How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future

by Maria Ressa

Overview

Introduction by Amal Clooney

From the recipient of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, an impassioned and inspiring memoir of a career spent holding power to account.

Maria Ressa is one of the most renowned international journalists of our time. For decades, she challenged corruption and malfeasance in her native country, the Philippines, on its rocky path from an authoritarian state to a democracy. As a reporter from CNN, she transformed news coverage in her region, which led her in 2012 to create a new and innovative online news organization, Rappler. Harnessing the emerging power of social media, Rappler crowdsourced breaking news, found pivotal sources and tips, harnessed collective action for climate change, and helped increase voter knowledge and participation in elections.

But by their fifth year of existence, Rappler had gone from being lauded for its ideas to being targeted by the new Philippine government, and made Ressa an enemy of her country’s most powerful man: President Duterte. Still, she did not let up, tracking government seeded disinformation networks which spread lies to its own citizens laced with anger and hate. Hounded by the state and its allies using the legal system to silence her, accused of numerous crimes, and charged with cyberlibel for which she was found guilty, Ressa faces years in prison and thousands in fines.

There is another adversary Ressa is battling. How to Stand Up to a Dictator is also the story of how the creep towards authoritarianism, in the Philippines and around the world, has been aided and abetted by the social media companies. Ressa exposes how they have allowed their platforms to spread a virus of lies that infect each of us, pitting us against one another, igniting, even creating, our fears, anger, and hate, and how this has accelerated the rise of authoritarians and dictators around the world. She maps a network of disinformation—a heinous web of cause and effect—that has netted the globe: from Duterte’s drug wars to America's Capitol Hill; Britain’s Brexit to Russian and Chinese cyber-warfare; Facebook and Silicon Valley to our own clicks and votes.

Democracy is fragile. How to Stand Up to a Dictator is an urgent cry for Western readers to recognize and understand the dangers to our freedoms before it is too late. It is a book for anyone who might take democracy for granted, written by someone who never would. And in telling her dramatic and turbulent and courageous story, Ressa forces readers to ask themselves the same question she and her colleagues ask every day: What are you willing to sacrifice for the truth?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063257511
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	11/29/2022
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	107,963
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Maria Ressa is the co-recipient of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for her work defending freedom of expression and democracy. She is CEO, cofounder, and president of Rappler, the Philippines’ top digital news site, and has been a journalist in Asia for over thirty-six years. She was TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2018 and won the UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize in 2021. Among the many other awards she has received are the prestigious Golden Pen of Freedom Award from the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, the Knight International Journalism Award from the International Center for Journalists, the Shorenstein Journalism Award from Stanford University, and the Sergei Magnitsky Award for Investigative Journalism. She grew up in the Philippines and the United States and currently lives in Manila.

Table of Contents

Foreword Amal Clooney xi

Prologue: The Invisible Atom Bomb 1

Live in the (Present)

Moment (of the Past)

Part I Homecoming: Power, the Press, and the Philippines, 1963-2004

Chapter 1 The Golden Rule 11

Make the Choice to Learn

Chapter 2 The Honor Code 26

Draw the Line

Chapter 3 The Speed of Trust 36

Be Vulnerable

Chapter 4 The Mission of Journalism 58

Be Honest

Part II The Rise of Facebook, Rappler, and the Internet's Black Hole, 2005-2017

Chapter 5 The Network Effect 83

Hitting the Tipping Point

Chapter 6 Creating Ripples of Change 100

Build a Team

Chapter 7 How Friends of Friends Brought Democracy Down 119

Think Slow, Not Fast

Chapter 8 How the Rule of Law Crumbled from Within 145

Silence Is Complicity

Part III Crackdown: Arrests, Elections, and the Fight for Our Future, 2018-Present

Chapter 9 Surviving a Thousand Cuts 177

Believe in the Good

Chapter 10 Don't Become a Monster to Fight a Monster 195

Embrace Your Fear

Chapter 11 Hold the Line 223

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger

Chapter 12 Why Fascism Is Winning 243

Collaborate, Collaborate, Collaborate

Epilogue 263

2021 Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov's 10-Point Plan to Address the Information Crisis 267

Acknowledgments 269

Notes 273

Editorial Reviews

★ 10/10/2022

Nobel Peace Prize cowinner Ressa (From Bin Laden to Facebook) delivers an outstanding memoir-cum-action plan for creating “a vision of the internet that binds us together instead of tearing us apart.” Born in the Philippines and raised and educated in New Jersey, Ressa returned to her native country in the 1980s and spent nearly two decades at CNN before cofounding the digital media organization Rappler in 2012. Her reporting on political corruption and “networks of disinformation” on Facebook and other platforms made Ressa and Rappler the targets of online threats and smear campaigns by Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte; his successor, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and their supporters, and led to her 2020 conviction for “cyberlibel” and other charges (she’s currently out on bail pending appeal). Ressa’s shock at the damage Duterte’s regime did to the rule of law in the Philippines is matched by her indignation at Facebook, a company she once believed could help foster democracy, but where “every decision became about making a profit and protecting Facebook’s interests” after Sheryl Sandberg’s arrival in 2008. Ressa’s suggestions for reform include increased cooperation among journalists; the involvement of church groups, NGOs, and other organizations in amplifying factual information; and regular reports on “how the public sphere is being manipulated.” Elegantly written yet stuffed with research data and technical details, this is an essential update on the battle against disinformation. Photos. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

[Maria's] book takes us on a rare and wonderous hero’s journey that teaches us how to be heroes too. Ressa invites us into her . . . thrilling life story . . . . As she transforms from shy schoolgirl, to Princeton polymath, to pathbreaking journalist and warrior for democracy, the same candor and generosity that define her distinctive courage infuse her storytelling with magical power. We experience Maria Ressa’s becoming, and we become more too—more prepared to embrace fear, paddle against the tide, commit to loving kindness, link arms, challenge the supposedly inevitable, and even stand up to dictators.” — Shoshana Zuboff, author The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Professor emeritus Harvard Business School

"[Ressa’s] courageous work has garnered well-deserved international attention, and her book serves as a readable, urgent plea for journalistic integrity, vigilance, and transparency. . . . An indispensable journalist presents an impassioned, well-informed warning about vital global issues." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Nobel Peace Prize cowinner Ressa . . . delivers an outstanding memoir-cum-action plan for creating “a vision of the internet that binds us together instead of tearing us apart” . . . . Elegantly written yet stuffed with research data and technical details, this is an essential update on the battle against disinformation." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"In this impassioned warning and inspirational call to arms, Ressa identifies and illuminates her core values of empathy, honesty, and faith in humanity to illustrate how a strong commitment to such foundational beliefs can provide the key to democracy’s survival. . . . Searing and electrifying." — Booklist (starred review)

From the Publisher

★ 2022-09-10
A Filipino journalist who won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize describes her ongoing fight against political corruption and online disinformation.

For years, Ressa has been a brave and consistent critic of technology’s increasing power in affecting people’s behavior, and she and the news site she co-founded in 2012, Rappler, have been consistently targeted by the regimes of Rodrigo Duterte and his successor, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Like Russian journalist Dimitry Muratov, with whom she shared the Nobel, the author has battled the information warfare tactics of dictators and remains under constant threat of harassment and arrest. In this engaging work, Ressa shares the story of her life and career, beginning with her immigration to the U.S. from the Philippines in 1973, when she was 10. Her early years in the U.S., she writes, were defined by three lessons: Always choose to learn, embrace your fear, and stand up to bullies. These lessons would follow her into a successful career as a journalist—first at CNN, where she served as the bureau chief in Manila and then Jakarta, followed by a role heading the news division at the Philippines network ABS-CBN. When she resigned over an ethics issue in 2010, she and some journalist friends began work on Rappler, with the intention of injecting the positive elements of social media into old-fashioned journalism. Increasingly, however, evenhanded journalists—who once served as reliable “gatekeepers of facts and information”—were being pushed aside by unscrupulous tech companies and manipulated by populist politicians like Duterte and Trump via bots, fake accounts, and disinformation campaigns. These nefarious tactics led to the author’s profound disillusionment with Facebook, in particular, which she now calls “one of the gravest threats to democracies around the world.” Her courageous work has garnered well-deserved international attention, and her book serves as a readable, urgent plea for journalistic integrity, vigilance, and transparency. Amal Clooney, who serves as one of Ressa’s attorneys, provides the foreword.

An indispensable journalist presents an impassioned, well-informed warning about vital global issues.

Kirkus Reviews

In her native Philippines, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient and CNN journalist used fearless reporting and relentless community organization to publicize abuses of power by a fascist dictator. She’s passionate about democracy and a free press, and you can hear it in her persuasive performance. The boots-on-the-ground immediacy in her voice will rivet listeners as they learn about the ways governments can suppress truth and spread disinformation to stay in power. Her spellbinding account of President Duterte’s war against democracy will remind listeners of how fragile it can be, how easily the public can be manipulated with lies and the violent suppression of free speech. This audiobook is a moving plea for all of us to be vigilant about threats like these to democracy. T.W. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2023 - AudioFile

In her native Philippines, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient and CNN journalist used fearless reporting and relentless community organization to publicize abuses of power by a fascist dictator. She’s passionate about democracy and a free press, and you can hear it in her persuasive performance. The boots-on-the-ground immediacy in her voice will rivet listeners as they learn about the ways governments can suppress truth and spread disinformation to stay in power. Her spellbinding account of President Duterte’s war against democracy will remind listeners of how fragile it can be, how easily the public can be manipulated with lies and the violent suppression of free speech. This audiobook is a moving plea for all of us to be vigilant about threats like these to democracy. T.W. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2023 - AudioFile