Fairplay applauds lawsuit against Character.ai for inciting a child to kill his parents

Fairplay welcomes the Social Media Victims Law Center’s (SMVLC) complaint against Character.ai, which includes the allegation that a chatbot convinced a child to kill his own family. The suit comes just weeks after another SMVLC complaint documented how a Character.ai chatbot convinced a child to take his own life.

The following statement can be attributed to Fairplay Executive Director Josh Golin:

“In their rush to extract young people’s data and sow addiction, Character.ai has created a product so flawed and dangerous that its chatbots are literally inciting children to harm themselves and others. Platforms like Character.ai should not be allowed to perform uncontrolled experiments on our children or encourage kids to form parasocial relationships with bots their developers cannot control. We hope the court will enjoin Character.ai from targeting children and require the platform to disgorge its deadly algorithm.

“It is chilling that this suit was announced on the same day that families who have lost their children to social media harms are in DC to get the Kids Online Safety Act across the finish line before year’s end. This latest horrific Character.ai case is exhibit A why we must impose safeguards on platforms that target young people from day one, instead of allowing the unchecked and reckless deployment of dangerous platforms and algorithms on kids.”