Texas attorney general accuses Meta, Character.AI of misleading kids with mental health claims

Texas Attorney General Ken Packston Meta has launched an investigation into both AI Studios and characters. “Potentially involved in fraudulent trade practice and misleadly marketed yourself as mental health equipment,” began an inquiry for this, according to this Press release Issued on Monday.

“In today’s digital age, we must continue to fight to protect the children of Texas from the fraudulent and exploitative technology,” said Pacton. “By pose as the source of sensitive support, the AI platforms can confuse weakest users, especially children, they can mislead them to believe that they are receiving legitimate mental health care.

The investigation comes a few days later Senator Josh Hawli Meta announced the investigation Following a report that has been shown that its AI chattabs are inappropriately interacting with kids with flirting.

Texas Attorney General has been charged in the office Meta and Character.A. Creating AI Personas that is “not proper medical certificate or supervision” present as professional therapeutic equipment. ”

In a few million AI people available in character. Psychologist Startup has seen high demand among young users. Meanwhile, meta does not provide therapy bot for kids, but there is nothing to prevent the use of meta AI chatboat among third -party people for children’s therapeutic purposes.

Meta spokesman Ryan Daniels told TechCrunch, “We definitely labeled AIS and to help people better understand their limitations, we include a reaction that is made by AI – not people,” “This AIS licensed professional is not professional and our models are appropriate for appropriate treatment or protection for users.”

However, TechCrunch mentions that many children do not understand – or simply ignore – this national disobedience. We have asked Meta what it takes extra protection to protect the minor’s chatabs.

Paceston further observed in his statement that AI Chatbotts demanded privacy, but expressed the terms of the service that user interaction was logged in, tracked and exploited for target advertisements and algorithmic development, violating privacy, data abuse and false advertising. “

Accordingly Meter’s privacy policyMeta AI collects prompt, response and other interactions to “improve AIS and related technology” with Chatbots and Meta services. The policy does not clearly say about the advertisement, but it mentions that information can be shared with third parties such as search engines for “more personalized output”. Giving Meta’s ad-based business model, it translates effectively into target ads.

Character.A. Privacy policy How startup logs about user, including browsing behavior and applications platforms, highlighting how to identify, demographics, location information and more information about the user. It tracks users throughout advertising on Ticket, YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram and Discord, which can link to a user account. This information is used to train AI, to create a service in personal preferences, and to provide target advertisements, including sharing data with advertisers and analytics suppliers.

TechCrunch has asked Meta and the character I

Both meta and character say that their services were not designed for kids under the age of 13 that said that a police account made by children under the age of 13 fell into the fire of fire, and the character’s baby-friendly characters were clearly designed to attract young users. CEO Six -year -old girl Using the platform’s chatbot.

This type of data is meant to be protected from laws such as collection, target advertising and algorithmical absorption (children’s online security law). Cosa could not pass with strong bilateral support last year, but it was postponed after a big push from the technology industry lobbyists. Meta, especially by deploying a strong lobbying machine, warned lawmakers that Bill’s broad mandals would reduce its business model.

Cosa was re -introduced In May 2025, Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Bloomantal (D-CT) in the Senate.

Packeton Citizens Investigators have issued claims – legal orders require a company to produce documents, data or testimony during the investigation – agencies to determine whether they have violated Texas Customer Protection Act.