âTech brosâ such as Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are âthe largest dictatorsâ, Maria Ressa, who won the Nobel peace prize last year for her defence of media freedom, has said.
The American-Filipina journalist has spent a number of years fighting charges filed during then president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterteâs administration, but said Duterte âis a far smaller dictator compared to Mark Zuckerberg, and now let me throw in Elon Muskâ.
Speaking at the Hay literary festival in Powys, Ressa said Zuckerberg and Musk have âproven that we all, regardless of culture, language, or geography, have far more in common than we have differences because weâre all being manipulated the same wayâ.
Social media platforms have the ability to âchange the way we feelâ, she said, which in turn âchanges the way we see the world and changes the way we actâ.
Ressa said conversations about identity politics online have caused similar instances of polarisation across the world. These debates encourage âthe kinds of questions that we think are our free willâ â but they are not, Ressa said.
âIn the Philippines, it was rich versus poor. In the United States, itâs race,â she said. âBlack Lives Matter ⦠was bombarded on both sides by Russian propaganda. And the goal was not to make people believe one thing. The goal was to burst this wide open to create chaos.â
The way tech companies are âinciting polarisation, inciting fear and anger and hatredâ changes us âat a personal level, a societal levelâ, she said.
She suggested two ways to lessen the control tech companies have over us. Firstly, she said, the US should get rid of section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, âwhich is what gives these companies impunityâ. The section protects internet companies from lawsuits over content posted by their users.
âAnd the other one is, if you have kids, donât let them on [social media] until theyâre old enough,â she said, because it is âmildly addictiveâ.
While she thinks attempts to ban Chinese-owned TikTok in the US and Italy are âgreatâ, it âisnât just TikTokâ we should be worried about, but all social media â and the internet as a whole.
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âWith generative AI, the quality of information youâre getting is already getting crappier,â she said, citing a study published earlier this year that showed a âshockingâ amount of the web is generated by poor-quality AI.
âThatâs before generative AI really was kicking in, and you know, at a certain point, it will drive us out,â she said.
She urged the audience at Hay to âwalk into the real worldâ and organise with their families and friends, âbecause the information operations target you. And when you become a broadcast arm, you become part of the information test teamâ.