Former CNN reporter Maria Ressa won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for her “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression.” However, as the heads of the social media platforms move past their relationship with fact-checking companies and towards greater freedom of speech, she warned Comedy Central’s The Weekly Show podcast host Jon Stewart that America is sliding towards “kleptocracy.”
While Jeff Bezos does not run a social media site, he does run the Washington Post, and recently he has had some ideas about its editorial page, which led Stewart to claim, “I've been a little bit shocked at Zuckerberg, Bezos. You know, he goes into the Washington Post and he says, ‘Hey, from now on, our opinion page is not opinion. I have two pillars that I'm completely pretending I abide by, which is free markets and personal liberty,’ basically a more libertarian viewpoint, and just said, ‘Our opinion page is now those two things.’”
That’s not what Bezos said. Bezos was clear that the Post would continue to write about “other topics,” which still dominate the opinion section of its website.
Stewart, however, continued, “I'm sure what he's suggesting is, and they have to be promoting those two things or whatever my vision is. And it's so antithetical to what is actually happening. This idea that a more top-down society will increase personal liberty for people or create free markets. It's a joke. Yeah.”
Comedy Central also produces The Daily Show. There is not a single conservative amongst its on-air personalities. Conservatives, for them, are people to be mocked, whether in monologues or Jordan Klepper man-on-the-street segments. Stewart’s argument that having a vision is incompatible with personal liberty is impossible to take seriously.
Yet, Ressa was even more unserious as she moved beyond Bezos, “We're losing our rights each time. So the behavior, we'll call them the broligarchs because they are tech bros. So that's where it comes from, the tech bros. This is power and money, and just straight-out power and money building what I hope doesn't happen, which is a kleptocracy. Anne Applebaum calls it an autocracy, but this is power and money. I think what you're seeing is the obeying in advance. I think it started with Elon Musk was way up front, and then Mark Zuckerberg followed by taking away fact-checking at the start of the year, right?”
To return to Bezos, it simply cannot be argued that what is happening at the Post is autocracy when there are still multiple articles arguing that Donald Trump represents a threat to freedom of the press. Musk’s purchase of Twitter has its origins in the platform banning the sharing of a New York Post article about Hunter Biden and jokes about Rachel Levine. Fact-checkers could throttle access to content even though fact-checkers themselves need to be fact-checked. What kind of freedom of expression advocate is Ressa?
Here is a transcript for the March 6 show:
Comedy Central The Weekly Show
3/6/2025
23 Minutes, 56 Seconds
JON STEWART: What do you think of, I've been a little bit shocked at Zuckerberg, Bezos. You know, he goes into the Washington Post and he says, “Hey, from now on, our opinion page is not opinion. I have two pillars that I'm completely pretending I abide by, which is free markets and personal liberty,” basically a more libertarian viewpoint, and just said, “Our opinion page is now those two things.”
That's it. And I'm sure what he's suggesting is, and they have to be promoting those two things or whatever my vision is. And it's so antithetical to what is actually happening. This idea that a more top-down society will increase personal liberty for people or create free markets. It's a joke. Yeah.
MARIA RESSA: We're losing our rights each time. So the behavior, we'll call them the broligarchs because they are tech bros. So that's where it comes from, the tech bros. This is power and money, and just straight out-power and money building what I hope doesn't happen, which is a kleptocracy. Anne Applebaum calls it an autocracy, but this is power and money. I think what you're seeing is the obeying in advance. I think it started with Elon Musk was way up front, and then Mark Zuckerberg followed by taking away fact-checking at the start of the year, right?
