About this episode

Maria Ressa discusses how algorithms are fostering authoritarianism globally and the implications for journalism and press freedom.

Nobel Peace laureate and Rappler founder Maria Ressa sits down with Hamish McDonald at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney to make the case that the algorithms in your pocket, not any one leader, are manufacturing the conditions for authoritarian rule worldwide. Ressa says 74 per cent of the world now lives under authoritarian rule, that only a quarter of the open web is still open, and that most internet traffic is now non-human. She lays out an "authoritarian stack": Peter Thiel bankrolling Donald Trump and JD Vance, Palantir winning a US $10 billion military contract, and Silicon Valley firms wiring themselves into state power. Closer to home, Ressa questions Australia's push for so-called sovereign artificial intelligence, and asks whether the ABC should feed its audio archive to Anthropic to train American models, a deal she calls a "Faustian bargain". She also talks to press freedom, big tech starving newsrooms of revenue, and on whether journalism can survive at all. Guest: Maria Ressa, Rappler founder, Nobel Laureate and journalist Mentioned in this Episode: Is a unified Korea a lost cause? Justice Michael Kirby has hope , Global Roaming Helen Clark defends Fauci…

People in this episode

Host: Hamish McDonald

Guest: Maria Ressa

Topics covered

• big tech
• authoritarianism
• press freedom
• journalism
• artificial intelligence
• internet traffic

Keywords

• Nobel Peace laureate
• authoritarian rule
• Silicon Valley
• newsrooms
• revenue
• Faustian bargain
• AI
• internet

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Rappler, ABC, Palantir

Places: Australia, Sydney

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