MANILA, Philippines  –  A journalist films her boss’s arrest. An officer threatens her, but she keeps her smartphone raised. Maria Ressa opens her new book with this scene from the newsroom of the Philippine news outlet Rappler. The moment captures her understanding of civic courage: fear is part of resistance. What matters is whether people act despite it. This opening immediately establishes the direction of “The Fight Back”—personal, immediate and focused on individual responsibility.

The Philippine journalist and 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate has experienced state intimidation firsthand. As a co-founder of Rappler, she was arrested repeatedly under Rodrigo Duterte’s administration. In “The Fight Back: A Citizen’s Guide to Standing Up to Dictators” she turns that experience into a call for political action. Ten strategic goals and a hundred concrete actions aim to show citizens how they can defend democratic freedoms.

Whoever Controls the Public Sphere Holds Power

Ressa’s starting point is a threefold crisis: reliable information is losing its ability to provide common ground, the international order is under pressure, and powerful actors are escaping meaningful accountability. In her diagnosis, these developments reinforce one another. When a shared factual foundation disintegrates, it becomes harder for people to recognize abuses of power collectively, let alone resist them.

Her juxtaposition of state power and technological power is particularly pointed. Duterte represents the coercive force of the police, the courts and the machinery of government. In her account, Mark Zuckerberg embodies a different kind of power: control over the information that reaches billions of people. Ressa therefore treats platforms as political infrastructure whose design has democratic consequences.

This perspective is persuasive because it places an often underestimated question at the center of the debate: who determines the conditions under which public discourse takes shape? Freedom of expression also depends on whether verifiable information remains visible and independent voices can reach an audience.

From Warning to Practical Resistance

The book follows a clear progression: understand, defend, build. Its chapters move from protecting individuals to defending communities, journalism and institutions, before turning to the development of shared infrastructure. This structure makes clear that Ressa sees democratic resilience as something that must be cultivated on several levels at once.

The review in Kirkus Reviews illustrates how closely her recommendations connect with everyday life. They include limiting the use of a social media app, checking news against additional sources, actively sharing reliable reporting and building personal connections beyond digital platforms.

Here lies a credible strength of her approach. A sweeping diagnosis of crisis can be paralyzing; a manageable action offers a starting point. Yet a citizens’ guide of this kind must also be judged by how individual habits translate into lasting political impact. Less screen time alone will not change ownership structures. Effective action requires organization, resources and institutions capable of channeling civic engagement.

Building a Digital Public Sphere

Ressa goes beyond the idea of individual self-protection. In a book excerpt published in The Atlantic, she describes Rappler’s efforts to build a more independent digital infrastructure: community-based spaces for communication, open technical standards and closer connections between newsrooms and their audiences. Her alternative rests on public responsibility and cooperation.

This is where the project gains particular substance. Anyone who criticizes dependence on major platforms must also explain how other forms of digital public life might function. Rappler’s experience offers a concrete starting point. At the same time, it raises practical questions about how such models can be financed and how they can reach people who already have little trust in journalistic institutions.

The Strength—and Risk—of Sharp Rhetoric

The available opening pages use vivid scenes, direct appeals to the reader and stark contrasts. This language conveys urgency. It also makes clear that Ressa wants to mobilize her readers. Her personal experience lends weight to that ambition.

Precisely for that reason, her terminology deserves scrutiny. Bringing a head of state and a platform entrepreneur together under the label of dictator draws attention to unchecked power, but it can obscure important distinctions. State coercion, economic dependence and algorithmic selection operate differently. An effective response must take those differences into account.

Likewise, a focus on technology should leave room to consider other causes of democratic erosion: economic insecurity, corruption, political alienation and the failures of established parties. Ressa’s perspective is particularly illuminating when understood as an examination of one central mechanism of power.

Hope as a Collective Responsibility

The most compelling idea behind this book project lies in its understanding of hope: it requires people who organize, protect one another and sustain trustworthy institutions. Ressa’s program of action challenges the belief that political developments are inevitable.

“The Fight Back” therefore merits attention above all as an engaged contribution to the debate over how democracies can defend themselves. Its available passages combine journalistic experience with a demanding appeal: to take one’s own capacity to act seriously—and to make it count through collective effort.

Picture: AI Generated

Maria Ressa: “The Fight Back: A Citizen’s Guide to Standing Up to Dictators.” WH Allen, 256 pages. UK edition published on October 15, 2026. www.penguin.co.uk