Character.AI's New Parental Controls Are Comically Easy for Kids to Bypass

Character.AI, the controversial chatbot startup embroiled in two separate lawsuits concerning the welfare of minor users, just rolled out a new "Parental Insights" feature that the company claims will give parents a deeper glimpse into how their kids are using the chatbot platform. In a blog post on Tuesday, the youth-beloved Character.AI characterized the feature as an "initial step" towards developing robust safety and parental control tools. Let's hope so: this tool appears to be absurdly easy for teens to bypass, and it's unclear how much "insight" it will really offer parents. The feature is pretty simple. An underage Character.AI user can switch on Parental Insights by heading to their account "preferences" tab. There, they're prompted to enter one or several emails belonging to parents and guardians, who will receive a weekly email that updates them on their child's "daily average time spent on the platform across both web and mobile"; a list of the "top characters their teen ... Read full article.