Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa’s latest interview with CNN Portugal caused heads to turn. Here, Maria packs a dark punch: the world is “heading towards another era of fascism—one where control over us is control of the mind.”
Respected around the world for her brave fight against authoritarianism and disinformation in the Philippines, Maria now sees the same forces threatening democracies worldwide—amplified and accelerated by unchecked technology.
Maria, who founded the investigative news platform Rappler, has spent a good deal of precious time standing up to fabricated charges brought by the Duterte administration. With former President Rodrigo Duterte now awaiting trial in The Hague and Maria recently cleared of most charges (only one remains), she sees a “moment of hope” for the Philippines.
However, she warns that the global outlook is far more troubling.
First step to a solution: confront impunity—whether from political leaders like Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu or from tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
“We are enriching technologies at the expense of our humanity,” she says, adding that platforms like Facebook have failed to protect journalists and the truth. During the height of Duterte’s attacks on her, Maria endured 90 hate messages per hour, while the tech giants stood by. Of course, she responded with action —using Rappler to expose the machinery of digital propaganda.
In the current “age of exponential lies,” Maria says society needs to redefine civic engagement. New concepts—like “shitification,” a term used to describe the erosion of digital spaces into confusion and noise—are becoming necessary to describe how truth is being undermined.
“We can no longer distinguish fact from fiction,” she warns. And in a world politic shaped increasingly by algorithms and AI, the war on facts is no longer just about journalism—it’s about preserving the very idea of shared reality.
Maria compares this digital distortion with dystopian fiction, invoking The Matrix and The Truman Show. Unfortunately, this is no movie—this is the world we now inhabit. Technology is not just a vehicle of information; it is becoming the framework of governance, controlling how people see themselves, their societies, and their choices.
Recent political events in the Philippines illustrate this surreal moment. While Senator Leila de Lima’s party made surprising gains in the May midterm elections, Duterte was re-elected mayor of Davao—despite being under indictment. For Maria, the country has evolved “from hell to purgatory”—a fragile improvement, but not salvation.
She urges urgent worldwide reform: journalism needs to reinvent itself to meet the moment, and democracies must demand accountability from tech platforms.
“When you’re in the trenches, you have to survive,” Maria says. “And not only did we survive, our community thrived with us.”
This is not your father’s facism; fascism today is subtle, psychological, and algorithmic. If we don’t take action we may wake up in a world where freedom isn’t taken—it’s simply quietly overwritten. Maria’s call is to resist with facts, with truth, and with shared purpose—before the control of the mind becomes complete. We’re really not that far away from that ugly reality.
To book Maria for your event, contact ProjectSpeaker.
