During the 2016 election, certain Russian operatives used fake social media profiles to influence voters and also created bot accounts to add likes to and share posts across the internet. And more recently, in January 2019, the New York Attorney General and Office of the Florida Attorney General announced settlements with certain entities that sold fake social media engagement, such as followers, likes and views. Moreover, many of the social media platforms have had recent purges of millions of fake accounts. Thus, it’s clear that bots and automated activity on social media platforms has been on everyone’s radar…including state legislators’ too.
Indeed, California passed a chatbot disclosure law (SB-1001) last September that makes it unlawful for persons to mislead users about their artificial bot identity in certain circumstances, and it is only now coming into effect on July 1st. In essence, the purpose of law was to inform users when they are interacting with a virtual assistant or chatbot or automated social media account so that users could change their behavior or expectations accordingly. Entities that may interact online or via mobile applications with their customers regarding commercial transactions via a chatbot on their own website or automated account on another platform should certainly take note of the new California law’s disclosure requirements.