California Introduces Bot Banning Bill

AlphaAtlas

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On Friday, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that bans internet bots from pretending they're people. Automated accounts are still permitted, but they'll need to be clearly marked as non-human accounts.

This bill would, with certain exceptions, make it unlawful for any person to use a bot to communicate or interact with another person in California online with the intent to mislead the other person about its artificial identity for the purpose of knowingly deceiving the person about the content of the communication in order to incentivize a purchase or sale of goods or services in a commercial transaction or to influence a vote in an election. The bill would define various terms for these purposes. The bill would make these provisions operative on July 1, 2019.
 
Hello hu-man I am also real person who enjoys people things. Want to see my new vinyl siding? It could be yours too for 10 easy payments [**]
 
This... seems like it's gonna do more harm than good. You still have to deal with the bot that is obviously a bot, but now you get to have one more layer of B.S. to go through to get to a real person.


"This is an automated service, if you understand this press 1, otherwise press 2...... Beep boop bop beep beep.... You have selected 1, if this is correct just stay on the line, otherwise press 2 now..... Beep boop boop bip.... Thank you....."
 
This... seems like it's gonna do more harm than good. You still have to deal with the bot that is obviously a bot, but now you get to have one more layer of B.S. to go through to get to a real person.


"This is an automated service, if you understand this press 1, otherwise press 2...... Beep boop bop beep beep.... You have selected 1, if this is correct just stay on the line, otherwise press 2 now..... Beep boop boop bip.... Thank you....."

Having a hard time understanding your logic. You'd have to do that whether you thought it was a bot or not, the only thing that changes here is you know. Unless I'm reading this wrong, you'd be able to see the bots in a facebook thread.

Wait... are you a bot? :p
 
Random California bill #3223465725.

At least this one is not completely prohibitive to the residents living there (Like mandatory solar panels on all new homes).
 
But automated accounts are still allowed, and that includes representative automated accounts...

Me on social media: "I got corn-holed at work today."
Green Giblet Corn: "And when you say, 'corn' you mean Green Giblet corn! The tastiest, freshest corn, canned or frozen!"
Me: "No, asshole, I mean I got 'corn-holed' - something happened at work I didn't like. I had a bad day."
Green Giblet Corn: "Bad days are made better with Green Giblet corn! And if you haven't 'liked' us yet, you can find us on our Facebook page! We're the most-liked provider of delicious, nutritious American grown corn in the world!"
Me: "Yo... Butt-finch... I'm not talking about corn, I'm talking about getting my ass packed at work. This is not about you. Please leave this conversation and die."
Green Giblet Corn: "Ass-packed corn! Sounds like you're trying to find our recipe section!"
 
On Friday, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that bans internet bots from pretending they're people. Automated accounts are still permitted, but they'll need to be clearly marked as non-human accounts.

This bill would, with certain exceptions, make it unlawful for any person to use a bot to communicate or interact with another person in California online with the intent to mislead the other person about its artificial identity for the purpose of knowingly deceiving the person about the content of the communication in order to incentivize a purchase or sale of goods or services in a commercial transaction or to influence a vote in an election. The bill would define various terms for these purposes. The bill would make these provisions operative on July 1, 2019.
Nanny state
 
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While I appreciate trying to remove bots, exactly how do they plan to regulate or manage something like this. From a technical standpoint do you just continually fine companies that allow botnets or do you do something to actively tag and track bots?
 
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This... seems like it's gonna do more harm than good. You still have to deal with the bot that is obviously a bot, but now you get to have one more layer of B.S. to go through to get to a real person.


"This is an automated service, if you understand this press 1, otherwise press 2...... Beep boop bop beep beep.... You have selected 1, if this is correct just stay on the line, otherwise press 2 now..... Beep boop boop bip.... Thank you....."


It's not the receiver that has to worry about it, it's the company using the bot. They can't pass it off as human.

They are still going to use bot's in the first tier of customer service (companies have been for awhile), they just have to be more clear about it.

A lot of companies pass their support bots off as humans (giving them human names, etc.).
 
Sorry liberals, it's not "Russian bots" that got Donald Trump elected....it's purely a result of your own hypocrisy, entitlement, intolerance and censorship.

Good luck with this lol...
 
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So when I wait 5 minutes on the phone pushing verbal menu buttons, waiting for the chance to push the "speak to a representative" button, the robot's spiel will be extended with extra unnecessary disclaimers.

"Press 1 to hear the disclaimer again."
 
Bot accusations are used to dismiss people. I just heard a story dismissing complaints about The Last Jedi / Solo and their poor revenue as bots. What a fucking joke.

im not so sure im readin that the same way you are there.
 
A cleaner and more transparent social media environment is good. However, I bet that the US government isn't going to like this, as the Pentagon has been requesting white papers for developing advanced social media bots:

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=f393b9220232ea7a1be97a47f0afc429&tab=core&_cview=0

That goal could just be about improving an already-existing army of social media bots that the US government has as part of its gargantuan-sized social media troll farm program that the US government has been operating since 2010. Even in 2010, the US government was using advanced software to tag-team comments sections and have US troll farmers post with many different accounts with each appearing to be from a different location, and with each account having a detailed back-story and supporting details. To me, that already sounds like it involved bot-related tech and isn't ethically any different than bots.


Bot accusations are used to dismiss people. I just heard a story dismissing complaints about The Last Jedi / Solo and their poor revenue as bots. What a fucking joke.

I saw those claims, too, alleging that Russian bots were responsible for bad Star Wars ratings (might be worth noting that I saw it reported by Daily Beast, which participated in the CIA's PropOrNot anti-Russia propaganda and disinformation program). I guess those holding that view would argue Hard Forum is a forum of bots, since the consensus here (and, well, lots of places) is that those movies were pretty awful:

https://hardforum.com/threads/disne...ar-wars-you-can-expect-some-slowdown.1968405/
 
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Seems like this will enshrine into law an obligation that people who make statements online that are even vaguely non-liberal be labeled as bots.
 
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Random California bill #3223465725.

At least this one is not completely prohibitive to the residents living there (Like mandatory solar panels on all new homes).
By definition a new home does not belong to an existing resident, so isnt prohibitive towards the residents. Toward those who want to be residents... maybe, only if they buy said NEW homes
 
Can they also ban using keyboard typing sound clips when talking to a bot on the phone? That doesn't convince me that who I'm talking to is a live person when they repeat information back to me all HURRR DURR sounding.
 
Not so much a "Bot Banning Bill" as a "Banning Bots Pretending To Be Human" bill
 
artificial identity for the purpose of knowingly deceiving the person about the content of the communication in order to incentivize a purchase or sale of goods or services in a commercial transaction


so, will this stop males pretending to be young girls on the internet??
 
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