|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
27 October 2022
Nobel Peace Prize laureate and journalist Maria Ressa says more civil society engagement on disinformation is needed to defend “the last two minutes of democracy.” That comment came at an international democracy conference in Taipei on Wednesday.
Ressa is a Filipina-American journalist who co-founded the Filipino online news website Rappler. The outlet claims it was targeted by former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration for revealing government corruption, reporting on the Philippine war on drugs, and exposing disinformation efforts favoring Duterte. In 2021 she received the Nobel Peace Prize alongside Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov. They were honored for protecting freedom of speech in their homelands.
Ressa was speaking at the eleventh Global Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy, which kicked off in Taipei on Tuesday. She said the world is currently in the “the last two minutes of democracy,” because disinformation now spreads faster than factual information. She says voters without facts are unable to vote for “the right person.”
Ressa says victory in the fight against disinformation requires everyone’s engagement. She says silence and apathy are becoming a force for evil.
Source: https://en.rti.org.tw/news/view/id/2008428
