'Dangerous times' Nobel prize winner warns of 'a world without facts'

The Nobel peace prize winner Maria Ressa said yesterday that Meta's decision to end factchecking on its platforms and to remove restrictions on certain topics meant "extremely dangerous times" ahead for journalism, democracy and social media users.

- Dan Milmo

The American-Filipino journalist said Mark Zuckerberg's move to relax content moderation on the Facebook, Instagram and Threads platforms would lead to a "world without facts" and "a world that's right for a dictator."

"Mark Zuckerberg says it's a free speech issue - that's completely wrong," Ressa told Agence France-Press. "Only if you're profit-driven can you claim that; only if you want power and money can you claim that. This is about safety."

Ressa, a co-founder of the Rappler news site, won the Nobel peace prize in 2021 in recognition of her "courageous fight for freedom of expression". She faced multiple criminal charges and investigations after publishing stories critical of the then Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte.