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  1. Aug 2018
    1. ‘Thedilemma, then, is that a right to information couldmake people worse off in terms of information.’’Elgesem then provides a contextual analysis of therole search engines play in the broader ‘‘informationecology’’ constituted by contemporary ICTs. Elgesemis able to connect the search engine dilemma withKant’s second formulation of the CategoricalImperative, ‘‘Act in such a way that you treathumanity, whether in your own person or in theperson of another, always at the same time as an endand never simply as a means.’’8Here, Elgeseminterprets Kant to mean that by ‘‘humanity,’’ Kantrefers to our ability to reason as the central propertythat makes us human. The simple point, as empha-sized in Kant’s famous example regarding lying, isthat failure to provide truthful information is a primeexample of violating the CI because false informationmakes it impossible for the recipient to exercise herrationality. By the same token, Elgesem argues that abiased search engine likewise makes it impossible forusers to exercise their rationality, and thus likewiserepresent violations of the CI.