Ressa: Journalists need tech mastery to counter info wars

Using just 26 fake social media accounts, Nobel Peace laureate Maria Ressa was able to spread falsehoods to over three million unsuspecting users and influence their views in a study she did.

With global legal systems unable to adequately punish perpetrators of falsehoods, "online impunity is real world impunity", she told journalists at a conference on Tuesday.

The Filipino-American veteran journalist and co-founder of news site Rappler said it is "time for journalists to understand tech well enough that we can actually create a public sphere we can live in, that democracy can live in", instead of waiting for laws to catch up with reality. Touching on how these online accounts have a real world impact, she also expressed worry over the "more than 30 elections in the world" being held this year.

Ms Ressa has been an outspoken critic of the Philippines' immediate past Durtete administration, and has also reported on the role misinformation played in new President Ferdinand Marcos Jr's election win.

She said Rappler had just been ordered by the government to shut down, on the basis that it violated the Constitution's limit on foreign ownership of media companies.

She said that in Russia's information warfare, the goal was "not to make people believe one thing... (but) to make them distrust everything". This erodes trust in the media - even credible outlets.

Her fellow panellist Ansgar Graw, Asia media programme director at German think-tank Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, said "a lack of trust in the world, as well as a lack of trust in the media, is arguably the strongest weapon of the enemies of democracy".

They were part of a panel discussion at the East-West Centre International Media Conference in Hawaii - a three-day event for journalists from the US and Asia Pacific that began on Tuesday.

Its focus this year is on the media's role in rebuilding public trust and reconnecting societies to address global challenges such as fake news and climate change.

Ms Ressa noted that social media and content distribution platforms such as Facebook and YouTube gather personal data to learn each user's preferences, so as to serve content they are interested in. These algorithms can build a model of each user "that knows you better than you know yourself", she said.

The downside is that people may end up being fed news that is not necessarily true, she added.

Nonetheless, she expressed optimism for the future, saying "it has been a decade of sacrifice" for journalists, and "we must continue sacrificing" in the pursuit of truth.

Society as a whole, Ms Ressa said, will also need to change. Having civil society organisations and various rights groups to help share facts with emotion will help to propagate well-researched news.

"Because in the end... we are also astounded by the goodness of human nature."