Maria Ressa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for challenging corruption in her native country, the Philippines. She is now focused on the threat to democracy from big tech.

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Maria Ressa is a groundbreaking international journalist. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for her efforts to address corruption in the Philippines. Ressa is CEO of Rappler, an international news organization that she founded. She is the author of “How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for our Future.” The book is a memoir of her life’s work to hold power to account.

In her book, Ressa argues that the trend toward authoritarian rulers around the world has been helped in large part by big tech. She documents how social media platforms are allowed to  spread lies and foster hate and disinformation — all to the detriment of democracy.

New series of related courses at Duke University explore civil discourse and democracy.

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Today’s guests argue that the January 6th storming of the Capitol in the United States is a stark example of the violence that can come from the way in which people talk to each other across the political divide. To address the issue, Duke faculty members Stephen Buckley and Sue Wasiolek have developed a series of courses for students focused on civil discourse and democracy. Their goal is to “deepen understanding of how public debates shape–and are shaped by–policymakers, higher education, and the media.”