When Xander first met Moxie, the robot taught him how to calm down when he was anxious or angry. Six years later, he mostly watches it while playing Minecraft and talks to it about his stuffed animals. Moxie is a 15-inch-tall device that looks like a legless blue astronaut, part of a subset of robots designed to assist neurodivergent children by providing them connection and helping them practise social skills they typically learn from therapists.
Xander still uses Moxie when he feels he needs someone to talk to, but the device has had a troubled life. The robot's manufacturer went bankrupt, its servers shut down, and parents rushed to convert their Moxie devices before the servers went offline. The story exposes the promises and risks of artificial intelligence companion toys for children.
The idea of an "industrial censorship complex" moved from the margins of far-right online discourse into American politics. The theory holds that, under the pretext of combating misinformation, government agencies, academics, civil society groups and technology platforms have worked together to suppress conservative and populist speech online. It has now reached the Trump administration.
Over the past nine months, MIT Technology Review investigated its rise. At a recent Roundtables session, senior reporter Eileen Guo and executive editor Amy Nordrum revealed what they discovered, where the theory is heading and what it could mean for the future of democracy and the internet.
