Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Maria Ressa, and her co-founders created Rappler to harness social media’s connecting power to bring journalists directly to audiences. But those same social networks were then used by others against her – as a weapon – to spread disinformation and to seek to silence her. Brad and Maria also discuss turning crisis to opportunities and how the golden rule she learned as a child influences her decisions today.
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Maria Ressa, and her co-founders created Rappler to harness social media’s connecting power to bring journalists directly to audiences. But those same social networks were then used by others against her – as a weapon – to spread disinformation and to seek to silence her. Brad and Maria also discuss turning crisis to opportunities and how the golden rule she learned as a child influences her decisions today.
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Brad Smith: I'm Brad Smith, and this is Tools and Weapons. On this podcast, I'm sharing conversations with leaders who are at the intersection of the promise and the peril of the digital age. We'll explore technology's role in the world as we look for new solutions for society's biggest challenges.
Maria Ressa: That's what Rappler is. We build communities of action, and the food we feed our communities is journalism.
Brad Smith: That's Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, journalist, and CEO. As an early adopter of social media, she founded the online news company, Rappler, and she used the technology as a powerful tool to connect journalists directly with audiences. These same social networks were then used by others against her as a weapon to spread disinformation and to seek to silence her. In this episode, she shares how being uprooted from the Philippines as a child helped her learn the importance of resilience in the face of cultural and personal change. We discuss the importance of turning crisis into opportunity, and she shares how the golden rule, which she learned as a child, influences, even today, the values by which she leads her life.
To hear more episodes like this one, I invite you to follow or subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening now. My discussion with Maria Ressa, up next on Tools and Weapons. Maria Ressa. Maria, thank you so much for joining us. It's not every day that I get to talk with an author, a Nobel laureate, the co-founder of a great journalistic enterprise, a thoughtful critic, and, I'll say, a friend. So thank you for being here.
Maria Ressa: Thank you for having me, Brad, and for both of us, a Princetonian.
Brad Smith: Yes. Yeah, we have some educational roots in common, and I know one of the things you're doing even right now is you're continuing to teach now at Columbia University. But let's get started. I think you have a fascinating story to tell that really speaks to the role of technology as a tool and a weapon, but I also dare say, even more than that, I think lessons for people around the world about how to live your life, and I want to start with that.
I think you gave such a compelling commencement speech at Harvard University this year, and you fundamentally had three lessons for the students. The first was to know yourself and your values. The second is to turn crisis into opportunity, and the third is to be vulnerable. But let me start with the first. Let us all learn a little bit more about yourself, who you are. I know, obviously, you were born in the Philippines and then you came to New Jersey when you were about 10 years old. Tell us how you got from the Philippines to New Jersey.
Maria Ressa: It was about a year after martial law was declared, and I remember things like thinking that the streets of America were paved with gold. It was the American dream for us. My mom had just gotten remarried. I have an Italian-American stepfather, my father now, and they literally kidnapped us from the school I went to. Family feud. It's ironic, I think even there was a Marcos and Aquino factor in there, which I had put some in the book or more in the play I wrote as my thesis senior year. And then landed in Tom's River in JFK, in the middle of the snow, in the middle of winter. I'd never seen snow before. My sister and I landed here and went to public school in New Jersey. And it was funny because I felt like the first year, I had so much to learn. Imagine stripping away all the cultural signals that you have, and so I was very quiet my first year.
Brad Smith: Maria Ressa was quiet. Now, that must be something.
Maria Ressa: I'm an introvert. Brad,
Brad Smith: Okay. I'm having a hard time buying that.
Maria Ressa: But the part where Back to the Future happens is my teacher, one of the teachers who really nurtured me in public school is Norwegian, has a Norwegian father, and in 2021, when I went to Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize, I saw my teacher from elementary school. So I went to public school. The first year, my teacher said I barely spoke. In fact, that's what she reminded me of when we were at this cafe in Oslo. So yes, I speak now. And then high school, public high school, and then Princeton. And I didn't know what I wanted to be, but what I learned during that time period was that it's okay looking at the world from different lenses. It's okay to be different, even though I do remember times when, gosh, I wish I had blue eyes and blonde hair.
Brad Smith: One of the things that you said when you spoke to the graduating students at Harvard was not only to know yourself, but to know your values. How would you describe to us today the values that have been most enduring for you and for the course of your life?
Maria Ressa: It's funny, it's really simple. And the Philippines is Asia's largest Roman Catholic nation. My grandmother was devoutly Catholic. We went to mass every day. So the first is the Golden Rule. It's funny because when you're growing up and you don't know, how do you make decisions? And the simple way to do it was do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Treat other people the way you want to be treated. That seemed really simple, and so that became a foundation of everything. And then in How to Stand Up to a Dictator, I went all the way back because you have to define who you are, and in the commencement speech, I actually always say you have to, before you walk into business or in any other place where you have a vested interest, you have to know the lines, draw these lines and know which you will never cross, and then hold tight to that.
So aside from do unto others as you would have them do unto you, be honest, and that's the hardest part, being honest to yourself is, I think, the challenge our whole life. Embracing your fear. That comes from being an immigrant student coming in and realizing that even in school, you are your own worst enemy because you set how far you go, and if you aim for the moon, you'll get to the sky. You'll get beyond Everest, right? It's funny, when I was in New York, growing up in New York was also a different thing. It always felt like Americans were sarcastic. I didn't really get sarcasm or irony. And it's funny, when I went back to the Philippines in 1986, the year of People Power, I felt really good because Filipinos don't understand sarcasm or irony up until social media.
Brad Smith: Well, when I think about your story and your values and knowing yourself, obviously, family played a role, including your grandmother. Your faith played a role, the church. Your schools, the university played a role, but you then turned at Harvard and said you've got to be able to turn crisis into opportunity. But before we get to that, I think in your case, I think in most people's cases, there was also opportunity before the crisis. And your opportunity did lead you. As you said, you graduated from college from Princeton in 1986, you went back to the Philippines, you went into journalism. What, for you, was the pull of journalism as the profession in which you dedicate your career?
Maria Ressa: I didn't want to be a journalist. That was the irony, right? And I actually had through college a kind of disdain of mass media. Because that's the way that school that we went to... I think two things. The first is because when I was young, my upbringing was so religious, once I got to America, it was almost like a pushback against it. And so freshman year in college, I studied all the world religions looking for what I wanted, and I think it was always this battle of left brain, right brain. I was a theater in dance. I had a certificate in theater and dance. I did a senior thesis. Writing a play that was trying to sort out all of that.
So I didn't set out to be a journalist. I went on a Fulbright back to the Philippines to try to find roots. I didn't know what I wanted to be. I was pre-med, like most good Asian Americans are. Then when I dropped out of pre-med mom said, "You should be a lawyer." And then I applied to all these things. You try to be this overachieving... It's a different time and a different generation. But to go back to the Philippines, it was I really just wanted to understand what being Filipino meant. I had never felt completely American. I was more muted, not as aggressive. And so I thought, "Oh, when I get to the Philippines, I'm going to be with everyone like me."
Of course, when I got to the Philippines, I was the most outspoken, the most aggressive. So when I'm with Americans, I feel very Filipino. And when I'm with Filipinos, I feel very American. And those were some of the things, good lessons. But, journalism. So journalism, I think that the dual realities I lived in was good training to be a journalist, because you just...
Maria Ressa: Realities I lived in was good training to be a journalist, because you just realize that there isn't one way or one reality and stepping in someone else's shoes. Again, these are like, they sound, what's the right word? They sound maudlin, sentimental. But in the end, these Hallmark cards things actually helped as I was trying to figure it out. And then when I fell into journalism, because it was the People Power Revolt in 1986, what I loved about it was that it forces you to be in the moment. And then with your values, you make instantaneous decisions. And imagine, so I joined CNN in the end of '86, '87. During that entire time period, if you are the reporter, for the world, we had an audience of 200 million. The first take on the first page of history was the reporter's standup. And I thought, "Wow, it was fantastic training to be able to distill the moment within a time period, knowing what you know, and then distill it in three bullet points to the people who are all over the world."
Brad Smith: Wow.
Maria Ressa: That was incredible. And I think that was great training for being attacked by a government.
Brad Smith: Along your path, you went from being a broadcast journalist, as you say, making instantaneous judgments about how to talk about, discern, synthesize, summarize what was happening in the world for hundreds of millions of people. And then there came a point in 2011 when you co-founded Rappler. Not everyone who's listening may be familiar with Rappler. Tell us what it is and what led you to create it.
Maria Ressa: I think by 2010, where we had automated elections in the Philippines, I realized that legacy media, the things that made it successful were the very things that would make it fail in the new world. And that world is the internet, right? Social media, where you need to actually create systems where you can be far more agile, create systems that can shift, that can change. So you'd have to know the North Star, but then be able to make the change every single person in the organization. So I was with CNN for almost two decades, 18 years, exactly, and then I went home. I chose my home, I gave myself... When I turned 40, I was going to choose home. And it felt like America was falling apart, but the Philippines was just starting to pull itself together.
Brad Smith: Interesting.
Maria Ressa: And so I chose the Philippines. And of course, when we came under attack, I was like, "Oh my God. Did I make the right choice?" But I chose the Philippines. When I turned 40, I came home and I headed the largest news organization there, ABS-CBN. I was leading 1,000 journalists. So from leading a small bureau for CNN, all of a sudden you're in charge, which of course, Brad, you know. Managing people is a whole other process. And during that time period, I realized that we put our third string on the web, on the internet. If you're playing basketball, your best people are on your primetime newscast, but then you put your third string or your youngest on the internet. And I thought that is the wrong thing, but there was no money in the internet at that point in time.
So Rappler was our response once I realized that, and 2009 was the time in the Philippines when social media was going crowdsourcing, was really going to make a difference. And it was a super typhoon came through, flooding happened, and the largest network in the Philippines came and we began training citizen journalists, and it was incredible. But not everyone in the network wanted to do that. That's what Rappler is. Rappler is, the elevator pitch that I had was we build communities of action and the food we feed our communities is journalism. So those three things, technology, the Venn diagram, circle of technology, journalism and community. And that was how we created Rappler. So I moved from managing the largest network to starting with 12 people. And then within a year and a half, we grew it to, it became the second top online news site in a year and a half. And we grew from 12 to 75 people. I learned a lot.
Brad Smith: Yeah, no, and it is the classic story that people in the tech sector take pride in, which is good. Love to tell. It is how technology can be a force for good.
Maria Ressa: For good. Incredible, right? And this is why I always say I drank the Kool-Aid of Facebook because Facebook was our internet. But there was a period of time when it was wonderful, but it wasn't making enough money for the people investing in it. But there are all these different turns technology can take. So anyway, Rappler was created and I had a five-year plan for breakeven. The fifth year was 2016, and by April 2016, we were positive EBITDA and we were going. Except in May 2016, Rodrigo Duterte was elected president. And by August 2016, Rappler was under attack online. And then the next year, 2017, all the investigations and then the lawfare, the shutdown order happened in January 2018, and we dropped 49% of our advertising revenue within four months because the government was using its muscle. I learned a ton during this time period.
Brad Smith: And as you think about that second message you shared with the students, turned crisis into opportunity. So you had five years of success building Rappler as a journalistic enterprise, and even becoming a profitable journalistic enterprise. And just as you were crossing that threshold to profitability, that's when your crisis arrived. And I think it's right to say it arrived in the form of the government.
Maria Ressa: Yeah. Yeah. And actually, it was our introduction to information operations, like something I could never have thought of. In fact, leading up to the elections of May 2016, someone asked me, "Do you think censorship can happen again? Can the government take control?" And I was like, "Oh, no. Absolutely not because social media is here." I could never have imagined how social media could be weaponized. And you know what? Experience is the best teacher. The way it's weaponized is by turning the floodgates. Again, it's a machine, right? Letting a million people pound you to silence. So it's essentially free speech, organized, pounding you to silence. And that impacts the target, both emotionally, and then in terms of free speech. Are you going to go fight a million times saying that you're a criminal. Information operations. When you say a lie a million times, it becomes a fact.
And that's when we realized, "Oh my God. What we thought would be empowering..." The first piece that I wrote on it was the propaganda war, and then the second one was how Facebook's algorithms impact democracy. So Filipinos, for six years in a row, spent the most time online and on social media globally. That six years ended in 2021.
Brad Smith: So if we take that period of time, it's fascinating to me because you first have this five-year period where technology is a tool. It is your foundation, your platform, you're changing discourse and connecting with community in the Philippines, and then comes the crisis. And I think as you have described it, I think it's fair to say you almost see the crisis as sort of this beast with two heads. One head was the government and the other became technology itself. For those less familiar with say the next five years, from 2016 to 2021, let's talk about each of those for a moment. Tell us what the government did and how you managed, even in yourself, the response to that.
Maria Ressa: Yeah, and you know what? This has been replicated in many other countries around the world. In 2016, that began the weaponization of social media. Exponential attacks, bottom up. The meta-narrative that was seeded against me and Rappler is journalist equals criminal. And at the beginning, because I'm used to being a gatekeeper, I was like, "Oh, they can say whatever they want," but that's not true. Because if you don't respond, it becomes true. It becomes a fact. So journalist equals criminal, bottom up a million times on social media, 2017, the government began to move and we had 20 to 24 investigations in 2017. In 2018, the first shutdown order from our Securities and Exchange Commission happened in January. Within four months, we dropped almost 50%, 49% of our advertising revenue because the government called our advertisers. And we should have shut down in 2018, but that's the crisis into opportunity. We had a limited period of time to find an alternative business model.
Maria Ressa: How do we keep? Rappler's about 100 people, median age is young, 23-years-old and we needed to keep going. So we found a way to do this in data and technology and that turned crisis into opportunity for us. So sorry, that was 2018. 2019, so what did they do? By 2019, I started getting arrested. I got to a point where I began workflows for getting arrested and then posting bail and putting a time period. So you try to, it's the serenity prayer, the things you can control, you control, but then you let go of the things you can't and you keep going.
In 2019, I had 11 arrest warrants, 11 criminal charges against me personally. And then I think there was a point in time where I posted more bail than Imelda Marcos. And then 2020, I got convicted along with our researcher for cyber libel for a crime that didn't exist when the story was published. Anyway, I can't talk about that much because one of the constraints for traveling until today, I have to actually ask for approval from the Supreme Court to travel, but I cannot talk about the case. But you can read about it. So look, that was 2020, 2021.
Well, 2020 the pandemic happened. So then I really felt constricted. The government denied travel. The courts denied travel five times during that time period. And one of them is my parents are aging and my mom had an operation and I was supposed to go help. So it became very personal during that time period. But by 2021, it felt like we were like Sisyphus and Cassandra combined. We were fighting something and no one cared, but we knew it was right. You're not going to voluntarily give up your rights. We did have support though.
And then in October, the Nobel Peace Prize happened, and I think it was the first time doing the right thing is the right thing. And then 2021, 2022, a change in government in the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte and his brutal drug war gone. You have Marcos Junior, the only son and namesake of the dictator the Filipinos kicked out in a people power revolt in 1986. He wins overwhelmingly as president in May 2022. And literally the Philippines, and I will speak personally, our cases begin to go away. We begin to win them.
And I'd say as a country, we moved from hell to purgatory and here I am.
Brad Smith: I also want to ask you about your changing views on technology, which you've shared many times privately and publicly. But I find it fascinating because at one level your success was the product of two of the great technology platforms of the last 50 years. One being global cable news, and the other was the internet and social media itself. And then you saw technology differently. Describe the change that you saw and the change in your own views about the role of technology.
Maria Ressa: I think it was extremely eye-opening to see how social media was weaponized. And you don't believe it until it happens to you. Because I think what I began to see as a unique perspective is that I was running a journalism business so I could see the numbers. I was also building tech and I was the journalist under attack. So the way we fought back was to actually pull the data down and begin to understand. So the first stories we did were early, it was in 2016. And I remember coming to the United States and Mountain View at a Google event and saying, what is happening to us is coming for you.
And it did, and you're still going through this. I became a journalist because information is power. And when the information ecosystem is as corrupted as social media made it, it severed the relationship between people. It severed our shared reality, splintered it. This concept of personalization works when you're buying something. But personalization, if each of us had our own personal realities in the same room, that would be an insane asylum. So what changed? I would say look was Rappler was an alpha partner of Facebook essentially.
And then we're partners almost with every tech company you can think of. Most recently, OpenAI had a call out of 1,000 different groups-
Brad Smith: Absolutely.
Maria Ressa: ... Rappler is one of the 10 that it chose to use the large language model to be able to use it for democratic consultation. And we did and built the product. So I love the tech, but I think what corrupted it was an overwhelming push of the engineering to keep you scrolling without realizing the impact on the individual and on society. And I would say this began 2014 was when information operations began on social media. And you only have to look to Russia and the meta-narrative it seeded that led to the annexation of Crimea.
The same meta-narrative Putin used to actually invade Ukraine itself in 2022, 8 years later. Because there's two things that social media did. There's seeding of the meta-narrative that you hit every now and then with breaking news and then there's the second one, which is virality. And virality hacked our biology. It stopped our thinking slow by going directly to our fear, anger, and hate. So these are design functions of social media. The first time machine learning and artificial intelligence went up against humans and it encouraged the worst of humanity.
So it's been a lesson in learning. I would love to see it turn, but again, it goes back to the incentive structure.
Brad Smith: So we have about five minutes, and in the-
Maria Ressa: Wow.
Brad Smith:... Time that remains, I want to put three questions to you. The first, you have the opportunity to speak directly to the listeners of this podcast, many of whom are engineers, they're developers, they're data scientists, they work on AI. What message do you want to share with them, not for their companies and the CEOs, but to the individuals in this industry? What do you want them to keep in mind?
Maria Ressa: Super simple. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The golden rule. If you don't want your kids to be on these gadgets, modify them. I think technology is game changing. It can create an incredible world. Brad, on your end, like what Microsoft is doing, we're using a graph rag to actually be able to anchor the generative AI on facts. There are things you can do that will make this world better. Go do it. You have allies.
Brad Smith: And I would add a corollary to that rule. You can't do the right thing to others unless you understand the impact you are having on others. So people who write code actually have to have a broad perspective and think about others and not just the product itself.
Maria Ressa: And the impact in three ways. The first would be the impact on the people using the product. So don't look at them as just machines to be harvested. The second would be as a group, as a whole, groups behave differently from individuals. You go back to the 1960s, the Solomon Ash study, the conformity studies that say 75% of people will change the way they think depending on the way the group happens. Fear, anger, and hate spreads faster in groups and makes us behave in our worst way. So that's the second, the group.
And then the third one, which the research isn't there yet, but technologists are very familiar with emergent behavior. The reason why you want to test your product in the public sphere is because you don't know what will happen until it scales. Well, the same thing with humanity and the evolution of human beings. Imagine if we are constantly being pumped full of anger and hate and lies where trust is destroyed. This is the world that has been created by tech. Remind us of the goodness of who we are. That's the best part of being a journalist for me.
It's like people in the worst situations, there's a lot of bad, but I've also seen so much good.
Brad Smith: And I think that points to the two other things I wanted to ask you about. They both reach beyond the world of technology. One of the things you said in your Harvard commencement address is that when you are the target, you have to laugh.
Brad Smith: We all live in a world where we feel that we're the target of something. It might be small, it might be large. Very few people have been a target the way you have been with arrest warrants and the like. And yet as someone who knows you, you smile a lot and you laugh a lot. How do you find that inner strength to laugh and smile on your hardest days because I think there's some lesson and inspiration for all of us in that?
Maria Ressa: Oh my gosh, Brad, you're similar. I think it's in the end, I'm an optimist and I believe in the goodness of people right? The goodness of human nature. That's carried me through most of my life. I joke in the book, I talk about Star Trek, so it's Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock combined. That's the way I want to be. And in a way, my college friend says that I'm a stoic who believes that people are good. I guess... I don't know. Do you remember Pippi Longstocking?
Brad Smith: Yes, I do.
Maria Ressa: So Pippi Longstocking with this, and then you wake up every day and you think about what's good. You're going to... Right? You create the world you want. And I believe people are good despite the bad.
Brad Smith: And that points to one final thing I want to ask you about. It's not something that you talked about in your commencement address, but I believe it's both true and you are so appreciative of it. You don't get through a crisis. You don't get through almost anything by yourself. You have to rely on family, and you have to have friends. And I know because we share a great mutual friend, Amal Clooney, your lawyer, if you've got arrest warrants coming at you, it helps to have a friend who's a good lawyer and you've had a great one. But tell us what that friendship, the ability to work with and rely on others has also meant for your ability to make it through this long tunnel of prosecution and persecution and find yourself all the way onto the stage in Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize. What role did that play?
Maria Ressa: I mean, that would've been impossible without all the help that we had gotten, without the community we had built right? I mean, Amal is an interesting one because out of the blue, she saw we were in trouble and she offered help. Thank you for bringing this up. We would not have survived. I'd probably be in jail by now. Rappler would've been shut down. We could not have survived the worst if it wasn't for the goodness of people around us. I remember one time, maybe my 9th or 10th arrest warrant, I get a tip that I... and this was in the middle of the pandemic lockdown. So I had to run to the courthouse and it was near 5:00 PM and I go to post bail, and then I'm trying... I had to go all the way to the basement and it was after 5:00 PM to pay, and if I didn't pay, I would get arrested essentially right?
It had already been closed, and there were people in the office, and I knocked on the door and the woman came out and I said, "Please, can I pay? Can I post bail?" And she looked at me, she said, "I know who you are." And I thought she'd be afraid because at that point, everyone was afraid. She went back inside, got her supervisor who looked at me and then opened the cash register and took my money. Because if she hadn't, I couldn't have gone to a friend's house because that meant if the police came in, then that entire family would be caught in all that turmoil right?
I couldn't go home because who knew what would happen. So without that kindness, without that... I mean, and there's so many of them from immigration officers to judges, to Amal, to so many people, and my co-founders are incredible. There are four of us, four women, all about the same age. We came of age at a time of great optimism for democracy in the Philippines, and to see where it's gone is painful. But we all knew the road. We shared the same values, and when crisis hit, we would move in four different directions, but we would all be heading the same way. So the people around you, the goodness of people, they can never be good if you don't allow that possibility. So yeah, that's it. Thank you for reminding me.
Brad Smith: Well, I think it's a great note to end on because I think your story is so fascinating in part because it frankly has so many layers. It's a story about a young girl who went from the Philippines to the United States to go back after having had these extraordinary educational opportunities. It's the story of journalism and the role it plays in the world. It's the role that technology plays in the world as a tool and a weapon for good and for bad. It's a story of we hope ongoing triumph over adversity. It's a story of global recognition.
But I also think as you capture at the end, it's a story perhaps most fundamentally about humanity and never underestimate a small act of kindness including opening the door in the evening and exercising the courage to help someone else. That to me, is one of the other great things about your story, and at a certain level, I think it's everyone's story. I hope it's something we can all take inspiration from you in thinking more about. So thank you Maria Ressa. I look forward to seeing you soon.
Maria Ressa: Thank you, Brad.
Brad Smith: You've been listening to Tools and Weapons with me, Brad Smith. If you enjoyed today's show, please follow us wherever you like to listen. Our executive producers are Carol Ann Browne and Aaron Thiese. This episode of Tools and Weapons was produced by Corina Hernandez and Jordan Rothlein. This podcast is edited and mixed by Jennie Cataldo with production support by Sam Kirkpatrick at Run Studios. Original music by Angular Wave Research. Tools and Weapons is the production of Microsoft, made in partnership with Listen.