Nobel Peace Prize laureate and renowned journalist Maria Ressa said yesterday that technology, journalism and community action are key factors in the fight against disinformation, which she called a “battle for facts.”
As traditional media is under attack from geopolitical power plays, authoritarian regimes and social media platforms, “we have lost trust” among the people, Ressa said in a keynote address at the virtual Asia Journalism Forum.
Ressa, cofounder of the online news site Rappler.com, based in the Philippines, said this is the most difficult time to be a journalist.
Facebook algorithms have “polarized and radicalized” people, and the Internet has now become a place for “weaponized propaganda” to promote hate, anger and conspiracy theories instead of facts and truth, while tearing down journalists’ credibility, she said.
“Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust,” said Ressa, a 58 year-old Filipino-American who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for her commitment to free expression, human dignity and democratic government in reporting on the administration of the outgoing Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.
Winning the “battle for facts” involves technology, journalism and community, Ressa said.
Social media platforms need guardrails, which require content moderation and collaborative fact-checking efforts, said Ressa, who cochairs the International Fund for Public Interest Media.
She also proposed strengthening journalism, helping fund independent news entities and building communities of action that would stand up for democratic values.
Ressa is an award-winning journalist who opened and ran CNN’s Jakarta bureau from 1995 to 2005, and later headed the newsroom of ABS-CBN, the largest broadcaster in the Philippines, before cofounding Rappler.
On June 15, 2020, a Manila court found her guilty of libeling a prominent Filipino businessman under the country’s controversial anti-cybercrime law, a decision that was condemned by human rights groups and journalists as an attack on media freedom.
Ressa is on bail as she appeals the sentence.
This year’s Asia Journalism Forum, organized by the Taipei-based Foundation for Excellent Journalism Award, was held virtually on Saturday and yesterday.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS