What would you tell your fellow transit travelers with eight characters? Senior TTC management doesn’t want to know.

They’re so worried about it, they’ve refused to open a $500,000 interactive public art installation as it is — even though it was already approved and paid for — at a new subway station out of concern it could be used for “hate speech or other misuse.”

The installation at the new Pioneer Village station, called LightSpell, serves as functional lighting and allows transit users to immediately display messages throughout the station using one of five interfaces installed on the platform.

The installation is “an experiment of the freedom of speech of the individual versus the influence of the group,” Jan Edler, a co-founder of realities:united, the German art studio behind the project.

“You can not only enter text anonymously, but you can also override and erase text anonymously. The censoring of inappropriate content if there is any is not done through an automated system but is being organized or is supposed to be organized by the group of people in the station,” he said.

“It’s a social interaction piece.”

Edler said he was surprised to hear from the TTC shortly before the station opening earlier this month that the art piece would not be inaugurated at the same time.

The transit commission has concerns “about hate speech and the potential for the installation to be misused by some,” said Stuart Green, a spokesperson for the TTC.

“We support free speech, not hate speech,” he said.

While the art piece was already approved by the TTC, and the $500,000 price tag paid for, Green said the current senior management was only made aware of the LightSpell installation’s “potential for hate speech and misuse” recently.

Those concerns, including whether the TTC would have responsibility for any content displayed, were discussed “quite thoroughly” throughout the process, including with TTC lawyers, Edler said.

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It was agreed the mechanism that allowed others to erase messages was “an appropriate” way to address those concerns, he added.

While Green said the TTC has spoken with the artists to try to find a compromise that both “honours their concept while recognizing that the TTC has an obligation and responsibility to provide a safe and welcoming environment for all,” no agreement has been reached at this point.

The installation won’t be turned on until they do, he said, adding that the issue will come before the TTC board in January if no solution is found before then.

Edler, meanwhile, said “the discussion with the TTC shows the relevance of the theme — how is opinion and freedom of speech possible in public spaces and how does the group react, how does our society react?”