A new piece of legislation in the United States is taking aim at online bots that pretend to be people. According to the reporting, a bipartisan bill called the Stealth Bot Prohibition Act would set new rules for automated programs that operate across the internet. The measure was presented as a bipartisan push, meaning it has support from both sides of the aisle.
The bill lays out several specific requirements. According to the reporting, it would establish transparency standards, mandate purpose disclosure, ban deceptive stealth bots, authorize FTC enforcement, protect digital infrastructure and safeguard original content. Together, these provisions are meant to bring more accountability to how bots interact online.
Supporters stressed that the bill is not aimed at ordinary online tools. According to the reporting, Congresswoman Laurel Lee drew a distinction between stealth bots and the web crawlers that people are used to and accustomed to. She said what the bill is really trying to do is crack down on stealth bots that are impersonating humans.
The core concern is bots that hide their true nature. According to the reporting, Lee said these bots are going out and collecting information and consuming information under false pretenses, and that if they are engaging with a website, which could be a small business or an individual, they should be transparent that they are not human.
At the same time, the bill is described as narrow in scope. According to the reporting, Lee said the bill does not stop any of the regular web activity that everyone is used to, and instead says a bot cannot go out and impersonate and pretend to be something that it is not. She framed the requirement as disclosure rather than an outright ban.
The measure is also tied to concerns about content and small enterprises. According to the reporting, Lee said this is very important for local journalism and small businesses to be able to protect their content and their intellectual property. She added that it is estimated that over half of web traffic is actually these bots.
The bill also responds to a gap in current enforcement. According to the reporting, Lee said that right now there really is not an avenue to prosecute when this happens, and noted that the bill does not even ban this behavior but rather requires that a bot engaging with a website or a business disclose if it is not human. She said Congress is looking more broadly at what framework should exist for artificial intelligence.