On Kant, the Formula of Humanity; O'Neill on digital communication and epistemic agency.
Three presuppositions
O'Neill applies Kantian ethics to modern communication. All communication requires three things: accessibility — it reaches its recipients; intelligibility — a shared language or set of symbols; and assessability — the ability to check, verify or challenge what is claimed.
She cites Socrates in the Phaedrus, warning that written text "roams about everywhere" detached from its author, which makes it hard for a reader to assess its context or its truth. Digital communication magnifies that detachment enormously.
Silicon Valley's ethos of moving fast and breaking things discarded the traditional intermediaries — editors, publishers — and the accountability that came with them, the published imprint among others. Because platforms operate as common carriers rather than publishers, anonymous actors can target users with manipulation that cannot be traced back.
O'Neill's conclusion is that trying to prevent unpredictable online harms is inadequate; governance should enforce epistemic norms instead — honesty, accuracy, transparency, accountability.
The formula of humanity
So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.
Most objects and tools have a relative value, a price, because they serve some external desire. Rational beings have absolute, intrinsic worth: dignity. We rely on other people constantly, but we must never treat them solely as instruments. Because dignity is rooted in rationality, the principle commands respect for every person's capacity for rational self-determination — which is why deception and coercion violate it directly. Both override someone's decision-making and use their reason as an instrument for somebody else's end.
Which gives a primary test for a system or a platform: is it respecting people as rational agents, or treating them as a means to extract data, amplify outrage and drive advertising revenue?