Free speech for humans (not bots).
William Hague, the former Conservative MP, highlights Yuval Noah Harari’s compelling proposal to address the challenges of reducing misinformation’s dangerous impact without censoring views:
Harari’s solution is to be clear that free speech is for humans, not for automated bots or algorithmic programmes that are designed to turn us against each other. If, he argues, a group of people were standing in the street discussing politics when some robots approached them, entering the discussion and spreading unfounded rumours, the people would give them very short shrift. Yet in the online world we allow robots to speak to us as equals, believe what they say and let them choose most of what we hear. He offers two solutions. One is to “ban the bots”, passing laws to prohibit any attempt by a non-human agent to pass itself off as human.
