Disinformation, Dictators & Democracy: Maria Ressa & Ronald Deibert

Maria Ressa, Ronald Deibert, Margaret Atwood and Nahlah Ayed

Disinformation, Dictators & Democracy: Maria Ressa & Ronald Deibert

Maria Ressa, Ronald Deibert, Margaret Atwood and Nahlah Ayed

8:00pm

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

The Toronto International Festival of Authors, in partnership with PEN Canada and CBC Radio’s IDEAS, presents Nobel Peace prize laureate Maria Ressa (author of How to Stand Up to a Dictator, being released November 2022) in conversation with Citizen Lab founder Ronald Deibert on the topic of defending freedom of expression and human rights.

Margaret Atwood will provide the introduction to the evening’s subject, one of the most critical challenges of our time: the link between disinformation and the decay of our democracies.

Both featured speakers have urgent knowledge of these issues: Maria Ressa as a trailblazing investigative journalist targeted by the Philippine government for exposing its human rights abuses, misinformation, and corruption; and Ronald Deibert as director of the internationally recognized Citizen Lab, a Canadian multidisciplinary facility conducting research into cyber espionage, Internet censorship, and human right violations online.

Their conversation, moderated by CBC IDEAS’ Nahlah Ayed, will be the second annual PEN Canada Graeme Gibson talk, a series founded in 2021 to honour the legacy of renowned Canadian author and writers’ advocate, Graeme Gibson (1934-2019).

Ticket Info:
Date & Time: September 27 at 8pm ET
Where: Fleck Dance Theatre
Duration: 60 minutes
Ticket prices: $24 – Regular; $12 – Youth; or Get a TIFA Pass

This event is supported by its founding sponsor Penguin Random House, with generous support from Indigo and will be recorded by CBC Radio IDEAS. It is produced in partnership by the Toronto International Festival of Authors and CBC Radio IDEAS.

TIFA Logo     PEN Canada Logo       CBC Ideas logo with radio for the mind tagline        Penguin Random House Canada     Indigo logo

The Toronto International Festival of Authors, in partnership with PEN Canada and CBC Radio’s IDEAS, presents Nobel Peace prize laureate Maria Ressa (author of How to Stand Up to a Dictator, being released November 2022) in conversation with Citizen Lab founder Ronald Deibert on the topic of defending freedom of expression and human rights.

Margaret Atwood will provide the introduction to the evening’s subject, one of the most critical challenges of our time: the link between disinformation and the decay of our democracies.

Both featured speakers have urgent knowledge of these issues: Maria Ressa as a trailblazing investigative journalist targeted by the Philippine government for exposing its human rights abuses, misinformation, and corruption; and Ronald Deibert as director of the internationally recognized Citizen Lab, a Canadian multidisciplinary facility conducting research into cyber espionage, Internet censorship, and human right violations online.

Their conversation, moderated by CBC IDEAS’ Nahlah Ayed, will be the second annual PEN Canada Graeme Gibson talk, a series founded in 2021 to honour the legacy of renowned Canadian author and writers’ advocate, Graeme Gibson (1934-2019).

Ticket Info:
Date & Time: September 27 at 8pm ET
Where: Fleck Dance Theatre
Duration: 60 minutes
Ticket prices: $24 – Regular; $12 – Youth; or Get a TIFA Pass

This event is supported by its founding sponsor Penguin Random House, with generous support from Indigo and will be recorded by CBC Radio IDEAS. It is produced in partnership by the Toronto International Festival of Authors and CBC Radio IDEAS.

TIFA Logo     PEN Canada Logo       CBC Ideas logo with radio for the mind tagline        Penguin Random House Canada     Indigo logo

Featured Authors

Maria Ressa
Maria Ressa is the co-founder, CEO of Rappler.com, an online news organization in the Philippines. Maria, one of TIME’s Person of the Year for 2018 and TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in 2019, has been honored around the world for her courageous and bold work in fighting disinformation, “fake news”, and attempts to silence the free press. A journalist for over 35 years, Maria has been arrested on 10 charges related to exposing the Duterte government’s corrupt practices and was convicted of cyber-libel in June. She is out on bail pending her appeal but true to form, Ressa, vows to keep fighting. Maria was featured in the 2020 documentary A Thousand Cuts, which profiles her fearless reporting on the abuses of Duterte’s presidency, while also illustrating social media’s capacity to deceive and entrench political power. Maria now travels the world speaking to organizations of all kinds on freedom of the press, democracy, and corporate governance.

Read more about Maria Ressa

Ronald Deibert
Ronald J. Deibert is professor of Political Science and director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto. The Citizen Lab undertakes interdisciplinary research at the intersection of global security, information and communications technologies, and human rights. The research outputs of the Citizen Lab are routinely covered in global media, including more than two dozen reports that received exclusive front-page coverage in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other global media over the last decade. Deibert is the author of Black Code: Surveillance, Privacy, and the Dark Side of the Internet, as well as numerous books, chapters, articles, and reports on internet censorship, surveillance, and cybersecurity.

Read more about Ronald Deibert

Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning TV series, her novels include Cat’s Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize; The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam; and Hag-Seed. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award. In 2019, she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature.

Read more about Margaret Atwood

Nahlah Ayed
Nahlah Ayed, the host of CBC Radio’s Ideas, is an award-winning veteran foreign news reporter who spent nearly a decade in the Middle East covering the region's many conflicts, and later in London where she covered major stories from Russia's annexation of Crimea, Europe's refugee crisis; and the Brexit vote and its fallout. In 2012, her memoir, A Thousand Farewells: A Reporter's Journey From Refugee Camp to the Arab Spring, was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award. Nahlah was born and raised (mostly) in Winnipeg, Canada.

Read more about Nahlah Ayed

8:00pm

Tuesday, September 27

What to read

Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society by , From Bin Laden to Facebook by , Burning Questions: Essays And Occasional Pieces, 2004-2021 by ,
To top