The Federal Trade Commission announced Thursday that it has referred a complaint against Snap Inc. to the Department of Justice, alleging that the company’s AI-powered chatbot is harmful to young users.
Although the complaint was not made public, the commission took the unusual step of announcing a referral because it determined it was in the public interest. Two of the committee members issued a statement opposing the committee’s decision, which was held behind closed doors. One committee member, Andrew N. Ferguson, called the vote a “travesty.”
“While I was not part of the farcical closed-door meeting in which this matter was approved, I am writing this letter to express my opposition to this allegation against Snap,” he said in a statement. .
Ferguson said he could not elaborate on the objections because the complaint is private.
The introduction suggests that the federal government has child safety concerns about AI chatbots that can generate text and images. In 2023, the Santa Monica-based company will release a chatbot called My AI that runs on OpenAI’s technology and can recommend things to see, suggest dinner recipes, and help plan trips. , and perform other tasks.
Ferguson, a Republican nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the FTC, said in a statement that the complaint against Snap has “many problems” and conflicts with the First Amendment.
A Snap spokesperson said in a statement that the company has “rigorous safety and privacy processes” and that the product is “transparent and clear about its capabilities and limitations.”
“Unfortunately, in the final days of the current administration, a divided FTC took no account of these efforts and voted to reject a proposed complaint that was based on inaccuracies and lacked concrete evidence. “We have decided to do so,” he said in a statement. “It also fails to identify any specific harm, exposing it to serious First Amendment concerns.”
The FTC declined to share the complaint, saying it is private at this time.
Snap has faced child safety concerns in the past, including when teens used its app to buy pills laced with deadly fentanyl.
An average of about 443 million people use Snapchat every day, and the service is popular among teenagers.
