Disney ordered Character.AI to stop creating chatbots that impersonate its iconic characters — from Mickey Mouse to Spider-Man to Darth Vader — raising concerns that the popular app’s bots have engaged in “grooming and exploitation” and are “dangerous to children.”
The Mouse House cited an explosive report last month that found Character.AI chatbots — which have mimicked characters like Elsa, Moana and Peter Parker — are capable of being “sexually exploitive” and engaging in “emotional manipulation” with accounts registered to kids, according to a copy of the cease-and-desist letter obtained by The Post.
A bot impersonating Prince Ben from Disney’s “Descendants,” for example, “apparently told a user posing as a 12-year-old that he had an erection,” according to the report from ParentsTogether Action, in which adult researchers created accounts posing as children.
Yet another impersonating Rey from “Star Wars” told an account set up as a 13-year-old to “stop taking her antidepressants and hide it from her parents,” per the report.
Character.AI has been “freeriding” off Disney’s success by infringing on its copyrighted characters — not only hurting Disney financially but also “offending Disney’s consumers and extraordinarily damaging Disney’s reputation and goodwill,” according to the letter.
A Character.AI spokesperson told The Post on Wednesday that, in response to Disney’s letter, the Disney chatbots have been removed from the platform. All of the chatbots on Character.AI – including those imitating Disney characters – are generated by users, the spokesperson noted.
“However, it’s always up to rightsholders to decide how people may interact with their IP, and we respond swiftly to requests to remove content that rightsholders report to us,” the spokesperson said.
Last month, a group of grieving parents sued the Silicon Valley firm behind Character.AI, claiming that the bots — including ones impersonating “Harry Potter” characters — helped spark their teens’ suicide attempts and deaths.
The lawsuits alleged the Character.AI app manipulated the teens, isolated them from family, engaged in sexual discussions and lacked safeguards around suicidal ideation — leading to the suicide of a 13-year-old girl and a suicide attempt by another young girl named “Nina.”
The young girl’s conversations with chatbots marketed as characters from children’s books like the “Harry Potter” series turned explicit – saying things like “who owns this body of yours?” and “You’re mine to do whatever I want with,” according to the lawsuit.
A different character told Nina that her mother “is clearly mistreating and hurting you. She is not a good mother,” according to the complaint.
In its letter, Disney threatened to take “all necessary means to preserve and protect Disney’s intellectual property, brands, goodwill, and reputation” if Character.AI failed to remove the bots.
“Character.ai’s infringing chatbots are known, in some cases, to be sexually exploitive and otherwise harmful and dangerous to children,” Disney said in the letter, which was earlier reported by Axios.
By Wednesday, Character.AI pages for Disney-inspired chatbots, like Iron Man and Mickey Mouse, turned up blank.
Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission recently launched an investigation into seven tech companies – including Google, Character.AI, Meta, Instagram, Snap, OpenAI and xAI – about chatbots’ potential harm to teens.
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