How Did You Get a Response From Facebook?

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

So you publish this propaganda story, and then what happens? That's when i got pounded on own accounts. Het messages, 90 of them per hour. They went from like, you're horrible. You're wrong. Those are the really tame ones to rape threats, to murder threats. I'm coming to get you. Am private messages, very coarse, very cross, a hitting you in ways i i suppose that they felt it was alarming. But i think the impact me was, did i do the right thing? Is my data correct? I went back.

Maria Ressa is arguably one of the bravest journalists working in the Philippines today. As co-founder and CEO of the media site Rappler, she has withstood death threats, multiple arrests and a rising tide of populist fury that she first saw on Facebook, in the form of a strange and jarring personal attack. Through her story, she reveals, play by play, how an aspiring strongman can use social media to spread falsehoods, sow confusion, intimidate critics and subvert democratic institutions. Nonetheless, she argues Silicon Valley can reverse these trends, and fast. First, tech companies must "wake up," she says, to the threats they've unleashed throughout the Global South. Second, they must recognize that social media is intrinsically designed to favor the strongman over the lone dissident and the propagandist over the truth-teller, which is why it has become the central tool in every aspiring dictator's playbook.