I think the author is placing too much emphasis on the moral/ethical interpretation of free speech, and not enough on the legal implications, which are the only

I think the author is placing too much emphasis on the moral/ethical interpretation of free speech, and not enough on the legal implications, which are the only ones that really matter here. That concluding statement, that we are elevating machines above humans by "allowing" them free speech, seems to be intended to incite fears of some sort of AI robots demanding rights and liberties. In fact, the only reason questions of free speech for machines arise (at least until the singularity) is for reasons like the one in the Google case, in which it made perfect sense to classify the search results as free speech.