A new state bill could lead to a spike in censorship from artificial intelligence.
New York bill A222A, introduced Jan. 8 by Assemblyman Clyde Vanel (D), relates to assigning “liability for false information” which results in harm stemming from the use of AI chatbots. There is also a state Senate version of the bill (S5668). Under the guise of protecting minors, the bill, an amendment to a business law, generally and ominously enforces penalties for chatbots that supposedly provide “misleading,” “contradictory,” or otherwise “harmful” information. These vague, amorphous terms could easily be weaponized by New York lawmakers to demand censorship of any information they don’t like, conceivably leading proprietors of AI chatbots to enact more harsh and biased censorship.
The chatbot bill forbids companies from disclaiming liability if a “chatbot provides materially misleading, incorrect, contradictory or harmful information to a covered user that results in financial loss or other demonstrable harm to a covered user.” If information provided by the chatbot results in “bodily harm … including but not limited to any form of self-harm,” the company or “proprietor” shall be held liable. Companies can choose to take action against the supposed harm to avoid penalties. The law that would be amended by the bill is New York’s General Business Law.
Thus the bill to protect minors has been tainted with a measure which could easily be weaponized to demand censorship. The left has consistently demanded censorship of opinions and facts with which they disagree, by labeling the opinions and facts as mis-, dis-, and mal-information, or misleading content. For instance, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Rep. Joseph D. Morelle (D-NY) recently wrote to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in a furor over the Trump administration’s free speech reforms at the agency, insisting that “election mis- and disinformation” necessitated the continuance of the agency’s censorship efforts.
During the 2024 vice presidential debate, Democrat candidate Tim Walz defended his previous false assertion that “there’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech” by using the debunked legal standard claiming Americans can’t “yell fire in a crowded theater.”
Pushing censorship, it appears, has become par for the course for those on the left. So it comes as little surprise that state assembly members and senators in Democrat-run New York are following the anti-free speech example of national lawmakers.
AI chatbots have been programmed to censor free speech numerous times in the past. For instance, in December 2023, Google admitted that its Gemini would have strict “bias and toxicity” restrictions. Also, Glenn Beck and a friend in January caught Chinese AI DeepSeek censoring and rewriting history about Chinese Communist Party atrocities in real time.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
