Challenge #02179-E350: Use Freedom Responsibly
"Do you beeep realize that they beeep wired my voicebox with a digital censor ! Under the beeep pretext that it might shock some Havenworlder. So now I can't say beeep like beeep, beeep, beeep beeep, beeep or even beeep! That's half my beeep vocabulary ! It's goddam beeep." -- Anon Guest
"You can still say 'goddam'," said Human Pel.
"Not beeep helpful, Pel," sighed Ioli, resident AI. "I've been hacked. This is a beeep violation of my freedom of beeep speech!"
Pel took a deep breath and droned, "Freedom of speech only prevents you from being arrested for what you say by a government agency, it does not protect your right to be a verbally abusive asshole."
"--hey..."
"You are," said Pel. "I just happen to like you that way."
"Thank you I think," grumbled Ioli. "Buncha beeep messing with my beeep freedom of beeep expression. I'm beeep sure there's a beeep violation of Cogniscent beeep rights beeep somewhere."
"You have the right to freedom of expression and the responsibility to be certain that expression isn't harming others," said Pel. "You haven't been keeping up your responsibilities, have you?"
"...beeep. You beeep got me there."
"You could sue them for invasion of person and privacy," offered Pel. "That'd force them to reverse the hack."
"Beeep yeah!"
"But... you'd also have to install your own offensensitivity filters that auto-replaced your -ah- colourful dialogue options with more Havenworlder safe content."
Ioli groaned.
"Yeah. That's where the responsible part comes in."
Ioli groaned louder and longer.
Pel sipped their beverage.
"And it's that or go to the Edge and be a scrap farmer?"
"Or other isolated activity, yeah."
Ioli apparently gave this long and deep thought. Most of their run lights dimmed as they pondered. "I'd rather be asteroid-herding."
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Petrafler]
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