Nobel Peace Prize winner and former CNN reporter Maria Ressa continued her book tour on Wednesday’s Amanpour and Company on PBS where she declared that the reason why democracy is backsliding across the world is because the media “lost our gatekeeping powers to technology.”
NPR’s Michel Martin began by asking about the book, which covers Ressa’s career in the Philippines, “Why do you say that the Philippines is the canary in the coal mine and that democracies around the world need to pay attention to what has happened there?”
Ressa responded by declaring that “information operations splintering American society” from “these American social media platforms” have “manipulated us.” This has led to “a world that is completely upside down because what is rewarded are lies.”
This age of social media is different than the supposed good old days, “And so, when news organizations lost our gatekeeping powers to technology, technology abdicated responsibility. Not only did it not distinguish between fact and fiction, it actually prioritized the spread of lies over these really boring facts.”
Social media certainly has its problems, as Ressa explained, “So, there's mild addiction that's there. You have elevated levels of dopamine, the part of our brain, the amygdala which triggers fear, anger, hate, us against them. I would argue it's the worst of humanity. That this is what is rewarded. And then what happens to societies when that happens? These three sentences I've said repeatedly in the last six or seven years. When you don't have facts, you don't have truth. Without the truth, you can't have trust.”
However, social media has it’s positive as it means stories PBS, CNN (Amanpour and Company also airs on CNN International), and others ignore can still be discussed. It is also simply wrong to say that media gatekeepers are necessary for truth to prevail and social media can bring attention to when media gatekeepers get things wrong.
However, Ressa’s commitment to the narrative remains, “Without these three, we have no shared reality. We cannot solve any problems and you cannot have democracy. And what we're seeing globally is a rollback of democracy, back to 1989 levels. You have 60 percent of the world now living under autocratic rule and we still keep having elections, right? So, the transformation is happening in front of our eyes.”
Later, the duo talked specifically about the Philippine example, “The people with autocratic impulses in the Philippines, did they see what you saw or was this just a happy accident for them? Do you see what I'm saying? Like, how is it that their impulses were the ones that took hold as opposed to others, as opposed to pro-democracy, pro-civil society impulses?”
Ressa again lamented she is no longer to dominate the news cycle, “What -- I think, the Duterte forces, so this was around 2015, 2014. 2015 was when news organizations lost our gatekeeping powers to tech and what wound up happening is that it's, kind of, like throwing spaghetti against the wall.”
Duterte is no longer president, but this was taped on the same day the socialist president of Peru waged a coup to avoid impeachment. He failed miserably and the idea that the difference between success and failure for him was social media is absurd.
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Here is a transcript for the December 7-taped show:
PBS Amanpour and Company
12/8/2022
1:39 AM ET
MICHEL MARTIN: I do want to say, congratulations on the Nobel Peace Prize. It is a great honor and very much deserved. And your new book is about How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future. You talk about just how difficult the fight has been for journalists around the world. And also, it has to be said for you and for your colleagues in the Philippines.
I mean, the book is sort of, I would say, both a memoir and a manifesto. And it tells the story of your love and commitment to journalism, but it is a warning to the rest of the world that what you've been experiencing in the Philippines is spreading, is coming for the rest of the world. Why do you say that the Philippines is the canary in the coal mine and that democracies around the world need to pay attention to what has happened there?
MARIA RESSA: It already has spread all around the world. I mean, just look at what happened in the United States on January 6th. And then look at the kinds of the way identity politics has been hit with information operations splintering American society. It is almost like when you look at what has happened, you have Russian disinformation, and information operations able to go to the molecular level of American democracy.
This is what has happened anywhere around the world where these American social media platforms -- now you got -- you're going to have to add TikTok, but where the technology has insidiously manipulated us. And the book lays out all the data. It is evidence-based, our discovery of it. But essentially, where we are living today, is a world that is completely upside down because what is rewarded are lies.
And so, when news organizations lost our gatekeeping powers to technology, technology abdicated responsibility. Not only did it not distinguish between fact and fiction, it actually prioritized the spread of lies over these really boring facts.
And beyond that, you know, why? Why did it do that? Because in the end, in an attention economy, the end goal is to keep the reader, the viewer, the watcher scrolling, right? So, there's mild addiction that's there. You have elevated levels of dopamine, the part of our brain, the amygdala which triggers fear, anger, hate, us against them. I would argue it's the worst of humanity. That this is what is rewarded. And then what happens to societies when that happens? These three sentences I've said repeatedly in the last six or seven years. When you don't have facts, you don't have truth. Without the truth, you can't have trust.
Without these three, we have no shared reality. We cannot solve any problems and you cannot have democracy. And what we're seeing globally is a rollback of democracy, back to 1989 levels. You have 60 percent of the world now living under autocratic rule and we still keep having elections, right? So, the transformation is happening in front of our eyes.
MARTIN: So, Maria, go back to the Philippines, if you would. How did you see this start to take hold? And why did it start to take hold so thoroughly in the Philippines? I mean, is it because Filipinos, for whatever reason, have been very diligent adopters of social media?
RESSA: We're first adopters. You know, in -- we were -- before social media, we were the texting capital of the world, SMS, short messages. We were among the first to go mobile first. And then with social media, as early as 2017, 97 percent of Filipinos on the internet are on social media.Today, it’s 100 percent. So, the 100 percent of Filipinos on the internet are on Facebook. Facebook is our internet. So, this is part of what you see. And then because Rappler was born on Facebook and we monitor the data that comes through, we can see the behavior that it encourages, right?
Like, I was a reporter at a time when governments would talk about the CNN effect, this is before 1996. Well, now we have social media’s impact. And it is not in one country. It is global. And the impact tears down shared reality. It tears down democracies.
MARTIN: The people with autocratic impulses in the Philippines, did they see what you saw or was this just a happy accident for them? Do you see what I'm saying? Like, how is it that their impulses were the ones that took hold as opposed to others, as opposed to pro-democracy, pro-civil society impulses?
RESSA: It's because of the incentive structure, right.? What -- I think, the Duterte forces, so this was around 2015, 2014. 2015 was when news organizations lost our gatekeeping powers to tech and what wound up happening is that it's, kind of, like throwing spaghetti against the wall.
