Journalist Maria Ressa named Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk in speech at Hay literary festival in Powys

“Tech bros” such as Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are “the largest dictators”, Maria Ressa, who won the Nobel peace prize in 2021 for her defence of media freedom, has said.

The American-Filipina journalist has spent a number of years fighting charges filed during then president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte’s administration, but said Duterte “is a far smaller dictator compared to Mark Zuckerberg, and now let me throw in Elon Musk”.

Speaking at the Hay literary festival in Powys, Ressa said Zuckerberg and Musk have “proven that we all, regardless of culture, language, or geography, have far more in common than we have differences because we’re all being manipulated the same way”.

Social media platforms have the ability to “change the way we feel”, she said, which in turn “changes the way we see the world and changes the way we act”.

Ressa said conversations about identity politics online have caused similar instances of polarisation across the world. These debates encourage “the kinds of questions that we think are our free will” – but they are not, Ressa said.