Effective July 1, bots in California will have to identify themselves before chatting you up. Gov. Jerry Brown signed the new bill which makes it illegal for bots to pretend to be real in order to “incentivize a purchase or sale of goods or services in a commercial transaction or to influence a vote in an election.”
And don’t think these bots can play it fast and loose, or use some loophole to get around this. The bill states that their acknowledgment of being a bot must be “clear, conspicuous, and reasonably designed,” so make sure to check the bio for any Twitter and Facebook account that yells at you about politics, gamergate, SJWs, and The Great British Bake Off.
The bill is a response to election meddling and online accounts that did, or tried to influence people. These bots were a real problem during the 2016 election where many people didn’t understand what bots were, or that they may have been designed to cause a ruckus.
That said, the bill probably isn’t going to do much to people that like causing mayhem aren’t going to stop simply because California has spoken up. Most of these bots are from outside the country or being spoofed from servers from around the world.
What will happen is that those legitimate organizations that use chatbots will now make it clear that you are not talking with a real person. So, as is the case in so many cases, the people already abiding by the law will have another hurdle to jump through while online assholes will keep going like business as usual.
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