carry on. So we carry on with our daily life as much as possible. We send out a message that these attacks will not change who we are as a country. It won't change our identity and it won't change the way we function. So in Sri Lanka I think this would be a message well worth sending out, that this is the post conflict society. We are working our way to reconciliation and these terror attacks will derail us from that. However we are also an open society. We look outwards to the world. We have a strong history of culture, of literature and these conversations will also continue.

AMT: We have to leave it there. Thank you both for your thoughts at this time.

ASHWIN HEMMATHAGAMA: All right thank you.

MEER ASILVA: Thank you.

AMT: That is Ashwin Hemmathagama. He's a journalist with The Daily Financial Times. It's an English language newspaper in Lanka. He joined us from Colombo. Meera Silva is the director with the Reuter's Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. She joined us from Oxford, England. My next guest has a few ideas on what social media companies need to do to tackle miss information. Paul Berrett is the deputy director of New York University's Center for Business and Human Rights. He's in New York. Hello.

PAUL BARRETT: Good morning.

AMT: What concerns do you have about the government's shutting down social media platforms?

PAUL BARRETT: Well I think as your guests were discussing, your earlier guest, you know it obviously a creates a considerable cost in terms of free expression. People that are getting information that they need in a crisis time. If the means that they've become accustomed to, using social media, are taken away so that's it that's nothing to be celebrated, even if it is somewhat understandable that a panicked government would shut down social media at least for some time.

AMT: How common are shut downs of social media platforms by governments?

PAUL BARRETT: Well I mean relatively common. I think you know it happened dozens of times in recent years but it tends to occur in countries where you know democratic institutions are a little shakier and in concerns about state security or political rivalry outweighs those of free expression. But it's happened in India. It's happened in Pakistan. It's happened in a number of African countries. More notoriously, China has complete censorship control of social media there as does Iran has strict controls. Russia has strict controls. So it's not that uncommon a phenomenon.

AMT: And when it happens in very specific cases to deal with something like a multiple bombing, does it work?

PAUL BARRETT: Well I think that's very hard to say. I think there are pros and cons. I think of the important thing is to emphasize that this certainly is not the optimal response you'd want to have it in terms of communication that's possible via social media. It's not going to be celebrated. I think one way to look at this is that these kinds of government reactions are in part a function of the social media companies having had very little success in gaining control of their own platforms, and preventing the kind of misinformation from spreading that governments such as Sri Lanka's intent on snuffing out.

AMT: It's interesting because Sri Lanka's problem of course was not misinformation. It was it didn't use the information it was handed.

PAUL BARRETT: that is quite an irony in that particular case.

AMT: Yes. So how much latitude did social media platforms have in pushing back against moves like this?

PAUL BARRETT: Well not very much. I don't think they have much leverage over the government of Sri Lanka. But looking to the longer term, I think the executives of these companies need to do much more to try to gain control of these problems themselves so that they will forestall regulation by various governments. And the regulatory urge is spreading. I mean we've had, just earlier this month, proposal very far reaching regulation of social media in the UK. Australia this month passed a tough new law. Singapore has introduced potential legislation. So there's all what's going on this front. I think if Facebook, Google and Twitter don't move quickly to demonstrate that they are at least trying hard this trend will continue.

AMT: And of course in New Zealand, it's reaction as well online streaming right. Right?

PAUL BARRETT: Right. Exactly.

AMT: So you know how helpless are these big tech companies? Can they actually move quickly? Can they build the algorithms given that they can do so much in terms of advertising? They can really pinpoint everybody, can they not?

PAUL BARRETT: I think in fairness to the companies it's difficult to build technology that will be subtle enough to pick up fine distinctions between something that is purposeful mis information as opposed to being a political argument. So I think we have to be fair in acknowledging that that's very difficult to do, but the companies have to keep trying to improve their algorithms in that regard. And at the same time I think it's inevitable that they're going to have to hire vast numbers of additional staff people who are in the countries where they operate - and scores and scores of countries - and speak the local language and understand the local culture. We need to reconceive of these companies as upgrading all around the world, doing business around the world, and therefore needing to have employees on the ground who can step in and anticipate situations where the government might be tempted to shut down social media and you know pre-empt such moves by being more aggressive and smarter about removing disinformation.

AMT: Do you think the freewheeling days of communications and social media are numbered?

PAUL BARRETT: I think it will continue. I think there is a very strong attachment all around the world to using social media. I mean Facebook has 2.3 billion monthly users. But at the same time I think we're going to see more efforts by more governments to limit the access to certain types of content, if the companies themselves are not able to work to do that on their own.

AMT: And that really is the push and pull right there, if the companies don't self-regulate, but should there be government regulation? Can you really trust them to self-regulate?

PAUL BARRETT: Yes. The center that I work for is strongly opposed to content regulation by governments for that very reason because there's a tendency to overreach and endanger in the States any way of impinging on our First Amendment rights then free expression. So I don't think that's the best option. I think it's far preferable for the companies to exercise more vigorous self-governance. But whether they can ultimately get their arms around this problem I think is an open question. I don't think we can sit here today and say we know that they'll be able to work to stop the misuse of social media in elections in the wake of terrible events like the terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka or the recent attack in New Zealand.

AMT: So what are you going to be watching for in the coming days on this specific front?

PAUL BARRETT: I think the key thing to focus on is how new proposals in places like the UK proceed. Is there popular support for that type of clampdown? And will other governments follow suit and follow Australia, U.K., Singapore, Germany for that matter in moving towards stiffer regulation. I mean I'm very curious and concerned about whether that could happen here in the US.

AMT: Paul Barrett, we have to leave it there. Thank you for your insights today.

PAUL BARRETT: My pleasure. Thanks.

AMT: That is Paul Barrett deputy director of New York University's Center for Business and Human Rights. He joined us from New York City. If you want to weigh in on Sri Lanka's social media shutdown we want to hear from you. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook or go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the Contact site. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio 1 for Q. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

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