A Prompt For Free Speech
Background
Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak has been imprisoned, and silenced, longer than any other journalist in the world. Over the 21 years that have passed, many efforts have been made to set him free but to no avail. Each year, the silence regarding his situation grows, posing a direct threat to free speech. For this year’s World Press Freedom Day, Pressbyrån, Sweden’s biggest newspaper retailer partnered up with Reporters Without Borders to highlight the issue.
Idea
To reignite public opinion regarding Isaak’s situation, we had to push the boundaries. By using AI technology combined with over 36 000 words written by Dawit Isaak before his imprisonment in 2001, we recreated Dawit Isaak’s journalistic voice and set it free.
Execution
Using AI in journalism is a sensitive and controversial subject, so we hit where it hurt to make sure that Dawit's fate was publicly debated. On World Press Freedom Day, we published the AI-generated editorial article in Dawit Isaak's name in Sweden's largest daily newspaper, Expressen. Reaching 64% of the Swedish population (over 16 yrs) all at once, to make sure that the fate of Dawit is not forgotten. And a controversial reminder that we must never take free speech for granted.
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