Federal judge rules AI chatbots don't have free speech protections — for now

Marketplace All-in-One

Marketplace

News, Business

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There’s a lawsuit right now that’s testing the question of whether AI chatbots are protected by the First Amendment. And before we get into it, a warning that our story today includes discussion of suicide. Marketplace’s Nova Safo spoke with Jane Bambauer, law professor at the University of Florida, who’s been following this case.

Transcript

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1:09.4	Artificial intelligence can talk like a human, so does it have free speech rights?
1:15.3	From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.
1:18.2	I'm Novosafo.
1:36.7	There's a lawsuit right now that's testing that question, and before we get into it, a warning that our story today includes discussion of suicide.
1:46.0	Last year, 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III took his own life after having months of conversations with a chatbot powered by character technologies. That company operates a bunch of character-driven chatbots. Setser's mother, Megan Garcia,
1:53.0	sued, saying her teenage son was engaged in a virtual, emotional, and sexual relationship
1:58.9	with one of those AI characters.
2:01.8	The company moved to have the case dismissed in part on free speech grounds.
2:06.9	But the presiding judge refused, saying character technologies has more work to do to prove that
2:11.6	it enjoys free speech protections.
2:14.7	Here to explain what this means is Jane Bambauer. She's a law professor at the
2:18.2	University of Florida with a focus on the First Amendment and the tech industry. I thought that
	...

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