Report from the Washington Post
In Brief – The State of Florida has filed a civil lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, alleging that ChatGPT was developed and marketed in ways that endanger children while prioritizing profit. The lawsuit follows investigations launched last year by Attorney General James Uthmeier into a 2025 shooting at Florida State University that killed two people and injured six in which the suspected gunman allegedly used ChatGPT to research potential weapons and possible on-campus locations. The civil complaint, filed in state court, accuses OpenAI of violating Florida consumer protection laws and seeks stronger safeguards for children, including enhanced parental controls and greater protection for minors’ data, along with pursuing financial penalties against the company. OpenAI has rejected Florida’s allegations, arguing that ChatGPT merely surfaces information already widely available online and is not responsible for criminal acts committed by users.
Context – When a search engine like Google is used by criminals to find information that they then use to engage in harmful activities, the digital provider has historically been protected from liability in part by Sec. 230 of Communications Decency Act. Potentially more important are recent rulings by the US Supreme Court that digital services providers were not liable for harms caused by users when their general services were used and they were not intentionally designed to promote harmful or illegal acts. Unanimous rulings in Cox v Sony regarding IP piracy and Twitter v Taamneh regarding social media use by terrorists both absolved the platforms of liability for user malfeasance and both were authored by noted Sec. 230 critic Clarence Thomas. However, in oral arguments during the Twitter case, which happened soon after ChatGPT emerged, the application of Sec. 230 to AI chatbots was raised by a skeptical Justice Gorsuch. As civil liability lawsuits emerge as the primary means of circumventing Sec. 230 for social media, the same tactic is quickly being applied to AI services. And don’t discount the prospects of age checks for general online services. They are being applies to internet search in Australia.