Maria Ressa

“Constitutionally you can't have a law go retroactively.”

“So a lie told a million times becomes the truth.”

“Now technology gives you a chance to help organize. You don't have to wait for either the inefficiency or the corruption. You don't have to wait for government. You can actually self-organize and build institutions bottom up.”

“A Princeton education sets you up for life: you have learned how to learn, and at a time when technology has changed everything, you will constantly have to learn.”

“If I lose these tax-evasion cases and others filed by the Philippine government, I could go to jail for 10 to 15 years.”

“Any journalist who asked critical questions, anyone on social media who questioned about the extrajudicial killings was bombarded with abuse, threats of violence death threats from trolls and bots and these fake Facebook accounts.”

“In a war zone you know exactly where the threats are coming from. I plan my way in and we plan our way out and you're there for a limited period of time.”

“I'm not a politician; I'm a journalist.”

“Press freedom is the foundation of the rights of all Filipinos to the truth.”

“Don't be afraid - if you don't exercise your rights, you will lose them.”

“I'm not a criminal but I've been fingerprinted like a criminal.”

“Technology enabled Rappler's fast growth starting in 2012, but we were also among the first victims when social media was weaponized in 2016.”

“I would give back every single award to be able to actually do our jobs as journalists without this kind of harassment.”

“I landed in New Jersey, where I could barely speak English, and I had to figure out what a short brown kid was going to do in this big white world.”

“Journalism has a check-and-balance effect to those in power, and those in power submitted themselves to it.”

“The seed idea for Rappler really is looking at information cascades. If you think about it, the end goal - when I was raising money for Rappler, I didn't talk about investigative journalism, even though that's our core.”

“In a weird way, I'm a good target for the government, because I can push back.”

“The social media platforms have taken over the distribution of news globally. They treat a lie the same way you would treat a fact.”

“We know firsthand how social media and the law have been weaponized against perceived critics of the Duterte administration. We've been reporting on it from the start.”

“Investigative journalism is never mass-based; it's very focused, and you want people who are passionate about it to take it.”