triston harris, and i'm a zoraski. And this is your undivided attention. The word people power came out of the philippines in 19 86. It fundamentally travelled, not just in southeast asia, but to the rest of the world. Today on the show, maria ressa founder of the medeocite rappler, takes us down into the streets of manila so that we can see clearly this global threat and think about how to reverse it. We have governments now all around the world that are coming together. This has to be stopped.
[This episode originally aired on November 5, 2019] 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.