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Huge Companies Join Facebook Advertising Boycott; Facebook Makes More Tan 98 Percent of Its Money from Ads; U.K.'s School Curriculum Skips Over Black British History; EU Considers Barring Americans from Travel List; Reports Say U.K. to Set Up "Air Bridges" to European Neighbors; Tennis Star Bianca Andreescu Preparing to Defend Title. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired June 29, 2020 - 04:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[04:30:00]

STEVEN JIANG, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER: Need to strike a balance between rigorous containment measures and economic recovery efforts. So it's not being fully explained why this county, Jingxing, some 90 miles from Beijing decided to impose this county wide lockdown even though they have reported fewer than 20 cases since the latest Beijing outbreak began. But I think if you ask analysts, they will say they are not surprised that given the tremendous political pressure local officials are under two have zero cases inside their jurisdictions. So that's why many of them would rather error on the side of over caution and overreaction -- Rosemary.

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Steven Jiang joining us live from Beijing, many thanks.

A who's who of some of the world's biggest and best-known companies are pulling the plug on spending their cash on Facebook protesting what they see as the site's failure to stop the spread of hate speech. Starbucks has become one of the latest big players to stop its advertising on the side along with all social media, joining a list of other big names as you can see there. So let's hear from Facebook now. One of its top executives joined us on CNN Sunday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICK CLEGG, VICE PRESIDENT, FACEBOOK GLOBAL AFFAIRS AND COMMUNICATIONS: I'm not going to pretend that we're going to get rid of everything that people, you know, react negatively to, not least as you very well know politically. There are folks on the right who think we take down too much content. Folk on the left who think we don't take down enough.

We will continue to do what we think is the only sensible way forward, to have clear rules, to bear down very aggressively on hate speech in particular. Remove it from our platform where we identify. Which we do with greater speed, greater velocity and a greater quantity than any other social media company. We understand this is a very fraught intense time in the nation and we will continue to demonstrate our sincerity in dealing with this problem with the responsibility that we clearly do bear.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: And to break down why this matters so much, let's bring in CNN's John Defterios. Good to see you, John. Of course, what's often overlooked is the speed at which this advertising boycott of Facebook is moving. Has it now gone mainstream?

JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN BUSINESS EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: I think that's a fair comment, Rosemary. Talk about a snowball effect. We cannot forget that this is a week-long campaign. So this has moved into the household names without a doubt and all of them are big advertisers. So Starbucks is joining the ranks of companies the scale of Unilever, which is one of the biggest advertisers in the world that makes household products, mainly detergents and other things for the home. Also, Levi Strauss, Honda, Hershey, Coca-Cola, you name it and they are the dominant players, not only as household brands but in the marketing and communications business as well.

And I think Facebook is learning the hard way, if you will, Rosemary, that if you tiptoe around issues like this, particularly when it comes to hate, where the campaign of Black Lives Matter, you're going to pay a price for it. They're not perceived as taking action fast enough. Even the answer by Nick Clegg there, will suggest that we can't wipe it out entirely, we'll do our very best. But that's counter to the view of the CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, who's seen as taking a pretty aggressive stance particularly against the White House, particularly willingness to label content from Donald Trump.

That's not how Facebook is perceived right now. And because it is so large, 2.6 billion monthly users, many are thinking it's kind of too big to fail. Is that the attitude within the company and why advertisers are saying, you know, this started with outdoor apparel companies. Ben and Jerry's ice cream, the very progressive companies. But now that it's gone mainstream, it's kind of like a wake-up call to Silicon Valley and particularly to Facebook.

CHURCH: Yes, good point. And, John, even though Facebook is a $70 billion company in terms of revenues, how exposed is it to a boycott like this?

DEFTERIOS: Well, we don't know the dollar amount yet because the advertisers are not saying I'm pulling X out in the month of July, but we're learning some very interesting things. Number one, Starbucks spent over $95 million in 2019 on Facebook alone. We have to remember Facebook has purchased better than 80 companies over the last decade. It also owns Instagram. So we're seeing some of the advertisers saying I'm pausing for July. Some saying it'll carry on even longer. Some are extending it all the way throughout the social media channel.

It raises the question though about the scale of Facebook and its over reliance on advertising. Of the $70 billion, Rosemary, better than 90 percent comes from advertising. So anything that eats away at that base of revenue for the company has to be taken very seriously.

The other thing I would flag at this stage and it's very hard to do so, but television and newspaper has regulatory authority from outside officials, right. And that's always been the case in the United States. This industry has grown so fast, from $2 billion in 2010 for Facebook to 70 billion today.

[04:35:02]

Who regulates it? Can it be self-regulated going forward? And what are the implications if that is the case? Can anybody really wrap their arms around Facebook and its global footprint? Very similar to Google as well.

CHURCH: Yes, we will continue to watch this. John Defterios bringing us the very latest on that. Appreciate it.

CHURCH: Well, the last U.S. state featuring the flag featuring the Confederate emblem is now one step closer to removing it. Mississippi's House of Representatives and Senate both passed a Bill on Sunday that would get rid of the controversial symbol and the governor says he will sign it. The legislation would establish a commission to develop a new design without the emblem which you see in the corner of the 126-year-old flag. Mississippi voters would then vote on the new design in November.

Well, the former Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd's case are expected in court Monday. Derek Chauvin, the officer who knelt on Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes will appear via video link. He is charged with second degree murder. The other three officers accused of aiding and abetting in Mr. Floyd's death will appear in person. The hearing comes more than a month after George Floyd was killed while in police custody. The incident, which was caught on video, sparked weeks of protests against racial injustice in the U.S. and around the world.

Well, activists in the U.K. fighting against racial injustice have a message for England schools. It's time to make black history mandatory in the classroom. CNN's Nina dos Santos takes a closer look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Taking to the streets, week after week, Black Lives Matter protestors say racism continues to be a pervasive problem in the U.K. But activists say to be lasting, change must also come in the classroom. By making the black community's history a compulsory part of England's national curriculum.

DAVID OLUSOGA, PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC HISTORY, MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY: The history they're being taught in school was partial. They know that it has omissions and the omissions of their stories and they're angry about it. It's everybody who needs to learn this history. It's not just about black people and not just for black people, it explains why our society looks the way it does today.

DOS SANTOS: Although many schools observe black history month once be a year, there is no actual obligation to teach the topic leaving some Britons feeling underrepresented and others under informed. LAVINYA STENNETT, FOUNDER AND CEO, THE BLACK CURRICULUM: The current

curriculum doesn't center on black history at all. And what that does is ultimately disempower all students from learning about British history in its more rounded view. And I think it's really key that were able to offer narratives that are positive and also more truthful.

The Black Curriculum is the project that goes into schools --

DOS SANTOS: Lavinya Stennett created her startup, The Black Curriculum in 2019 to provide training for teachers on the subject. Now she's lobbying the government to make black history mandatory for all 8 to 16-year-olds.

(on camera): Do you think that there is now a broader recognition that black history is British history and that part of British history is black?

STENNETT: Absolutely, I think the two are synonymous. It's very simple for our nation I think ultimately, we are a multi-cultural society and I think just to recognize that through policy and also in the national curriculum sends a strong message.

DOS SANTOS (voice-over): Despite these calls to make black history teaching mandatory, the Department for Education told CNN, the national curriculum is quote, already incredibly diverse and offers pupils access to different Black History topics.

They also told CNN, racism in all its forms is abhorrent and has no place in our society and schools play a crucial role in helping young people understand the world around them.

(on camera): However, successive government reports over the past 20 years have consistently highlighted attaching greater importance to Black History as a vital tool for rooting out racism.

(voice-over): A recent CNN poll reveals the extent of Britain's steep racial divide. Black Britons are at least twice as likely as whites Britons to say that there is discrimination in British policing and media. They're three times as likely to think the country has done far too little to address historic racial injustice and significantly more likely to find statues of slave traders are colonizers offensive.

OLUSOGA: If you can teach the Industrial Revolution and the bit where the cotton is produced by 1.8 million African-Americans, who are have to slaves working in America on the eve of the Civil War, you are omitting critical facts. We tell half histories and sometimes we tell half-truths. What I suspect is happening is that a generation who have learned black history taught it themselves are not standing for the things that my generation stood for. So this is history in action. This is not a challenge to history.

[04:40:00]

DOS SANTOS: History which one day may well be taught across all schools in England. Nina dos Santos, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And coming up, there may be bad news for Americans who want to travel to Europe as the EU debates who it will and won't allow in when it reopens international borders. We'll get the latest next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone. EU ambassadors are meeting to discuss plans to reopen their borders to international travel and crucially which countries they will and won't allow in. The United States is expected to be among those excluded and here is why. Its coronavirus numbers continue to surge well above EU levels. The European commission is advising ambassadors only to consider countries that are comparable or better than the EU average.

So let's go to London with Salma Abdelaziz, joins us live. Salma, good to see you. No final decision yet but this is looking pretty inevitable, isn't it, that U.S. travelers will be blocked from re- entry. And when might that be reassessed? What are you hearing on that?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN PRODUCER: Well, Rosemary, we're hearing that right now as we speak EU officials are meeting in Brussels to finalize that list of criteria, to finalize that banned list of countries. These discussions, of course, started weeks ago. Over the weekend EU ambassadors took these draft lists to their respective countries to compare them to data at home. One country has actually made their findings public, France. And just to give you an example, France only had 14 countries on its list of countries that are allowed to go in. So it's a pretty exclusive list to be in this group of countries that will be allowed into the European Union.

[04:45:03]

But all this is to be expected. This is a hard-won battle for the European Union to get a grip on coronavirus. Tens of thousands of lives have been lost across these countries. People have been in lockdown for months unable to lead normal lives. Millions of dollars lost. So for the EU, this is about protecting the gains made during this pandemic making a decision based on the health priority of the EU community rather than a political one. But this of course will be very embarrassing for the White House to receive this news. It's a very humbling message that essentially comes down to we are doing better than you. The rates of infection in the United States are six to seven times higher than that of the EU's, Rosemary. So they simply can't take the risk.

CHURCH: Yes, absolutely. Salma Abdelaziz, thank you so much bringing us up to date there from London.

And right now CNN is monitoring reports suggesting the U.K. is gearing up to lift its ban on nonessential travel establishing air bridges of its own with the number of European neighbors. So let's go now to Anna Stewart. She is at London's Heathrow Airport. Good to see you, Anna. So what's the latest on this?

ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER: Good morning, Rosemary, from a very blustery Heathrow Airport. So I was here just three weeks ago telling you that the U.K. had imposed a blanket, 14-day quarantine on anyone arriving into the U.K. It came under heavy criticism at the time. People said it was too late in the pandemic to really be effective. And of course, it's a hugely damaging for the travel and tourism sector.

The government promised a three-week review. That comes today and we are expecting this blanket quarantine to be replaced with a more targeted approach. So called air bridges with certain individual countries that meet certain criteria for the U.K. government. Number one, that the rates of transmission of the virus in that country is the same or lower than the U.K. and, two, that there is a track and trace system or a test and trace system in place that is at the same standard as the U.K. or one might hope even better. Given that the one here has come under a lot of criticism.

The country's expected to be on this list that fulfill these criteria, at least on the initial list will be France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, possibly not Portugal -- one of our European neighbors which has had a large outbreak in Lisbon and that is something we'll have to look out for. So expecting this announced sometime this week. It will be hugely good news for the travel and tourism sector who have been campaigning for these averaging in the last few weeks. It may come too late. For many of them, July is just around the corner. So many Britons will have decided to either forego their summer holidays or have staycation. And it will be good news for countries outside of the U.K. who want to see U.K. tourist coming to their shores. Again, it comes quite late. But lots of excitement from the sector that we'll get some sort of announcement soon and we'll see how many countries are on that initial list -- Rosemary.

CHURCH: All right, we'll keep a look out for that. Anna Stewart joining us live from Heathrow Airport. Many thanks.

Well, India has opened one of the world's largest hospitals to fight the coronavirus. It has 10,000 beds, all of which will be available starting Wednesday. The country has also converted this spiritual center into a quarantine facility as cases continue to soar. India reported its largely daily rise in new cases Sunday. Overall the country's total is close to 529,000 infections and more than 16,000 deaths.

And you are watching CNN NEWSROOM. Still to come -- playing tennis amid a pandemic. A reining grand slam champion speaks to CNN about how she's preparing for this year's U.S. Open.

[04:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: A basketball player who appeared to dismiss the coronavirus threat and then caught it back in March says he still hasn't totally recovered. Utah Jazz center, Rudy Gobert, told a French sports publication that his sense of smell has not fully returned. Gobert was the first NBA player to test positive for COVID-19. He faced a backlash after jokingly touching every microphone at a press conference. Days later he tested positive for the virus. Gobert plans to be with his team when the NBA season returns on July 30th.

Well, the U.S. Open tennis tournament is scheduled to return in about two months' time and already the reining women's champion is preparing to defend her title. Like the rest of the pros, Bianca Andreescu, has been out of action because of the pandemic. But she told CNN's Christina Macfarlane, she has high hopes for the open.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BIANCA ANDREESCU, 2019 U.S. OPEN CHAMPION: I actually didn't think tennis would come back so soon just because it's such an international sport. Honestly, I'm just super happy to go back there and hopefully defend my title and just step back on the court and start competing again.

CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN WORLD SPORT: We can take from that that you definitely want to play if you can.

ANDREESCU: 100 percent. I know everyone involved is going to do their best to keep everyone as safe as possible, but just looking at all the other sports, I think it's time for tennis to come back. And I'm sure it's going to be done in a restricted as much as they can manner. Then I think everything should be fine.

MACFARLANE: Given the experience of last year, do you think you would prefer to play someone like Serena Williams again under these circumstances with no crowds there given what it was like last time around?

ANDREESCU: I don't know. Playing in front of a crowd is just -- just brings the hype into everything. I would say I perform really good under pressure so I felt like the crowd kind of gave me a push.

[04:55:00]

I told myself, I was like, I'm going to try to win every point right now until the crowd just calmed down a little bit. To be honest, I think the closer they can make the atmosphere of having fans, I think the better. I'm sure if they add like some claps here and there will definitely put people more in a competitive environment. So all we know is there definitely will be people watching at home. I think that will be good for us to keep in the back of our mind.

I'm sure so many people that haven't watched tennis before will probably start watching now just because sports hasn't been on for the longest time. Just like UFC, like I never was really into UFC but I got into it now because it was kind of the only sport going on and I actually like it.

MACFARLANE: It's intense.

ANDREESCU: But I like it. MACFARLANE: So last year was huge for you. You started the year

ranked 178th in the world, you finished it ranked number 5 in the world. You competed in your first grand slam and you won it in your first attempt. And you've only now just turned 20. What comes next for you?

ANDREESCU: Reach the number one spot and continue to break records and win as many grand slams as I can.

MACFARLANE: Yup, nothing bigger than that.

ANDREESCU: No. I kind of want to surpass Serena in her wins. I think that will be something, but honestly if I continue what I'm doing right now, I know I can win a couple more. Maybe even surpass the greatest. I like to dream big. It gives me more motivation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Impressive.

Thanks for your company. I'm Rosemary Church. "EARLY START" is up next. Have yourselves a great day.

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