Matthew Bergman calls the First Amendment defense of chatbot grooming repugnant
Matthew P. BergmanFounder of the Social Media Victims Law Center and one of the lawyers for families suing Character.AI, quoted by Bloomberg Law
Matthew Bergman, a lawyer for families suing Character.AI, tells Bloomberg Law that chatbot output is not meant to communicate a person's thoughts. He calls the idea that a minor has a constitutional right to be sexually groomed by a chatbot repugnant to the First Amendment.
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.
“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”
Reporting
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
Reporting
About this source
Bloomberg Law reports on how families' lawsuits against Character.AI and OpenAI raise the question of whether chatbot output is protected speech, with comments from lawyers and scholars on both sides.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
Bloomberg Law reports that developers argue limiting chatbot activity would be an unconstitutional restriction on speech, and that Character.AI argued in the first motion to dismiss filed in these suits that the First Amendment barred all private tort claims. Bergman says chatbot output is not meant to communicate a person's thoughts and calls the technology "purely a process of statistical correlation".
After the quotation
Bergman says a chatbot is designed with some rough parameters and then operates on its own, unlike a programmer using algorithms for a specific speech objective.
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: Bergman calls the claimed constitutional protection for a chatbot's sexual grooming of a minor repugnant to the First Amendment, rejecting the defense. The closest competing label is Challenged characterization; it loses because he goes beyond disputing whether the output is speech and rejects the protection the defense claims.
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More from this case
Read the full caseNita 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
Blumenthal says the First Amendment does not cover a chatbot service sold for profit
“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.”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. "Matthew Bergman calls the First Amendment defense of chatbot grooming repugnant". First published: 2026-11-10. Last updated: 2026-11-10. https://disputeindex.com/events/8567-matthew-bergman-a-lawyer-for-families-suing-character