Manila:
Philippine Nobel laureate Maria Ressa warned of “extremely dangerous times” in an interview with AFP on Wednesday after social media giant Meta ended its US fact-checking program on Facebook and Instagram.
Ressa and the Rappler news site she co-founded have spent years battling online misinformation while fighting lawsuits filed under former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte after critical reporting on his deadly drug war.
The veteran journalist and 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner said Meta's decision meant “extremely dangerous times ahead” for journalism, democracy and social media users.
“Mark Zuckerberg says it's a matter of freedom of speech – that's completely wrong,” Ressa told AFP in Rappler's newsroom in Manila.
“Only if you are profit-driven can you claim that; only if you want power and money can you claim that. This is about security.”
Meta's announcement on Tuesday was seen by analysts as an attempt by Zuckerberg to appease US President-elect Donald Trump before his inauguration this month.
Trump has been a fierce critic of Meta and Zuckerberg for years, accusing the company of bias against him and threatening to take revenge on the tech billionaire once he returns to power.
Fact-checking investigations and disinformation have long been a hot topic in a hyper-polarized political climate in the United States, with conservative American advocates saying they were a tool to curtail free speech and censor right-wing content.
Ressa, who is also a U.S. citizen, rejected Zuckerberg's claim that fact-checkers had become “too politically biased” and had “destroyed more trust than they created.”
“Journalists have a set of norms and ethics,” Ressa told AFP.
“What Facebook is going to do is get rid of that and then allow lies, anger, fear and hate to infect every person on the platform.”
Meta's actions would lead to a “world without facts” and “that is a world fit for a dictator,” Ressa warned.
“Mark Zuckerberg has the ultimate power,” she said, “and he is wrongly choosing to prioritize profit, Facebook's annual profits, over the safety of the people on the platforms.”
'Just the beginning'
Rappler is one of the partners participating in Facebook's fact-checking program.
AFP also currently works in 26 languages with Facebook's fact-checking program, in which Facebook pays to use fact-checks from around 80 organizations worldwide on its platform, WhatsApp and on Instagram.
In a statement shared with AFP, Rappler said it plans to continue working with Facebook “to protect fellow Filipinos from manipulation and the dangers of disinformation.”
“What happened in the US is just the beginning,” Rappler said.
“It is an ominous sign of more dangerous times ahead in the struggle to preserve and protect our individual agency and shared reality.”
Ressa has long maintained that the charges against her and Rappler were politically motivated following their critical reporting of the Duterte administration's policies, including the drug crackdown that has killed thousands of people.
Trump, who promised at his first post-election news conference to “fix” the “corrupt” American press, appeared to have taken a page from Duterte's playbook, Ressa said.
The incoming US president has filed unprecedented lawsuits against newspapers and pollsters. Observers fear these are signs of escalating intimidation and censorship.
Ressa promised to do everything she could to “ensure the integrity of the information.”
“The Nobel Prize said you can't have democracy if you don't have journalism,” Ressa said.
“This is a crucial year for the survival of journalism. We will do everything we can to ensure that happens.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Our staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
