How To Stand Up to a Dictator - Maria Ressa

21 Sep, 2025

This summary outlines the most important points from Maria Ressa's book, How to Stand Up to a Dictator.

Maria Ressa is a Peace Nobel prize winner. And we will be focusing on the key lessons from her life and work as a journalist fighting for democracy in the age of disinformation.

Prologue: The Invisible Atom Bomb

Maria Ressa describes her book as an attempt to show the world the devastating impact of an "invisible atom bomb" that has exploded within our global information ecosystem. This "bomb" is the weaponization of social media technology, which she argues has enabled the rise of dictators, eroded shared reality, and is causing "democracy's death by a thousand cuts".

Using the Philippines as a case study, which she calls "ground zero" for social media's harmful effects, Ressa traces her personal journey from a journalist to a target of state-sponsored attacks. She warns that what happened in the Philippines is a precursor for the rest of the world. The book is intensely personal, with each chapter combining a personal lesson with a look at the bigger picture, ultimately asking the reader a fundamental question: "What are you willing to sacrifice for the truth?".

Part I: Homecoming: Foundational Values and Early Lessons (1963–2004)

This part of the book explores the formative experiences and values that equipped Maria Ressa for her later struggles against authoritarianism and disinformation.

1. Chapter 1: The Golden Rule: Make the Choice to Learn

Ressa argues that you don't know who you are until you're forced to fight for it, and the meaning in your life is built through the choices you make. Her own life was dramatically altered at age ten when her mother took her and her sister from the Philippines to Toms River, New Jersey.

This jarring transition from being an accelerated student in Manila to being the only brown, non-native English speaker in her new American classroom taught her three foundational lessons:

• 1.1. Always make the choice to learn. This means embracing change and having the courage to fail, as success and failure are two sides of the same coin. Her teacher encouraged her to skip a grade, telling her, "Always push to learn; you have nothing more to learn in my classroom".
• 1.2. Embrace your fear. Ressa learned that it is better to face your fear than to run from it, because facing it gives you the chance to conquer it. She defines courage as taking a risk and trusting that others will help, just as a classmate helped her during an embarrassing "pajama party" incident.
• 1.3. Stand up to bullies. After witnessing a classmate being bullied, Ressa realized that silence is complicity. She learned that it only takes one person to stand up and challenge a bully, as bullies dislike being challenged publicly. This experience was guided by the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

2. Chapter 2: The Honor Code: Draw the Line

During her time at Princeton University, Ressa was profoundly shaped by the school's Honor Code.

• 2.1. The Power of a Code of Honor. The pledge, written on every exam, instills a responsibility not just for one's own integrity but for the community's. Ressa explains that this helped her define her values early, avoid "situational ethics," and draw a clear line between right and wrong.
• 2.2. Creating Your Own Reality. Reading T.S. Eliot's essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent," she embraced the idea of "the present moment of the past". This concept suggests that the past and present are not separate; they coexist and influence each other. This gave her a powerful insight: "I control who I am and who I want to be." The person you are is an act of creation, and you can transform your past experiences into something new.
• 2.3. The Personal is Political. Her senior thesis, a play about her family history set against the backdrop of the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines, helped her understand that personal struggles often mirror larger political ones. It was a way for her to explore her own identity while also developing empathy for political actors.

3. Chapter 3: The Speed of Trust: Be Vulnerable

After graduating, Ressa returned to the Philippines on a Fulbright fellowship, where she chose journalism and learned the importance of vulnerability in building trust.

• 3.1. Vulnerability Creates Strong Bonds. Ressa learned that dropping your shields and allowing yourself to be vulnerable is a source of strength, not weakness. It creates the strongest bonds and opens up inspiring possibilities. This lesson was cemented when her mentor, Cheche Lazaro, invited Ressa to live with her family so she could afford to work at the investigative news program, Probe.
• 3.2. Building a Team with a Shared Mission. At Probe, Ressa learned how to build a team that was more powerful than the sum of its parts. The team shared a mission of creating better journalism for a country healing from a dictatorship, driven by a love for their nation.
• 3.3. Honesty and Self-Awareness. Ressa's personal journey, including coming to terms with her sexuality, taught her profound lessons about honesty. She realized that being honest begins with yourself—with self-awareness and empathy for others. This personal honesty is essential before you can tackle difficult truths in your professional life.

4. Chapter 4: The Mission of Journalism: Be Honest

Working as a bureau chief for CNN in Southeast Asia, Ressa honed her craft and solidified her understanding of journalism's core mission.

• 4.1. The Journalist's Duty. The central mission of journalism is to hold power to account, even when it is difficult and dangerous. Before social media, news organizations acted as gatekeepers, with editorial teams making judgment calls based on a shared mission to protect the public sphere.
• 4.2. Good Journalism vs. "Objective" Journalism. Ressa argues that there is no such thing as a truly "objective journalist". Instead, good journalism is a professional discipline that leans on evidence and incontrovertible facts. It is not about creating a false "balance" between a fact and a lie (e.g., between climate scientists and climate deniers) but about having the courage to report the evidence.
• 4.3. Understanding Group Behavior. Reporting on mob violence and terrorism in Indonesia, Ressa learned about emergent behavior: how a system or a group can behave in ways that cannot be predicted from its individual parts. This insight into how radical ideologies spread through networks and how peer pressure makes people do things they wouldn't do alone later helped her understand the dynamics of online mobs.

Part II: The Rise of the Internet's Black Hole (2005–2017)

This section details Ressa's work leading a major news network, the founding of Rappler, and her transition from being a tech optimist to a vocal critic of social media's destructive power.

5. Chapter 5: The Network Effect: Hitting the Tipping Point

As the head of news at ABS-CBN, the Philippines' largest network, Ressa focused on using the media's power for nation-building.

• 5.1. Changing a Culture. To transform the newsroom, she institutionalized three key values: transparency, accountability, and consistency. This was a direct challenge to the culture of patronage politics, where personal loyalty often trumped merit. Her motto was "Be cruel to be kind," meaning that managers needed to assess work honestly to foster excellence.
• 5.2. Using Technology for Civic Engagement. Ressa pioneered the use of mass media, the internet, and mobile phones to create a participatory culture. For the 2010 elections, her "Ako ang Simula" ("I am the beginning") campaign used crowdsourcing to register voters and empower citizen journalists, spreading hope and engagement. This demonstrated technology's potential to strengthen democracy from the bottom up.

6. Chapter 6: Creating Ripples of Change: Build a Team

After leaving ABS-CBN, Ressa co-founded Rappler, a digital-only news site, with three other veteran female journalists she calls the manangs ("older sisters").

• 6.1. The Three Pillars of Rappler. Rappler was founded on three interlocking pillars: investigative journalism, technology, and community. The goal was not just to tell stories but to use journalism to build "communities of action" for social change.
• 6.2. Harnessing Data for Good. Rappler experimented with technology to understand and engage its community. It launched a "mood meter" on every story, allowing the team to map how emotions associated with news traveled through society. This data helped power successful civic engagement campaigns like #ProjectAgos for disaster response and #BudgetWatch for anti-corruption.

7. Chapter 7: How Friends of Friends Brought Democracy Down: Think Slow, Not Fast

This chapter marks the turning point where the promise of social media soured as Ressa and her team began to uncover its systematic weaponization.

• 7.1. The Three Stages of Information Warfare. Ressa's team identified three phases of online degradation that preceded and enabled Rodrigo Duterte's rise to power:
  1. Experimentation (2014-2015): Political operatives began building campaign machinery on social media.
  2. Commercialization: A black ops industry emerged in the Philippines, using click farms and fake accounts to create "networked disinformation".
  3. Consolidation of Power: Once in office, the government used these networks to attack critics and polarize the country.
• 7.2. How Algorithms Radicalize Us. Ressa explains that social media platforms are designed to exploit human psychology. The "friends of friends" algorithm, for instance, pushes users into echo chambers, making them more radical over time. The platforms' business model, which Ressa later calls "surveillance capitalism," prioritizes engagement, and it turns out that lies laced with anger and hate spread faster and farther than facts.
• 7.3. The Practical Lesson: Think Slow, Not Fast. The algorithms are designed to trigger our fast, emotional, and instinctive brain. To fight back, we must consciously engage our rational, logical mind. Ressa's advice is: If you read something that makes you emotional, slow down. Think slow, not fast.

8. Chapter 8: How the Rule of Law Crumbled from Within: Silence Is Complicity

This chapter details the start of the Duterte administration's direct attacks on its critics and the media, demonstrating how online hate creates an enabling environment for real-world violence and legal persecution.

• 8.1. Publishing the Truth, Despite the Cost. In October 2016, Rappler published a three-part series exposing how the government was weaponizing the internet. This triggered a massive, coordinated online backlash, led by propagandists like Mocha Uson, who labeled journalists "presstitutes" and incited a tsunami of hate against Ressa and her team.
• 8.2. Death by a Thousand Cuts. The Duterte administration used a "shock and awe" tactic to silence dissent by making examples of high-profile critics. This included targeting a business tycoon, Roberto Ongpin; jailing a political opponent, Senator Leila de Lima, on fabricated drug charges; and, ultimately, coming after the press.
• 8.3. The Key Lesson: Silence is Complicity. Ressa learned that choosing not to speak out against injustice is the same as consenting to it. Faced with a torrent of lies and abuse, journalists and citizens have a responsibility to push back and defend the facts, because if they don't, the rule of law will crumble from within.

Part III: Crackdown and the Fight for the Future (2018–Present)

This final section covers Ressa's arrests, her legal battles, and her evolution into a global advocate for press freedom and a more humane vision for technology.

9. Chapter 9: Surviving a Thousand Cuts: Believe in the Good

Facing direct government persecution, Ressa and Rappler learned to turn crisis into opportunity.

• 9.1. Fight Back in the Open. In January 2018, the government tried to shut down Rappler by revoking its license to operate. Instead of being intimidated into silence, Ressa and her team immediately held a press conference, vowing to fight the order and exposing its political nature. The lesson is to not let anyone else tell your story during a crisis.
• 9.2. Crisis Fuels Innovation. The government attacks caused Rappler's advertising revenue to plummet, pushing the company to the brink of bankruptcy. This existential threat forced them to innovate. They created a new business model based on tech services and a membership program, Rappler+, which made them profitable and more resilient.
• 9.3. Maintain Faith in Human Goodness. Throughout the attacks, Ressa was sustained by the kindness of strangers and the unwavering support of her team and community. This reinforced her core belief in the good in people, which is essential for surviving prolonged attacks.

10. Chapter 10: Don’t Become a Monster to Fight a Monster: Embrace Your Fear

This chapter details Ressa's numerous arrests and the personal toll of the government's harassment campaign.

• 10.1. The Arrests as a Turning Point. Her first arrest in February 2019 was a transformative moment. When the government took away her freedom, it drew a direct line of repression to her, turning her from just a journalist into a citizen fighting for her rights. She realized that if this could happen to a well-known journalist, any ordinary citizen was vulnerable.
• 10.2. The Core Principle: Don't Compromise Your Values. The government's goal was to frighten her into silence or into acting like them. Ressa's response was to hold fast to her principles: "I will not become a monster to fight a monster". This means abiding by the rule of law even when your opponents are breaking it, and refusing to use their corrupt tactics against them.
• 10.3. Embracing Fear. Ressa learned that you get used to fear over time. The key is to prepare for the worst-case scenarios, accept that bad things might happen, and then focus on what you can control: your own actions and integrity.

11. Chapter 11: Hold the Line: What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

Convicted of "cyberlibel" for a story published before the law even existed, Ressa adopted a global rallying cry.

• 11.1. #HoldTheLine. This became her central message. It means linking arms with others to defend the line of your constitutional rights and never voluntarily giving them up, no matter the pressure. It is a call to collective action against authoritarian encroachment.
• 11.2. The Power of a Global Coalition. The attacks on Ressa and Rappler galvanized a global coalition of press freedom groups and legal experts, including Amal Clooney. This international support created a "protective shield" and showed that she was not alone in her fight.
• 11.3. Turning Personal Struggle into Global Advocacy. Being targeted transformed Ressa's role. She went from being a journalist and researcher to an activist, using her platform to connect the dots between the attacks in the Philippines and the erosion of democracy worldwide.

12. Chapter 12: Why Fascism Is Winning: Collaborate, Collaborate, Collaborate

Ressa concludes by diagnosing why authoritarianism is on the rise and offering a concrete, three-pillar framework for fighting back. Fascism is winning because authoritarians learn from each other, use technology to polarize societies, and attack the truth. The antidote is collaboration.

• 12.1. Pillar 1: Technology. We must demand accountability from tech platforms through legislation and build our own technology to protect facts and public discourse.
• 12.2. Pillar 2: Journalism. We must protect and grow independent investigative journalism through new funding models and stronger legal protections for reporters.
• 12.3. Pillar 3: Community. We must build communities of action through collaboration. Ressa offers the #FactsFirstPH initiative as a model—a "whole-of-society" approach that brings together news organizations, civil society, academic researchers, and lawyers to create a "pyramid" for fact-based public discourse.

Conclusion: A 10-Point Plan to Address the Information Crisis

In collaboration with fellow Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov, Ressa offers a concrete plan to rebuild a global public square that serves humanity over profits. The plan calls for an end to the "surveillance-for-profit" and it is built on three central pillars:

• Ending the surveillance-for-profit business model.
• Stopping tech discrimination and ensuring people everywhere are treated equally.
• Rebuilding independent journalism as a defense against tyranny.

The plan details ten specific actions directed at democratic governments, the European Union, and the United Nations.

Calls on Democratic Governments

The plan calls on all rights-respecting democratic governments to take the following actions:

1. Demand transparency and impact assessments from tech companies. Governments should require tech firms to conduct and publicize independent human rights impact assessments. They must also demand full transparency on all business operations, including algorithms, content moderation, data processing, and integrity policies.
2. Protect citizen privacy. This should be accomplished by enacting robust data protection laws.
3. Defend press freedom. Governments must publicly condemn abuses against journalists and the free press globally. They should also commit to providing funding and assistance to independent media and journalists who are under attack.

Calls on the European Union

The plan outlines six specific demands for the European Union:

4. Enforce the Digital Services and Digital Markets Acts ambitiously. The goal is to force tech companies to change their business models, such as ending algorithmic amplification that spreads hate and disinformation and threatens fundamental rights. This enforcement should apply even when the risks originate outside of the EU.
5. Ban surveillance advertising. The EU should urgently propose legislation to ban this practice, which the plan describes as "fundamentally incompatible with human rights".
6. Properly enforce GDPR. The EU General Data Protection Regulation must be enforced so that people's data rights become a reality.
7. Include safeguards in the European Media Freedom Act. This forthcoming act should contain strong protections for journalist safety, media sustainability, and democratic guarantees in the digital realm.
8. Stop disinformation "upstream". Media freedom should be protected by cutting off disinformation at its source. This means that no organization or individual should receive special exemptions in new technology or media legislation, as this would give a "blank check" to those who produce disinformation on an industrial scale.
9. Challenge Big Tech's lobbying influence. The plan calls for challenging the "extraordinary lobbying machinery," astroturfing campaigns, and the "revolving door" of recruitment between major tech companies and European government institutions.

Call on the United Nations

The final point is directed at the UN:

10. Create a UN Special Envoy for the Safety of Journalists. This position, as an Envoy of the UN Secretary-General (SESJ), would be tasked with challenging the current status quo and ultimately raising the cost of committing crimes against journalists.

The book ends with a powerful call to action. It is an existential moment, and the only way to fight back is together. "We can't feel sorry for ourselves," she writes. "Now is the time to act".