How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future
Maria Ressa
WH Allen: 2023
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In 2017, Maria Ressa—co-founder of the Philippine independent news company Rappler—flew to California and met Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. The journalist had previously been enthusiastic about the social network’s capacity for civic engagement, but her excitement had by that point morphed into alarm as Rappler tracked misinformation spreading on the platform. Such information operations had fed directly into the May 2016 presidential election of Rodrigo Duterte, the then hardline mayor of Davao City who made misogynistic rape jokes and signalled support for vigilante death squads. Similar tactics of misinformation, bots, trolling and harassment were seen during the United States election that propelled Donald Trump to the presidency months later.

Desperate to capture Zuckerberg’s attention, Ressa threw out an impressive statistic: “Ninety-seven per cent of Filipinos on the internet are on Facebook, Mark!” The intention had been to hammer home her message that the Philippines was ground zero for the social media influence operations that were polarising society and undermining democracy, and that this was a problem Facebook could not afford to ignore.

Zuckerberg paused. His response, when it came, spoke to their stunningly different priorities: “Wait, Maria, where are the other three per cent?”

• Tags: Issue 31, Kirsten Han, Maria Ressa, Philippines