{"data":{"id":58,"attributes":{"title":"How To Stand Up To A Dictator","description":null,"url":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60323155-how-to-stand-up-to-a-dictator","review":"

update december 2023: with the genocide happening in Palestine, I am disappointed with Maria Ressa's stance. As someone who encourages us \"to hold the line\", she easily sided with the opressor.

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Maybe I should've picked something up about this when she was talking about terrorism in her book but unfortunately I was still in the process of educating myself. I do believe there's a lot of things to get from this book, specifically our own government and the online disinformation happening in our country. But right now, it's just too much to find out that the Nobel peace prize winner for journalism in 2021 is pro USA and pro zionism.

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Changed my rating to 1/5

If I am being honest, Maria Ressa's bravery just shows my own privilege and cowardice. She has made a change in our world and she fought against the biggest of Goliaths. She had her reputation destroyed by fake news overnight, was arrested 10 times with false claims, and was convicted for cyber libel. Our government (Duterte administration) exhausted their resources to scare her or take her down because her team at Rappler was the first to do extensive research on the use of Facebook by politicians to spread disinformation. And in comparison, here I am, scared of making a too loud noise that will be heard by these trolls. Scared of the day they find my tiktok account talking about books with unjust governments.

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This was a little harder to digest for me because there was a lot of information (or I am experiencing brain fog from wedding planning 💅🏼). From historical events not the just in the Philippines, to important names that either helped Maria Ressa on her fight or did nothing. Before the troll attacks, as a journalist she witnessed and shared her experiences building news teams in Southeast Asian countries for CNN, as ABC CBN's head of news division, during the attempted coups against Cory Aquino, Arroyo's corruption, terrorist groups in Southeast Asia, and more.

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I learned that she has done a lot in terms of putting into light the disinformation network and how our country was the ground zero for this. Rappler has done extensive research way before private citizens like us was aware of these trolls. She had talked to Facebook again and again asking for help that it is bad for our country's democracy (but of course Facebook chose money 💸). She has data to back up everything she was reporting. It was never fear mongering or propaganda against our current government. I guess I didn't know what to expect really, and come to think of it, I only knew Maria Ressa from the news of her arrests and from the memes. I had no idea back then and didn't care too. Reading this just solidifies she deserve the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to her in 2021. I feel like I just keep on repeating myself but: Maria Ressa has done so much to hold the line for our fragile democracy.

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What a brave woman with undeniable work ethic. She is the kind of person I am looking to work for my whole career.

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After everything, I am glad that she did not go through it all alone. She had her team, specially her 3 other Rappler co founders, who stuck by her even when it got really hard and expensive. They are real journalists. Also, love to see women supporting women 😍.

","dateStarted":"2023-05-24","dateEnded":"2023-05-28","recommend":true,"createdAt":"2023-05-01T03:12:33.250Z","updatedAt":"2023-12-13T04:28:06.898Z","publishedAt":"2023-05-01T03:12:44.661Z","rating":2,"buy":null,"author":[{"name":"Maria Ressa","link":"https://www.rappler.com/author/maria-a-ressa/"}],"themes":["Journalism after Marcos (Sr) was ousted","credibility destroyed by fake news propaganda","the disinformation network in the Philippines","the government attacks against Maria Ressa and Rappler","journalism in countries with corrupt government"],"recommendTo":["interests with our country's🇵🇭 politics"],"recommendSimilar":[{"name":"The Conjugal Dictatorship","authors":[{"name":"Primitivo Mijares","link":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitivo_Mijares"}],"reason":"FEM and Imelda's corruption, written by their previously trusted media czar"},{"name":"Trolls For Sale","authors":[{"name":"Jonathan Corpus Ong","link":"https://www.umass.edu/communication/node/1525"}],"reason":"summary of a research on trolls in the Philippines"}],"triggerWarnings":null,"longTitle":"How To Stand Up To A Dictator: The Fight For Our Future","ratingSpice":null,"ratingTears":1,"ratingHumor":null,"ratingCover":4,"translator":null,"originalLanguage":null,"writtenWith":null}},"meta":{}}