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Since its origins, democracy has been a work in progress. Today, many question its resilience. The Bertelsmann Foundation and Humanity in Action have teamed up with Andrew Keen, author of How to Fix the Future, to launch How to Fix Democracy: a video and podcast series exploring practical responses to the threats facing democracies around the world. Host Andrew Keen interviews prominent thinkers, writers, politicians, technologists, and business leaders who enlighten and challenge us as we seek the answers to How to Fix Democracy.
Here he speaks with Maria Ressa, CEO and Co-Founder of Rappler to discuss social media, the undermining of facts and her work as a journalist in the Philippines in this time which she calls “dystopian.”
Maria, who began her career as a journalist in the Philippines in 1980s, was among the journalists named Person of the Year by Time Magazine in 2018. She believes social media’s capacity – and particularly the influence of ‘instant articles’ – to spread lies “laced with anger and pounded a million times” destroys the foundation of democracy. Maria also discusses the effects of President Duterte’s election on the distortion of facts through his attacks on the war on drugs. We live in “an era of creative destruction,” she explains, as well as her experiences as a target of propaganda campaigns. Nonetheless, we can move forward, she maintains, by coming together and reflecting on the substantial values that guide us.