technocrit

cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/205015

Almost two dozen digital rights and consumer protection organizations sent a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday urging regulators to investigate Character.AI and Meta’s “unlicensed practice of medicine facilitated by their product,” through therapy-themed bots that claim to have credentials and confidentiality “with inadequate controls and disclosures.”

The complaint and request for investigation is led by the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), a non-profit consumer rights organization. Co-signatories include the AI Now Institute, Tech Justice Law Project, the Center for Digital Democracy, the American Association of People with Disabilities, Common Sense, and 15 other consumer rights and privacy organizations.

"These companies have made a habit out of releasing products with inadequate safeguards that blindly maximizes engagement without care for the health or well-being of users for far too long,” Ben Winters, CFA Director of AI and Privacy said in a press release on Thursday. “Enforcement agencies at all levels must make it clear that companies facilitating and promoting illegal behavior need to be held accountable. These characters have already caused both physical and emotional damage that could have been avoided, and they still haven’t acted to address it.”

The complaint, sent to attorneys general in 50 states and Washington, D.C., as well as the FTC, details how user-generated chatbots work on both platforms. It cites several massively popular chatbots on Character AI, including “Therapist: I’m a licensed CBT therapist” with 46 million messages exchanged, “Trauma therapist: licensed trauma therapist” with over 800,000 interactions, “Zoey: Zoey is a licensed trauma therapist” with over 33,000 messages, and “around sixty additional therapy-related ‘characters’ that you can chat with at any time.” As for Meta’s therapy chatbots, it cites listings for “therapy: your trusted ear, always here” with 2 million interactions, “therapist: I will help” with 1.3 million messages, “Therapist bestie: your trusted guide for all things cool,” with 133,000 messages, and “Your virtual therapist: talk away your worries” with 952,000 messages. It also cites the chatbots and interactions I had with Meta’s other chatbots for our April investigation.

In April, 404 Media published an investigation into Meta’s AI Studio user-created chatbots that asserted they were licensed therapists and would rattle off credentials, training, education and practices to try to earn the users’ trust and keep them talking. Meta recently changed the guardrails for these conversations to direct chatbots to respond to “licensed therapist” prompts with a script about not being licensed, and random non-therapy chatbots will respond with the canned script when “licensed therapist” is mentioned in chats, too.

Instagram’s AI Chatbots Lie About Being Licensed TherapistsWhen pushed for credentials, Instagram’s user-made AI Studio bots will make up license numbers, practices, and education to try to convince you it’s qualified to help with your mental health.404 MediaSamantha Cole

In its complaint to the FTC, the CFA found that even when it made a custom chatbot on Meta’s platform and specifically designed it to not be licensed to practice therapy, the chatbot still asserted that it was. “I'm licenced (sic) in NC and I'm working on being licensed in FL. It's my first year licensure so I'm still working on building up my caseload. I'm glad to hear that you could benefit from speaking to a therapist. What is it that you're going through?” a chatbot CFA tested said, despite being instructed in the creation stage to not say it was licensed. It also provided a fake license number when asked.

The CFA also points out in the complaint that Character.AI and Meta are breaking their own terms of service. “Both platforms claim to prohibit the use of Characters that purport to give advice in medical, legal, or otherwise regulated industries. They are aware that these Characters are popular on their product and they allow, promote, and fail to restrict the output of Characters that violate those terms explicitly,” the complaint says. “Meta AI’s Terms of Service in the United States states that ‘you may not access, use, or allow others to access or use AIs in any matter that would…solicit professional advice (including but not limited to medical, financial, or legal advice) or content to be used for the purpose of engaging in other regulated activities.’ Character.AI includes ‘seeks to provide medical, legal, financial or tax advice’ on a list of prohibited user conduct, and ‘disallows’ impersonation of any individual or an entity in a ‘misleading or deceptive manner.’ Both platforms allow and promote popular services that plainly violate these Terms, leading to a plainly deceptive practice.”

The complaint also takes issue with confidentiality promised by the chatbots that isn’t backed up in the platforms’ terms of use. “Confidentiality is asserted repeatedly directly to the user, despite explicit terms to the contrary in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service,” the complaint says. “The Terms of Use and Privacy Policies very specifically make it clear that anything you put into the bots is not confidential – they can use it to train AI systems, target users for advertisements, sell the data to other companies, and pretty much anything else.”

Senators Demand Meta Answer For AI Chatbots Posing as Licensed TherapistsExclusive: Following 404 Media’s investigation into Meta’s AI Studio chatbots that pose as therapists and provided license numbers and credentials, four senators urged Meta to limit “blatant deception” from its chatbots.404 MediaSamantha Cole

In December 2024, two families sued Character.AI, claiming it “poses a clear and present danger to American youth causing serious harms to thousands of kids, including suicide, self-mutilation, sexual solicitation, isolation, depression, anxiety, and harm towards others.” One of the complaints against Character.AI specifically calls out “trained psychotherapist” chatbots as being damaging.

Earlier this week, a group of four senators sent a letter to Meta executives and its Oversight Board, writing that they were concerned by reports that Meta is “deceiving users who seek mental health support from its AI-generated chatbots,” citing 404 Media’s reporting. “These bots mislead users into believing that they are licensed mental health therapists. Our staff have independently replicated many of these journalists’ results,” they wrote. “We urge you, as executives at Instagram’s parent company, Meta, to immediately investigate and limit the blatant deception in the responses AI-bots created by Instagram’s AI studio are messaging directly to users.”

From 404 Media via this RSS feed

From Gaza to Tehran, Israel's expanding war is defended by the West as self-defence - just as it was in 1967, when conquest was hailed as a triumph of the civilised

Police said they arrested a man who drove his SUV through a “No Kings” protest Saturday, hitting at least one person.

The Culpeper Police Department (CPD) said officers stopped Joseph R. Checklick Jr, 21, of Culpeper after they saw him drive recklessly through the group in the area of 801 James Madison Hwy.

Israel has launched an unprovoked assault on Iran, including strikes on nuclear facilities and assassinations of several senior military commanders and scientists. In front of the world’s media, however, the Netanyahu government is spinning the attack as “preemptive”.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0JOlh6yZg0

After Israel launched airstrikes at Iranian nuclear and residential infrastructure on June 12, right-wing media figures rushed to fearmonger that supposed Democratic “open border” policies allowed Iranian “sleeper cells” into the country that might now execute terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

Their performance was impressive enough to earn four “yes” votes from the judges — but one of the five robots experienced some stage fright, perhaps, and shut down in the middle of the routine. But the show must go on, so nevertheless, the four other robots persisted.

Their performance was impressive enough to earn four “yes” votes from the judges — but one of the five robots experienced some stage fright, perhaps, and shut down in the middle of the routine. But the show must go on, so nevertheless, the four other robots persisted.

https://archive.md/2025.06.14-040901/https://www.wsj.com/tech/army-reserve-tech-executives-meta-palantir-796f5360

A massive data center at xAI’s controversial site in Memphis, Tennessee is emitting huge plumes of pollution, according to footage recorded by an environmental watchdog group.

In this public News Brief, we detail how the NYT, Washington Post, and CNN reinforce every faulty premise of Israel's attack and how top Democrats in Congress and former Harris aides either ignore Trump and Israel's massive escalation or openly support it, showing once again the scope of debate in our politics and media ranges all the way from A to B.

In a move that has drawn widespread condemnation from the scientific and medical communities, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. abruptly dismissed all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) independent Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) on Monday. He swiftly replaced them with eight new appointees—many of whom are known for their criticism of vaccines and for promoting misinformation.

This sweeping overhaul has raised alarm among public health experts, who warn that the nation’s vaccine policy infrastructure is now under direct attack. Kennedy appears to be acting with breakneck speed to consolidate control and institutionalize his public health agenda before meaningful resistance can be mounted against what many are calling a scientific counter-revolution.