The governmental pounding of fake news in the Philippines predates Donald Trump. President Durterte’s country has been a laboratory in this respect. Maria Ressa, director of Rappler, explains how the Philippine regime has converted virtual violence into physical violence.
A Filipino-American reporter and writer, Maria Ressa was an investigative journalist in Southeast Asia for CNN for 20 years before co-founding the Philippine media company Rappler in 2012. As with all journalists in her country, in May 2016 Maria Ressa witnessed the coming to power of President Rodrigo Duterte, whose policies are characterised by a bloody crusade against drug dealers (calling on Filipinos to assassinate them personally on mere suspicion) but also against all opposition. This grotesque policy goes rather unnoticed abroad because the method is new: the massive use of social networks by state trolls. A situation that Rappler has denounced from the outset as a warning: the method of cracking down on fake-news could benefit Donald Trump… who indeed was elected in November 2016. Maria Ressa and her media have been the subject of repeated judicial attacks in her country under various charges: “cyber-defamation”, tax evasion, falsification of information etc… Seen from the outside, these arrests are perceived as harassment by the authorities. In 2018, Maria Ressa is included in Time Magazine‘s list of Personalities of the Year and makes the front page of the magazine.
We conducted the interview with Maria Ressa on 6 August 2019. She had just been released from detention. One year later, in June 2020, Maria Ressa was re-arrested, tried and convicted of defamation. She has appealed but is facing up to 6 years in prison at the time of publishing this story.