Information integrity should be treated with the same seriousness as food safety or air quality, Nobel laureate Maria Ressa told the National Press Club on Monday, warning that unchecked misinformation is now a public safety crisis rather than a free speech debate.
The veteran journalist and co-founder of the Philippine news site Rappler said policymakers have failed to grasp the scale of the problem, allowing tech platforms to become “weapons of mass destruction to democracy”.
She argued that disinformation laced with anger, fear and hate spreads faster than facts and has eroded civic trust to the point of destabilising societies.
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