Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have been branded “the largest dictators” of the world by 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa.
The pair were among the “tech bros’” targeted by the expert, 60, who won her Nobel prize for her defence of media freedom, while speaking at the Hay literary festival in Powys, Wales.
Maria, an American-Filipina journalist, has been embroiled in legal battles against charges filed during the administration of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.
But she contends that Duterte “is a far smaller dictator compared to Zuckerberg” – and added at he Hay festival: “And now let me throw in Elon Musk.”
She used her talk at the event to criticise the tech moguls for their influence, arguing they have “proven that we all, regardless of culture, language, or geography, have far more in common than we have differences because we’re all being manipulated the same way”.
She highlighted the power of social media platforms to “change the way we feel”, which in turn “changes the way we see the world and changes the way we act”.
Maria emphasised how online discussions about identity politics have fostered global polarisation.
These debates fuel “the kinds of questions that we think are our free will” – but they are not, she argued.
She drew parallels between different countries, noting: “In the Philippines, it was rich versus poor. In the United States, it’s race.”
Maria also pointed to Russian propaganda’s role in exacerbating divisions during the Black Lives Matter movement, aiming to “create chaos”.
Ressa warned tech companies are “inciting polarisation, inciting fear and anger and hatred”, affecting us “at a personal level, a societal level”.
She proposed two measures to curb their influence: abolishing section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which protects internet companies from liability for user content, and restricting children's access to social media due to its “mildly addictive” nature.
Maria also supported efforts to ban Chinese-owned TikTok but cautioned the problem extends beyond one platform to encompass all social media and the Internet as a whole.
Amid the rise of generative AI, she warned: “the quality of information you’re getting is already getting crappier,” referencing a study showing a “shocking” amount of low-quality AI-generated content.
Ressa urged the audience at Hay to “walk into the real world” and engage with their communities, stressing “the information operations target you”.
She concluded: “And when you become a broadcast arm, you become part of the information test team.”
