“Next year, one in three people in the world will vote in a major election, and we have no factual integrity. » A journalist for nearly four decades, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, Maria Ressa was one of the first voices to tirelessly denounce the lack of transparency of social networks, the manipulations that take place there and their impact on democracy and voters. “In 2016, the political domino game began to change,” she recalled this Friday morning in Paris. In May, Rodrigo Duterte was elected [président de la république des Philippines], then, a month later there was Brexit. Then there were all these elections, including Donald Trump’s in November. » So many votes which were marked by manipulation on social networks.
For the American-Filipino journalist, who runs the investigative site Rappler, the current situation is “much worse”. “We are beginning to envision what the world can become. We are currently seeing some of it on social networks, with the violence in the Middle East. »
“Humans above machines”
Maria Ressa was this Friday morning in Paris, at the offices of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), to present a charter of good practices guiding the use of artificial intelligence by newsrooms. Initiated by RSF, this text affirms that “humans must remain central in editorial decisions”.
“Humans above machines,” summarized Maria Ressa on Friday, describing the use made by her media, Rappler, of artificial intelligence. “If you look on our site, every article now can have an AI-generated summary. We deployed it in July, because every media outlet plays with it. If you want to survive, you have to play with this in the background. We did it, but we made a commitment to our employees that we would not lay off people because of AI. »
An opportunity for the media, AI also represents an additional threat for a financially fragile sector. In the United States, Google begins to deploy in its results pages extracts of information formulated with the help of artificial intelligence, no longer encouraging the Internet user to click on a site for more information. “If you are a digital news site, this is the second source of traffic that can die once this feature is deployed,” analyzes Maria Ressa, who points out that Facebook has already practically ended traffic to news sites. news, killing one of the main sources of traffic, and therefore income, for the media.
One of the solutions? “Media must take part in the global governance of AI and defend the viability of journalism when negotiating with technology companies,” reads RSF’s charter. For Maria Ressa, the media can no longer play it alone: “We have to collaborate, collaborate, collaborate. It’s not the old world anymore,” she warns.