President Baerbock, Secretary-General Guterres, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen.
I’m normally chasing you here, and here I am.
It’s actually a very interesting place.
Look, 80 years ago this institution was born to prevent humanity from destroying itself.
Never again, after fascism manipulated information, eroded truth, and dehumanized entire populations to enable genocide and global war.
Today we stand on the rubble of the world that was, and the challenge is to rebuild the United Nations for now . . . for this moment . . . when similar forces that led to those atrocities 80 years ago are now surging through digital platforms, insidiously manipulating us for power and profit.
The biggest battle we face today is impunity. And it leads to our dehumanization, in both the physical world . . . where wars rage from Ukraine to Gaza . . . and in the virtual world, where our minds and emotions are manipulated by surveillance capitalism for profit.
To fight that, we need information integrity . . . to remind us to be human. I became a journalist because information is power.
But news groups lost our gatekeeping powers when an atom bomb exploded in our information ecosystem . . . a technological one . . . that is silently destroying the very foundations the UN was built to protect.
This is the deadliest period for journalists in recorded history.
More than 240 journalists have been killed in Gaza alone . . . more than died in World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and the former Yugoslavia combined.
This is unprecedented.
They’re targeted . . . and there must be accountability.
We’re living through an information Armageddon where lies spread six times faster than facts on social media. That’s a 2018 MIT study. It is so much worse today with generative AI.
And the three sentences I’ve said over and over since 2016:
Without facts, you can’t have truth.
Without truth, you can’t have trust.
Without these three, we don’t have a shared reality.
We can’t begin to solve any problems . . . let alone the existential ones you heard from the speakers before me. We cannot have journalism. We cannot have electoral integrity. We cannot have democracy.
This is manipulation of human behavior at the cellular level of our countries. Algorithms reward outrage over empathy, spreading fear, anger, and hate . . . pumping us full of toxic sludge.
Regulating technology isn’t a free speech issue; it’s about public safety. Because . . . as has been proven time and time again . . . online violence is real-world violence.
As a Filipino, I’m proud that my country was a charter member of the United Nations, one of only three Asian founding nations. Our commitment to multi-lateralism and peace runs deep.
But that legacy was tested under the Duterte administration. Among the actions it took: it filed 11 criminal charges against me in a little over a year. Until today, I still need Supreme Court approval to be here . . . but I’m here.
[Applause]
And my former president . . . well, he was arrested in March for alleged crimes against humanity and is detained in The Hague waiting for trial. Impunity ends. The rule of law . . . championed now by the Philippines as it chairs the Sixth Committee on Legal Questions . . . ultimately prevailed.
We move to it. The trends are clear: we are electing illiberal leaders democratically. As of March this year, V-Dem said that 72% of the world is now under authoritarian rule.
So we turn to you at the UN. It has its critics, because you have to move faster.
Security Council votes paralyze action on major crises. Outdated representation excludes rising powers. Bureaucratic processes respond too slowly to urgent threats.
But as you know, the solution isn’t to abandon multi-lateralism; it’s to strengthen it . . . by addressing the very impunity that undermines international law.
At this time of creative destruction, I implore you to create. Here are three solutions:
First, end Big Tech impunity through global accountability. We need binding international standards to restore and regulate information integrity . . . just as we have for nuclear weapons and climate change. There are two new initiatives: first from the Vatican, created last weekend with His Holiness Pope Leo the Fourteenth, a declaration demanding artificial intelligence remain under human control with clear accountability mechanisms. The second one will be launched later today: a global call for AI red lines, which more than 200 of us have signed. We urge your governments to establish clear international boundaries to prevent universally unacceptable risks for AI. At the very least, define what AI should never be allowed to do.
Second, build alternative infrastructures for trust. It isn’t just Big Tech that failed to protect the public in the virtual world . . . it’s also you, the governments. At Rappler, we built a chat app using open-source protocols. Countries that care about data privacy . . . France, Germany . . . all their government websites are on the Matrix protocol. It allows real people to talk to real people without manipulation. The vision is a global federation of trusted news organizations . . . because this is how journalism will survive, and how we begin to build infrastructures of trust.
Finally, the third one: Create. That’s our word today: create. Invest in comprehensive solutions. Let your imagination run. Three examples that’s happening now: More than three-quarters of UN members now recognize Palestinian statehood, showing that international law can advance despite impunity. On gender: the Nobel Women’s Initiative has demonstrated that in nearly every conflict around the world, women are leading efforts for peace . . . defying displacement, patriarchy, gender-apartheid, and militarized violence every day.
And finally, on Wednesday, democracias siempre . . . 20 nations will pledge to strengthen democratic institutions and fight for information integrity. More than 40 Nobel laureates . . . we have gathered together to support this multilateral initiative led by the Global South. Information integrity is the mother of all battles. Win this . . . and we can win the rest. Lose this . . . and we lose everything.
Please choose Courage over Comfort, Facts over Fiction, Hope over Fear. A lot has changed since the UN was created 80 years ago. But its values . . . Peace, Human Rights, Justice, Rule of Law . . . these are more essential today than ever. It is time to create again; to build better, together. Please act now, before it’s too late.
Thank you.
Watch Maria Ressa’s address on Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cll7gqE3Tlg
