The democratisation of access to online media tools is driving a transformation of human discourse that is disrupting freedom of thought. This shift in the flow of thought is being encoded into a global infrastructure dominated by commercial platform companies whose operations co-opt individual, collective and governmental agency.

In this policy brief, the aurthor argues that attempts to govern these tools are relying on “yesterday’s logic.” The new logic, largely unrecognised, relates to acceleration of word-of-mouth propagation, much like rumouring, putting the listener’s freedom of impression, rather than the speaker’s freedom of expression, at the fore.

The author writes that governance is needed to restore individual and community agency, which could re-energise the vision of technology as “bicycles for our minds,” enabling individuals and society to flourish and maintain resilience in an increasingly challenging world.