California has passed a law tell that people must be tell if they are talk to a bot or a human online .
The law , which sound into effect on July 1 , 2019 , was signed by Governor Jerry Brown on Friday , September 28 . It will lend oneself to companies who operate online Old World chat services , where a bot can ply assistance to customer .
However , the law of nature – SB 1001 – is intended to tackle commercial and political bots , that seek to swing the opinions of people online . This includes bot used on societal medium platforms like Twitter and Facebook .
“ SB 1001 sheds light on the fake story that simulate substantial hoi polloi and spread wave of false info across societal media platforms . ”
Per the law , any bot used online will have to clear tell that they are indeed a bot . This will include accounts like , say , theEndless Screamingbot on Twitter , which tells us how far through the year we are .
But it also looks like there will be a knock - on effect on customer chatbots , perhaps unintended . Speaking toQuartz , an expert said the impact on those had not yet been fully worked out , and some face of how the jurisprudence would be carry out stay obscure .
“ The bill was really drop a line around social medium accounts , Twitter and Facebook bots in special , ” sound out Carl Landers , chief marketing officer of colloquial bot maker , Conversica .
“ [ We ’re ] still studying that to figure out what the encroachment might be on a website chatbot or an email bot in our type . ”
Online bots have been a large problem over the last distich of years , after it was found they had beenused maliciouslyto sway the results of the 2016 US Presidential Election .
Twitter announced plans tocrack down on botsearlier this year , saying it had blocked 1000000 of mistrustful accounts . But bots remain ever - present , so California ’s law would be another step towards reducing their impingement .
However , in July this twelvemonth , Jeremy Gillula from the Electric Frontier Foundation was quote by theNew York Timesas saying the law would “ have a lot of collateral impairment at the same time . ”
head remain about how it will be put through – will societal medium profile have to clearly tell if they are a bot ? All we can say for now is long inhabit the humans . Death to bots . That ought to do it .
