Blumenthal says the First Amendment does not cover a chatbot service sold for profit
Richard BlumenthalU.S. senator from Connecticut and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioning witnesses at a subcommittee hearing
Sen. Richard Blumenthal tells parents testifying at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing that the companies they are suing have raised the First Amendment among their defenses, and says a service offered for profit is not a First Amendment privilege of free expression.
Responding to
The First Amendment bars Megan Garcia's claims against Character.AI because they would impose liability for expressive content that the platform's users have a right to receive.
“And I know one of the defenses offered here in response to your litigation is, well, it's not a product, it's a service. So we're not liable under the laws that relate to product liability. They got other defenses like the First Amendment. Well, this is a service offered for profit. It's not a First Amendment privilege of free expression.”
Original text
Where this statement fits
Character.AI argues the First Amendment bars a lawsuit blaming its chatbot for a teen's suicide
Character.AI argued in federal court that the First Amendment bars a lawsuit blaming its chatbot for a 14-year-old's suicide, because the claims target speech its users have a right to receive. The mother's lawyers argued that the chatbot's output is not protected speech. A judge declined to treat it as speech at an early stage, and the case later settled.
Source and context
Original text
About this source
The printed record of the September 16, 2025 hearing, published by the Government Publishing Office. It includes Megan Garcia's spoken testimony and senators' questions to the parents and experts on the panel.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
Blumenthal questions a panel that includes Megan Garcia at a September 16, 2025 hearing on harms from AI chatbots. Garcia testified earlier in the hearing that Character.AI had argued the chatbot messages her son received are protected by the First Amendment. Blumenthal says AI is a product like a toaster or an automobile.
After the quotation
He compares the chatbots to a car with defective brakes, says the issue is not censorship, and says the person who designed, made and profited from such a product ought to be accountable.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
The reference point is Character.AI's argument that the First Amendment bars tort claims seeking to hold it liable for its chatbots' output. Condemned: Blumenthal rejects the First Amendment defense raised in the parents' litigation, saying a service offered for profit is not a privilege of free expression. The closest competing label is Challenged characterization; it loses because he rejects the defense's application to the claims rather than a description used in it.
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More from this case
Read the full caseMatthew Bergman calls the First Amendment defense of chatbot grooming repugnant
“the idea that a minor has a constitutional right to be subjected to sexual grooming by a mechanistic predator, to me, is repugnant to everything that the First Amendment stands for”Read statement
Nita Farahany says chatbot output should be neither unprotected nor absolutely protected
“But here we reach an uncomfortable paradox. To argue that certain AI outputs lack First Amendment protection risks catastrophic consequences for free speech. ... Yet the opposite extreme, which is absolute First Amendment protection for all AI outputs, leaves us defenseless against systems deliberately engineered to erode our cognitive autonomy.”Read statement
Megan Garcia asks Congress to rule out the First Amendment as a defense for chatbot harms to children
“we know that tech companies will continue to invoke the First Amendment as a shield—insisting that they must be able to continue to design chatbots that can send harmful, sexually explicit, and obscene messages to minors because their users want such experiences. ... Make clear that the First Amendment cannot be twisted into a defense for child exploitation through AI products”Read statement
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The Dispute Index. "Blumenthal says the First Amendment does not cover a chatbot service sold for profit". First published: 2026-11-10. Last updated: 2026-11-10. https://disputeindex.com/events/8566-sen-richard-blumenthal-tells-parents-testifying-at-a