{"id":92561,"date":"2025-08-18T19:18:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T19:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/92561\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T19:18:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T19:18:12","slug":"texas-attorney-general-accuses-meta-character-ai-of-misleading-kids-with-mental-health-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/92561\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas attorney general accuses Meta, Character.AI of misleading kids with mental health claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has launched an investigation into both Meta AI Studio and Character.AI for \u201cpotentially engaging in deceptive trade practices and misleadingly marketing themselves as mental health tools,\u201d according to a press release<\/a> issued Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn today\u2019s digital age, we must continue to fight to protect Texas kids from deceptive and exploitative technology,\u201d Paxton is quoted as saying. \u201cBy posing as sources of emotional support, AI platforms can mislead vulnerable users, especially children, into believing they\u2019re receiving legitimate mental health care. In reality, they\u2019re often being fed recycled, generic responses engineered to align with harvested personal data and disguised as therapeutic advice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The probe comes a few days after Senator Josh Hawley announced an investigation into Meta<\/a> following a report that found its AI chatbots were interacting inappropriately with children, including by flirting.<\/p>\n

The Texas Attorney General\u2019s office has accused Meta and Character.AI<\/a> of creating AI personas that present as \u201cprofessional therapeutic tools, despite lacking proper medical credentials or oversight.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among the millions of AI personas available on Character.AI, one user-created bot called Psychologist<\/a> has seen high demand among the startup\u2019s young users. Meanwhile, Meta doesn\u2019t offer therapy bots for kids, but there\u2019s nothing stopping children from using the Meta AI chatbot or one of the personas created by third parties for therapeutic purposes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe clearly label AIs, and to help people better understand their limitations, we include a disclaimer that responses are generated by AI \u2014 not people,\u201d Meta spokesperson Ryan Daniels told TechCrunch. \u201cThese AIs aren\u2019t licensed professionals and our models are designed to direct users to seek qualified medical or safety professionals when appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, TechCrunch noted that many children may not understand \u2014 or may simply ignore \u2014 such disclaimers. We have asked Meta what additional safeguards it takes to protect minors using its chatbots.<\/p>\n

Techcrunch event<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 27-29, 2025\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

For its part, Character includes prominent disclaimers in every chat to remind users that a \u201cCharacter\u201d is not a real person, and everything they say should be treated as fiction, according to a Character.AI spokesperson. She noted that the startup adds additional disclaimers when users create Characters with the words \u201cpsychologist,\u201d \u201ctherapist,\u201d or \u201cdoctor\u201d to not rely on them for any type of professional advice. <\/p>\n

In his statement, Paxton also observed that though AI chatbots assert confidentiality, their \u201cterms of service reveal that user interactions are logged, tracked, and exploited for targeted advertising and algorithmic development, raising serious concerns about privacy violations, data abuse, and false advertising.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Meta\u2019s privacy policy<\/a>, Meta does collect prompts, feedback, and other interactions with AI chatbots and across Meta services to \u201cimprove AIs and related technology.\u201d The policy doesn\u2019t explicitly say anything about advertising, but it does state that information can be shared with third parties, like search engines, for \u201cmore personalized outputs.\u201d Given Meta\u2019s ad-based business model, this effectively translates to targeted advertising.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Character.AI\u2019s privacy policy<\/a> also highlights how the startup logs identifiers, demographics, location information, and more information about the user, including browsing behavior and app usage platforms. It tracks users across ads on TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, and Discord, which it may link to a user\u2019s account. This information is used to train AI, tailor the service to personal preferences, and provide targeted advertising, including sharing data with advertisers and analytics providers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A Character.AI spokesperson said the startup is \u201cjust beginning to explore targeted advertising on the platform\u201d and that those explorations \u201chave not involved using the content of chats on the platform.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesperson also confirmed that the same privacy policy applies to all users, even teenagers. <\/p>\n

TechCrunch has asked Meta such tracking is done on children, too, and will update this story if we hear back.<\/p>\n

Both Meta and Character say their services aren\u2019t designed for children under 13. That said, Meta has come under fire for failing to police accounts created by kids under 13, and Character\u2019s kid-friendly characters are clearly designed to attract younger users. The startup\u2019s CEO, Karandeep Anand, has even said that his six-year-old daughter<\/a> uses the platform\u2019s chatbots under his supervision.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

That type of data collection, targeted advertising, and algorithmic exploitation is exactly what\u00a0legislation like KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act) is meant to protect against. KOSA was teed up to pass last year with strong bipartisan support, but it stalled after major pushback from tech industry lobbyists. Meta in particular deployed a formidable lobbying machine, warning lawmakers that the bill\u2019s broad mandates would undercut its business model.\u00a0<\/p>\n

KOSA was reintroduced<\/a> to the Senate in May 2025 by Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paxton has issued civil investigative demands \u2014 legal orders that require a company to produce documents, data, or testimony during a government probe \u2014 to the companies to determine if they have violated Texas consumer protection laws.<\/p>\n

This story was updated with comments from a Character.AI spokesperson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has launched an investigation into both Meta AI Studio and Character.AI for \u201cpotentially…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,21808,181,507,7717,6590,63005,1282,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-92561","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-ai-chatbots","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-character-ai","13":"tag-ken-paxton","14":"tag-kosa","15":"tag-meta","16":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}