Nobel Peace winner Maria Ressa slams US social media giants for fuelling hate after accepting award
- The Rappler co-founder attacked the technology industry that ‘has allowed a virus of lies to infect each of us’
- Ressa, a critic of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, said facts and truth were at the heart of solving the biggest challenges facing society today
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Ressa, the co-founder of news website Rappler who won this year’s prize together with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, attacked the technology industry which “has allowed a virus of lies to infect each of us, pitting us against each other, bringing out our fears, anger and hate, and setting the stage for the rise of authoritarians and dictators around the world.”
“Our greatest need today is to transform that hate and violence, the toxic sludge that’s coursing through our information ecosystem, prioritised by American internet companies that make more money by spreading that hate and triggering the worst in us,” she said.
‘Thank you Duterte’: Ressa’s Nobel Peace Prize win stuns Philippines
“What happens on social media doesn’t stay on social media. Online violence is real world violence,” Ressa added.
Ressa said facts and truth were at the heart of solving the biggest challenges facing society today.
“Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without trust, we have no shared reality, no democracy, and it becomes impossible to deal with our world’s existential problems: climate, coronavirus, the battle for truth.”
Currently on parole, pending an appeal after being convicted of defamation last year, she needed to ask four courts for permission to travel and collect her Nobel in person.
Meanwhile, Muratov, the editor-in-chief of Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, called for a minute of silence during the ceremony to honour journalists killed in the line of duty.
“Let us rise and honour my and Maria Ressa’s reporter colleagues, who have given their lives for this profession, with a minute of silence, and let us give our support to those who suffer persecution,” he said, adding: “I want journalists to die old.”
