This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross. Our guest today, Maria Ressa, is an

international journalist who's widely celebrated around the world. She was Time Magazine's person

of the year in 2018, and last year won the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Russian journalist

Dimitri Muratav. But in her home country, the Philippines, Ressa faces multiple criminal charges

in regulatory actions, which could shut down Rappler, the online news organization she heads,

and land her in jail for decades. Rappler drew the anger of President Rodrigo Duterte, known for

his violent campaign against alleged drug users, because the news site did stories about corruption

and cronism, and exposed a web of online disinformation networks with ties to Duterte.

Before co-founding Rappler in 2011, Ressa spent many years covering Southeast Asia for CNN,

breaking important stories about Islamic terrorist networks. Ressa's story isn't just that of a

crusading journalist exposing corruption, though it is that. She's also focused on the role of

social media networks, who she says are weakening democracy, by enabling the rise of online disinformation

and hate mobs in the service of authoritarian rulers around the world. Her new memoir is

How to Stand Up to a Dictator, the fight for our future. Maria Ressa, welcome back to Fresh Air.

I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me again, Dave.

As I said, you are well-known internationally and celebrated in many ways, but in the Philippines,

you face serious legal jeopardy. This is a long and painful story, but if you can kind of

summarize for us, what have you been charged with and so far convicted of?

I don't even know where to begin. The beginning of it, I suppose, was first these charges coming

out on social media, the weaponization of social media, and then a year later, President Duterte

came and said the same thing, top down. And then a week later, we got our first subpoena.

And then shortly after that, that would have been 2017. By 2018, there were 14 investigations.

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