Maria Ressa warns Trump’s narrative warfare is extra insidious than Duterte’s

MANILA, Philippines – Rappler CEO and The Nerve Head of International Technique Maria Ressa stated US President Donald Trump’s “narrative warfare” throughout his second time period is much extra insidious than what she skilled throughout former president Rodrigo Duterte’s time period within the Philippines from 2016 to 2022.

In an interview with Amanpour & Firm on Tuesday, February 10, Ressa talked about information forensics agency The Nerve’s newest report that investigated the primary 100 days of Donald Trump’s second time period.

The report investigated the dominant on-line narratives and themes surrounding Trump and his administration; the actors and networks pushing, amplifying, or contesting these narratives; the general public’s engagement and emotional response to key insurance policies and political occasions; and platform-specific discourse dynamics.

“What we’re seeing right here is similar factor that we lived by means of within the Philippines, which is narrative warfare up high within the first 100 days of Trump 2.0. It was 143 govt orders that didn’t simply act as coverage or dismantle establishments like USAID (US Company for Worldwide Improvement) within the bodily world; they had been content material triggers within the digital world,” Ressa stated through the interview.

The Nerve’s report argues that the Trump administration’s actions, notably the record-high 143 govt orders within the first 100 days, weren’t meant for open debate in a standard civic discussion board however had been as an alternative content material triggers within the digital world, constructed to erode democratic safeguards and intensify divisions till shared actuality collapses.

“When you don’t have a look at the information, you miss that cumulative impact, the way in which folks’s conduct modified,” Ressa stated.

She described the second as a tipping level, arguing that when a meta-narrative is seeded in a closed system and amplified opportunistically, it could possibly overwhelm every little thing else. She stated nations from the UK to France, Germany, Canada, and Australia are already exhibiting indicators of the pressure. Democratic leaders, she added, are “standing on wooden that’s being eaten by termites,” a construction that can finally collapse except the underlying forces are confronted. That, she stated, is the impact of narrative warfare.

The Nobel laureate stated that every one of this grew to become attainable as a result of the general public data ecosystem’s design is decided by Huge Tech for revenue, and that the tip objective of those that wage this narrative warfare is for civic engagement to dissipate, by dismantling establishments and inflicting folks to be unable to inform truth from fiction.

“We lived by means of this within the Philippines underneath Rodrigo Duterte in 2016. It took him six months. I believe our report posits to you that in America, it occurred inside 100 days,” Ressa stated.

She defined that the most important change from 2016 to in the present day is the fusion of State with Huge Tech. The dismantling of security measures on social media, reminiscent of fact-checking applications, which had been demanded by advocates like her, signaled a shift additional away from platform accountability.

In January 2025, Meta introduced that it was scrapping its fact-checking program within the US. It formally ended on April 7, the identical 12 months.

Not an accident

The Nerve cash the “deconstruction mannequin,” the place governance doesn’t function throughout the present democratic framework however features primarily to redefine actuality in a means that destroys constitutional checks and balances on govt energy. This marks a transfer away from the normal “persuasion mannequin,” during which a president’s proposals had been vetted and debated by institutional gatekeepers such because the press, Congress, and the courts, inside a shared public sphere the place legitimacy trusted persuasion and broad consensus.

“What occurred right here with a deconstruction mannequin is the gatekeepers, institutional gatekeepers, the press, Congress, legislature, suppose tanks, the teachers, the entire dialogue that goes round a coverage… is totally thrown out,” Ressa stated.

Within the deconstruction mannequin, every govt order acts as a content material set off, which will get amplified by a decentralized community of influencers. These influencers then reframe the occasion for his or her politically aligned communities, and are in a while strengthened by platform algorithms that reward emotional conduct.

“This isn’t an accident. There’s a deliberate political technique that leverages direct unmediated communication to bypass conventional checks and balances,” Ressa stated.

She referred to the financial mannequin fuelling all these actions on Huge Tech platforms, notably the creator financial system, which gives monetary incentives for many who can deliver in additional engagement and exercise on-line.

Ressa additionally criticized the technological structure of social media platforms, which is designed to reward emotional reactions, and referred to as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg the “greater dictator.”

“He’s not elected. He determines what billions of individuals all over the world see and really feel and influences the way in which we act insidiously,” Ressa stated.

A security situation

Ressa argued that if governments wish to curb the affect of social media corporations, they should cease treating the difficulty primarily as a free-speech debate and as an alternative body it as a matter of public security.

“That is by design dangerous to us,” she stated.

Reiterating the 10-point plan to handle the knowledge disaster she drafted with fellow Nobel laureate, Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, again in 2022, she referred to as to cease surveillance for revenue, cease coded bias, and deal with journalism as an antidote to tyranny.

“As a result of take into consideration the system that Huge Tech created. Social media, first. And now we are able to discuss chatbots individually…. What Huge Tech did is it rewarded telling you every little thing you wish to hear with none guardrails in place,” Ressa stated.

She stated the subsequent part should be rebuilding a shared actuality grounded in details, arguing that solely then can societies maintain civil coverage debates, disagree productively, and proceed studying.

“If we don’t repair the general public data ecosystem, every little thing we do downstream will collapse as a result of we reside in poisonous sludge,” Ressa stated. – Rappler.com

The Nerve printed “First 100 days of Trump 2.0: Narrative warfare and the breakdown of actuality” in January 2026. Obtain the report at no cost.