Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you so much for asking me to speak to you today. I go back to just painting a picture of an environment of violence, fear and insidious manipulation—when you have 100% of Filipinos on the Internet on Facebook, the insidious manipulation that is used by state-sponsored acto

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think the key part of what we're seeing today is that I've never seen power and money being so up front, as well as the quid pro quo, the building of a kakistocracy, and the values. I'll echo what everyone has said with regard to accountability and values. In 2016 my outlet g

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Why are these names critical? It's because they use social media. That's one of the biggest reasons it is so effective, because it's almost as though they unleash a virus of lies. These lies are targeted, and the disinformation networks are gendered, so on the LGBTQ question the

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Absolutely today, the problem is coronavirus, and the Philippines, like Brazil, chose retired military generals to head our pandemic response. It's part of the reason that we are right back in lockdown. We have curfews until 10:00 p.m. today. At the worst, most extreme lockdown,

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think it is extremely dangerous. The violence has escalated. I'll just go back to March 7, on what we call “Bloody Sunday” when 24 arrest warrants, I believe, were issued and then nine activists were killed in their homes. There was a knock on the door at 5:30 in the morning

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  What is under-reported is that in the days before Duterte, drug use had been curtailed, but during the campaign of then mayor Duterte, drugs went from being the number eight concern to the number one. I often equate this with social media, because social media was very effectivel

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It's incredibly important. I think part of the reason we've survived this long is precisely because there is global action, so thank you so much for helping us shine the light. I think what the government would have wanted would be for us to shut up and to follow. In fact, that

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you. Good morning. I'll cover these in the next few minutes: the weaponization of the law and how it works hand in hand with online state-sponsored attacks; enabling this environment where abuses of power and human rights violations are normalized, an example of which is s

Information & Ethics committee  Part of what we're still seeing here is the debate centring on the gatekeeping part. I'll look at it in the context of journalism standards and ethics, which are the values for content moderation, as Shoshana said. Gatekeeping is behaviour modification. Journalists have always

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you. Prime Minister Trudeau, when he visited Manila, was the only one of all the world leaders who were here at that point in time during APEC who mentioned human rights at all. Canada has been at the forefront of holding fast to the values of human rights and of press f

Information & Ethics committee  Sure. To end with this, I don't know...unless you've been the subject of an attack.... It's very difficult to go through 90 hate messages per hour, sustained over days and months. That is what we're going through, that kind of astroturfing that turns lies into truth. For us, thi

Information & Ethics committee  Co-chairmen Zimmer and Collins, I'm still in the same clothes. Good evening from Manila. As I said early in our morning—your night last night—we here in the Philippines are a cautionary tale for you, an example of how quickly democracy crumbles and is eroded from within and how

Information & Ethics committee  Good morning. First of all, what a privilege it is to be in front of you and to listen to everyone. Take everything that you've heard, especially what Shoshana just said. I'm living this stuff right now. I've been a journalist for more than 30 years, and in the last 14 months,