FULL SPEECH: Maria Ressa at the Freedom of Expression Conference
Summary
TLDRMaria Ressa, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and journalist, discusses the urgent need to defend democracy against the erosion of truth and trust in information. Highlighting the impact of disinformation on elections and the rise of illiberal leaders, she calls for courage in the face of fear, emphasizing the power of individuals to shape the future through education, legislation, and civic engagement. Ressa shares her experiences with legal attacks and online harassment, advocating for a collective effort to uphold the rule of law and create a shared reality based on facts.
Takeaways
- 🌟 Maria Ressa, a journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, emphasizes the importance of truth and trust in the face of technology's impact on freedom of information.
- 🗣️ She calls for courage in defending democracy against the 'death by a thousand cuts' to personal hopes, dreams, and integrity, urging individuals to embrace their fears.
- 📉 Ressa highlights the decline in global democracies, comparing current numbers to those in 1989, and warns of the potential for democracy to 'fall off the cliff' by 2024 if trends continue.
- 📅 She discusses the impact of disinformation on elections, citing the Philippines' presidential elections and the role of social media in spreading false narratives.
- 🛡️ Ressa describes the various forms of online attacks against her and other news organizations, including DDoS attacks and black hat SEO tactics, illustrating the challenges faced by journalists.
- 🏛️ She shares updates on legal battles against her and Rappler, including cyber libel complaints, showcasing the weaponization of the law as a form of intimidation.
- 🤝 Ressa introduces the concept of a 'whole of society approach' to combat disinformation, involving collaboration among news organizations, civil society, businesses, and the church.
- 🔍 The importance of research in understanding disinformation campaigns and the role of academics in providing data to the public is underscored by Ressa.
- 📚 She stresses the need for education on media literacy and the role of legislation in regulating social media platforms to prevent the spread of misinformation.
- 📉 Ressa's personal experiences reflect the broader struggle for truth and the sacrifices made by those who stand up for a shared reality based on facts.
- 🌱 Her five lessons for maintaining courage in the face of challenges include learning, speaking out, drawing the line between good and evil, trusting, and having faith in a better future.
Q & A
Who is Maria Ressa and what is her connection to Rappler?
-Maria Ressa is a journalist, author, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. She is the founder and CEO of Rappler, a news site based in the Philippines.
What is Maria Ressa's main concern regarding the state of democracy globally?
-Maria Ressa is concerned about the decline in the number of democracies worldwide, comparing the current situation to the numbers in 1989. She fears that the rise of disinformation and illiberal leaders could lead to the end of democracy.
What is the significance of the 'death by a thousand cuts' metaphor used by Maria Ressa?
-The 'death by a thousand cuts' metaphor is used by Maria Ressa to describe the gradual erosion of democracy and personal integrity through various forms of attacks, including disinformation and cyber-libel.
How has technology impacted the right to freedom of information according to Maria Ressa?
-Maria Ressa believes that technology, particularly social media, has contributed to the spread of disinformation and the manipulation of public opinion, which in turn affects the right to freedom of information.
What is the role of the 'mesh layer' in Maria Ressa's strategy to combat disinformation?
-The 'mesh layer' involves civil society groups, business groups, and other stakeholders who help distribute fact-checks and add emotion to the content, making it more engaging and shareable on social media.
What are the five lessons Maria Ressa shared from her book?
-The five lessons are: 1) Learn, 2) Speak, 3) Draw the line, 4) Trust, and 5) Have faith. These lessons emphasize the importance of education, vocalizing concerns, establishing clear moral boundaries, fostering trust, and maintaining faith in humanity.
How did Maria Ressa describe the impact of social media on human behavior?
-Maria Ressa described social media as a platform that amplifies fear, anger, and hatred, pushing people to their worst behaviors and eroding the shared reality anchored by facts.
What is the significance of the 'person-to-person defense of democracy' Maria Ressa mentioned?
-The 'person-to-person defense of democracy' refers to the individual responsibility each person has to protect democracy by being informed, vocal, and active in their communities, especially in the face of disinformation.
What challenges has Rappler faced in terms of legal attacks?
-Rappler has faced numerous cyber libel complaints, with Maria Ressa herself facing seven existing criminal cases. These legal challenges are seen as attempts to harass and intimidate the news organization.
How does Maria Ressa view the role of education in combating disinformation?
-Maria Ressa views education as a critical tool in combating disinformation. She emphasizes the need for people to learn and understand the issues at hand, especially in the context of the information ecosystem.
What is the importance of civic engagement in the age of disinformation according to Maria Ressa?
-Maria Ressa believes that civic engagement is crucial in the age of disinformation. It involves active participation from individuals and organizations to fact-check, distribute truth, and uphold the rule of law to protect democracy.
Outlines
🌏 Addressing Global Challenges to Democracy and Information
Maria Ressa, the CEO of Rappler and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, discusses the impact of technology on democracy and freedom of information. She emphasizes the importance of confronting the challenges of disinformation and the erosion of democracy, particularly highlighting the situation in the Philippines. Ressa calls for courage and collective action, urging the audience to embrace their fears and take a stand against the rise of fascism and authoritarianism. She also mentions the significance of the upcoming elections in various countries and the potential for a shift in the global balance of power.
🛡️ Defending Against Cyber Attacks and Legal Weaponization
This paragraph details the cyber attacks faced by Rappler and other news organizations in the Philippines, including DDoS attacks and black hat SEO tactics. Ressa describes the efforts to identify and counter these threats, such as working with Facebook to remove malicious actors. She also addresses the weaponization of the law through cyber libel complaints, which have been used to harass journalists and undermine press freedom. Despite these challenges, she notes the positive outcome of many of these cases being dismissed by the courts, indicating a resilience in the face of legal intimidation.
📉 The Struggle for Press Freedom Amidst Legal and Regulatory Pressures
Ressa recounts the ongoing struggle of Rappler with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the threat of being shut down. She describes the precarious nature of working for a company under such uncertainty and the difficulty of recruiting under these conditions. Additionally, she discusses the personal impact of losing a colleague and facing an appeal on cyber libel, which resulted in an increased jail sentence. Despite these adversities, she maintains a resolve to continue the fight for press freedom and the integrity of journalism.
🔍 A Multi-Pronged Approach to Combating Disinformation
In this paragraph, Ressa outlines a comprehensive strategy to fight disinformation, which includes fact-checking, distribution through a 'mesh' of civil society and business groups, research to analyze and expose propaganda, and legal action to protect journalists and academics. She describes the collaboration among news organizations, research groups, and legal teams in the Philippines to create a robust defense against the spread of false narratives and the erosion of truth in the public sphere.
🌟 Five Lessons on Courage, Truth, and the Future of Democracy
Ressa concludes with five key lessons derived from her experiences and observations. These include the importance of learning and staying informed, speaking out against injustice, drawing clear moral lines, fostering trust and love in the face of manipulation, and maintaining faith in humanity. She emphasizes the role of empathy and the need to create a better world by holding the line on truth and shared reality. Ressa encourages the audience to consider what they are willing to sacrifice for the truth and to use their courage to shape a brighter future for democracy.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Disinformation
💡Courage
💡Freedom of Information
💡Democracy
💡Fact-Checking
💡Social Media
💡Information Ecosystem
💡Nobel Peace Prize
💡Rule of Law
💡Shared Reality
💡Cyber Libel
Highlights
Maria Ressa, a journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, discusses the impact of technology on freedom of information and the challenges faced by democracies.
Ressa emphasizes the importance of courage in defending democracy against the 'death by a thousand cuts' of disinformation and personal integrity.
She highlights the role of social media in spreading disinformation and the influence it has had on recent elections, including the Philippine presidential elections.
Ressa calls for action against the existential threat to democracy, warning that if trends continue, 2024 could see a significant shift in the geopolitical balance of power.
The founder of Rappler shares her experience with cyber attacks, including DDoS attacks and black hat SEO tactics, targeting news organizations in the Philippines.
Ressa discusses the weaponization of the law, including cyber libel complaints, as a form of harassment against journalists and media outlets.
She reports on the success of a collaborative fact-checking initiative involving 16 news organizations in the Philippines, aimed at combating disinformation.
The importance of a 'mesh layer' for distributing fact-checks is underscored, involving civil society, business groups, and other stakeholders.
Ressa introduces the concept of a data pipeline for research, enabling a collective understanding of disinformation campaigns and their impacts.
The role of the legal community in fighting for press freedom and against impunity online is highlighted through strategic litigation.
Five key lessons from Ressa's book are shared, focusing on learning, speaking out, drawing lines, fostering trust, and maintaining faith in the face of challenges.
The significance of creating and maintaining a shared reality anchored by facts is discussed as a defense against disinformation.
Ressa encourages the audience to embrace their fears and use them as a catalyst for action in preserving democracy and truth.
The transcript concludes with a call to action for each individual to consider what they are willing to sacrifice for the truth and the future of democracy.
Transcripts
the founder and ceo of the new site
rappler
the journalist author and nobel peace
prize laureate maria reza directly from
the airport and ready to talk to us
about truth and trust and how technology
is affecting our rights to freedom of
information
please give her a warm welcome maria
reza
hi
uh when ingville was introduced to me i
was like oh my god that's me i'm
speaking can i get a clicker
is that
um oh i forgot to ask so um let me riff
i see it i see it here
thank you
wonderful
i really literally just got off the
plane
um that is what nobel has done um
oh
so look from what i have heard
uh how wonderful to be in the room with
you and to be back this is my third time
back in oslo since december so i am
thrilled to be here and to be in the
peace institute um how quickly
10 minutes talk about courage and part
of it is because it sounds like the day
so far has been not just telling each
other what the problems are because we
certainly know what they are we're
living through it but um hopefully going
to what are we going to do
right that's what i hope to get to and
uh and here's the thing i just put in my
my book last night at midnight
graphics galleys it went in so i have
five lessons from it so where are we
with courage well look the last time at
the nobel lecture i talked about a
person-to-person defense of our
democracy right because what are we
dealing with it's death by a thousand
cuts and you think about that in terms
of states but it is also very personal
to everyone in this room it's death by a
thousand cuts of
your hopes your dreams your integrity
right so so kind of look at it that way
with me micro macro and when that
happens to you it's happened to me
uh
you just have to like bust through it
and i see peter in the back hi peter uh
you know you bust through it and that's
the i come out of it with this thing of
embrace your fear whatever it is you're
most afraid of you have to touch it hold
it i think that the world is going to
turn fascist
and what are we going to do
it's much harder when it happens it's
easier
right when we're on the precipice which
is where we are right now
um
if we go i just got the report from vdem
you know if we go by where we are which
is there are less democracies in the
world today we're back at 1989
uh numbers
if we
you just have to look at the philippines
we had presidential elections on may 9th
this year
and there is no better example of the
impact of disinformation and our kind of
crazy information ecosystem
when we watched history change in front
of our eyes right there's 32 elections
this year
uh kenya just finished you have brazil
coming up
and it is the same existential problem
you're seeing a kind of stop the steel
metanarrative being seeded on social
media
if we follow the trends we have brazil
in october the u.s midterms in november
next year you have
africa nations you have turkey
by 2024 we have indonesia the world's
largest muslim population you have india
the world's largest democracy and then
the u.s presidential elections
if we follow the trend that we're at and
we don't do something now
i think 2024 will be the year we fall
off the cliff that will be the end of
democracy we will have elected
enough illiberal leaders that the
geopolitical balance of power will shift
and democracy will die
i said i would be hopeful right
so at least we know the problem right so
we embrace our fear what are we gonna do
well every person in this room is very
powerful
so i'm gonna ask you for your courage
because that will determine our future
uh
so here's
my update invil asked me to just quickly
tell you what's happened to us since
then well
and this leads to ours our second panel
the attacks online have increased so
it's not just information operations on
social media it's not just information
warfare on social media it is also like
quick things death by a thousand cuts
distributed denial of service attacks
ddos attacks you guys familiar with that
right because it started with the nobel
stream
um in december
from oslo to manila so the nobel
foundation said that
that stream was targeted uh on that day
but then i went home and all the media
organizations the news organizations in
the philippines were attacked all
together and then it just got worse we
found like this hacker group that was
mounting attacks against the major
philippine news outlets and then our
government praised them
that's the upside down world we're
welcome right and then we went we dug
deeper with the swedish group we found
that there was one man in davao city who
was at the core of it davao city is
where president former president duterte
that's his home base so we found this
guy once we talked to him the ddos
attack stopped but then we looked at
where they were recruiting people than
it was
on facebook
so facebook took him down hi khadijah uh
that's the that's the first ddos attacks
the second is that
they didn't just come frontally they
came in the back end so check your
websites guys
who knows what a black hat seo attacks
are
yeah you gotta know yay
blackout seo attacks meaning they take
junk links to ai generated stuff some of
them on easily like these are sites that
google could do something about and has
i hope but what this means is it sends
death by a thousand cuts tens of
thousands of junk
links to your website in our case to
philippine news groups so we as an
industry were under attack and when we
looked at it you have to like physically
actually um annul these links tens of
thousands right so it takes your time
it just takes time time and time and we
weren't the only ones all the news
organizations what this means is you
have less people finding your site less
people finding the news so this was
something
i stopped working for raptor i just we
just started telling our all the
philippine news organizations how they
were being insidiously attacked behind
the scenes and guess what one of the
largest ones was a commercial black hat
seo operator from sweden
and that company not only like attacks
you with tens of thousands but then asks
you to pay them to take it down so it's
really interesting
here's the third one so anyway if that's
happening to new sites in the
philippines it's got to be happening to
others right it just takes a while to
find that death by a thousand cuts on
the back end
this is the third thing the third and
last update of what happened it's the
weaponization of the law
in january this year we had a dozen
cyber libel complaints right you know i
have seven existing criminal cases now
rappler has eight but uh
in order to be here i have to ask for
court permission
norway and the nobel always gets me
court permission thank you um
but here's what happened after i got
back we had these complaints their cyber
libel complaints kibaloy is the pastor
of former president duterte he's also
wanted by the fbi for sex trafficking
his site is kind of like a pseudo news
site that is the fastest growing attacks
all the news groups in the philippines
um
and they have just been awarded a
franchise the abs one of the franchises
of abs-cbns was given to them so here's
what happened
we had that
and then we found out that you know
will our justice system work so
it was thrown out the first seven were
thrown out by april but also in april we
found out that you know there were more
that we didn't even know about because
this is death by a thousand cuts right
there were cases that were filed in
different remote provinces of the
philippines and we had to take time to
respond to those uh otherwise you get an
arrest warrant because i'm reliable as
you know it's criminal in the
philippines right well by april we
actually had 16
more complaints and 50 counts of cyber
libel
this is really just to harass you right
so that you you take your eye off the
ball well
here's the best part all of them have
been thrown out all including the one in
davao city so you see there's hope
it's um but then that wasn't enough you
know around uh when was this
and the end of
june
the philippines reiterated we lost we
lost at the sec again
uh in april well around i guess this
would have been june
we were told that we needed to shut down
that's another one of those moments um
and i was like no you're gonna have
i can't say this because you're you're
watching philippines so um but
we decided to keep going
because
we're not violating anything in the
constitution so so
every day we go to work and we're not
sure whether we will get shut down that
day and at the same time because we're
doing well i'm trying to recruit people
to a company that may or may not get
shut down it's kind of a strange place
to be
and then of course this is the last
thing that happened
it's really slow july
um
i lost my colleague and i
lost the
appeal at the court of appeals on cyber
libel and then the decision
added more jail time you know it's you
have to laugh you have to laugh
um so that's my update for you right
more attacks more insidious death by a
thousand cuts attacks online
more attacks death by a thousand cuts i
mean that's like more cases this year
than i've had in the last six years but
there's an upside to it most of them
have been thrown out
the ones that have progressed it means
we're going to be arguing this at the
supreme court it means it's a very
high-stakes game of chicken and you
cannot veer off course we hold the line
so let me then go to
where how does this come back to you and
what are we going to do about it because
i promised you that
the person-to-person defense of our
democracy short medium and
the long term we already know and you
know that academics will know will have
said this there have been numerous
reports education
it's like everything the medium term
the the eu has taken this it's
legislation it's necessary
the social media platforms the
technology companies are not going to do
this voluntarily there must be
legislation and
the eu is is paving the way the digital
services act the digital markets act
too late for the philippines but you
know it kicks in spring next year and
then in the short term in the short term
this is where it's person to person and
where we can do much more together this
is where we have to figure out what
civic engagement looks like in the age
of
exponential propaganda in the age of
a behavioral
modification system that is our
information highway right so what is
that i have an example for you we tried
this in the philippines we didn't do it
long enough
for our elections we decided and and we
worked with the google news initiative
and with another
a tech based kind of pipeline uh called
medan it's san francisco based but look
it's a whole of society approach that's
what i wind up calling it but it starts
with with this pyramid so we started it
really truly in february because it took
a few weeks to set up but 16 news
organizations working together for fact
checking
fact checking is really boring right and
you used to think this was like implicit
in everything a news organization does
on the internet fact checking is
critical so for the first time these 16
news groups nation nationwide and local
hyper local news groups we work together
and it was fantastic to do that
everything that we created was creative
commons anyone can repurpose anyone can
repost and then the second layer is the
most important part because remember
fact checks are really boring they don't
spread on social media which is how
filipinos
get our news so
we created the mesh layer
mesh these are civil society groups
business groups business finally joined
power and money's got to come into this
battle
the church asia the philippines is
asia's largest roman catholic nation um
and what we did is we told the mesh so
nobel peace center for example right we
told we organized ourselves so that the
mesh shares these fact checks
and they add emotion
because
it's a thinking fast distribution system
it needs emotion and we journalists
aren't very good at that
so mesh and look it it was actually
really good and i got the idea for mesh
did you guys watch that movie don't look
up
you remember how the planetary system
came together bit by bit by bit mesh it
was a mesh it created a mesh before to
throw off the asteroid
that's so the mesh was the distribution
system and it worked anyway the third
part is research
if if the first is to create truth the
second is to distribute the third is to
analyze and we had this is the first
time seven research groups came together
with the data pipeline that we all could
see right so the data pipeline brought
that and every week we did a webinar
where each each research group would
come out with their finding and tell our
public our our people who's doing what
what meta narrative what lie is being
seeded who benefits from this who is the
target
so the research groups did that they did
we did 21
research groups research papers um and
these are now all being peer reviewed
but it we reversed the academic cycle
instead of peer review and then media it
was like atomize it first bring it to
the public first because you need to do
that and then it'll go to the peer
reviews after but but we checked each
other right so there's lots of stuff
that was incredible 21 in like
from march to may
21 that's pretty cool
and the last one the one that's most
important is the law
where the heck are all the lawyers
because impunity online
is impunity offline
right if there is no rule of law online
how do you expect our rule of law in the
real world to survive it hasn't
that is the erosion right so what
happened here is that our legal groups
in the philippines came together and and
what they did is they filed more than 23
legal cases
strategic and tactical
litigation that helped protect the
journalists who were being attacked that
helped protect the academics because now
history is under attack so that
academics are feeling the heat that the
journalists have felt before
this
worked for a period of time but not
enough to stop the overwhelming
win of a new marcos the namesake of our
former dictator ferdinand marcos jr he's
our new president
but it works and how do i know it works
the impact it created within the first
two weeks that we rolled this out uh the
solicitor general the office of the
solicitor general
filed a petition at the supreme court
against rappler and the commission on
elections calling fact-checking
illegal saying that it is prior
restraint
it's we fought that also and it's gone
but it was at the supreme court so all
right let me i have less okay let me
just come with the five lessons now this
is for you
i tell you i just finished it so
um
at the nobel lecture i ask you what will
you sacrifice for the truth and i
realized that you know in writing this
book i wrote 400 pages that got edited
down to 200.
these are the lessons that i put in
there and
they may sound really naive but you know
i think that's what the world needs
remember when i pulled out the t-shirt
that said in order to be the good you
have to believe there is good in the
world
that's the part that social media has
taken away from us
that emergent human behavior that is
coming out today
emphasizes
fear anger hatred it it makes us our
worst selves so remember these things
these are this is what
i'm told by my publishers i should say
inside the book when you read the book
in the book
i actually go through and show you the
data behind all of this right but you
know lesson number one for me is learn
you're here
learn this is a time when it seems like
the world is falling apart which it is
but last night i was with a climate
scientist who was optimistic i think
that's the most existential problem we
face and we cannot fix climate if we do
not fix our information ecosystem right
how can we get the right information to
you so learn
um the studies also show that the people
in the middle the people like us
uh
are the ones who are quiet um they said
that this most extreme six percent are
the ones that are that are taking over
the information ecosystem so don't bury
your head in the sand right
the second
speak
speak
i was on the same stage where
salman rushdie was attacked
in chautauqua new york and
you know it was a community that had it
was a community that had been together
for 149 years
and when i sat it's like it seats 2 000
3 000 people and when i sat and spoke in
front of the community i had to face my
fear because i was like oh my gosh how
could that happen right it was in front
of so many people that he was
stabbed this is a man who
dealt with a fatwa for speaking
um and
someone said don't go and i was like no
no no no no we go and and i went and i
was so glad i did because i could see a
community
that was shattered
but yet came back together
believed in the community believed in
the good and it was fantastic to speak
to them because
if you don't speak
you say everything is okay
silence is consent and now at this time
you cannot
you can't be quiet if something in your
area of influence is wrong this is the
time to clean up our areas of influence
the third you've heard me say a lot
i've been saying it since 2016
draw the line
where on this side you're good
and on this side you're evil
it has to be that clear in your head
because that's how you
act
because this is also a time to act right
um
the fourth
is
this sounds naive again we have to trust
because that's what's been broken
so each of us in our area of influence
even if our families are being torn
apart we trust our families are easier
because we love
that's the other part love right it's
connected to this but trust
what's being used to manipulate us is
fear anger hate
um so think slow not fast
us against them when you run into that
and there are many ways to talk about
that it could be it's now part of state
ideology in hungary
it's moving in all different parts of
the world we need to avoid that and
europe
more than any part of the world
understands what could happen when us
against them is pushed to the end grow
and to the nth point we have to grow the
shared reality in the nobel lecture i
talked about that shared reality being
anchored by facts right
and then finally the last one again
sounds crazy
but we have to have faith
i'm not a religious person
but more than at any other time
it's kind of connected so i went back to
this thing from the bible
do unto others as you would have them do
unto you it's an empathy that can get
lost again on social media so if you're
not on social media stay off um
hi facebook live stream
um
so and then that last part right we will
these are my lessons just
people ask me how do you find the
courage
it's in these five things
because it's naturally not about
fighting something it's about holding
the line on who you are who you want to
be and i think this is the part that is
exciting
everything is falling apart
the world is insane right now our
politics i already told you 2024 please
please do something
um
it's also exciting in a weird way
because we're going to create
the world we want
and the world we want is actually better
than where we are today
you know that's what i think so
please you have to ask yourself the same
question what are you
willing to sacrifice for the truth that
shared reality because
your courage
will help determine
our future
thank you
thank you
thank you
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