Rappler CEO and 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa tells 2,000 One Young World Summit delegates about the importance of speaking truth to power, how to resist the two dictators of our world, and how to fight the algorithms and platforms that threaten to strip us of our agency.
Ressa spoke during the summit’s opening ceremony in Cape Town, South Africa, on November 3, 2026. The event, gathering young leaders from over 190 countries, concluded on November 6.
Here is the complete transcript of Ressa’s speech.
Hello, One Young World!!
February 13, 2019. Manila. The Rappler newsroom.
Plainclothes officers walk in to arrest me. One of our reporters, 24-year-old Aika Rey, raises her phone and begins livestreaming my arrest.
An officer turns to her: “Be silent. Or you’re next.”
Her hand is shaking. But she keeps livestreaming.
Or Pia Ranada – Pia, where are you? Bullied by our dictator, her mic turned off while asking a question. Her voice was shaking. But she kept asking.
That’s what courage looks like. Not the absence of fear. The decision that something matters more.
At Rappler, we were drowning in online attacks. We couldn’t defeat a machinery of lies. It was like playing whack-a-mole. So we stepped out of the virtual line of fire and into the real world.
