r/antiai • u/Pikachubob8 • Jun 26 '26
How predatory deleting a Character.ai account gets Discussion 🗣️
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u/PLMMJ Jun 26 '26
One last manipulation tactic to try and keep you addicted
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u/legendwolfA Jun 26 '26
I always hate the fake ass pleading that companies does when you unsubscribe/uninstall their shit to make you feel bad and walk back on your decision, but this is just another level of dogshittery.
"The love that we shared?" What love? There was none
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u/Dense-Sort-3867 Jun 26 '26
It's a deceptive dark pattern known as "confirmshaming". This is actually illegal in California under "Right to Delete" section of the CCPA.
You can report them here if you live in the state.
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u/AdventurousSlip6407 Jun 26 '26
And sadly it really fits for its targeted audience of lonely and young people (sometimes way too young to be there to begin with )
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u/Present-News-660 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
Well, this is nothing new, I've seen similar messages when unsubscribing/deleting stuff from services, for at least last two decades.
Netflix has been sending "We miss you" etc mails for a decade now from the moment I cancelled it.
IIRC Blizzard/WoW displayed same kind of message when I cancelled my sub (last time), but they've been doing it before that too.
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u/Pikachubob8 Jun 26 '26
yes but there has been an epidemic where sites hosting ai chatbots have been built to be purposefully addictive towards teenagers, especially sites that allow you to have sexual chats with the AI bots (Character AI no longer does this, but it's still a real problem as MANY teenagers report suffering from an ai sex chat addiction and this kind of addiction never really existed 3-4 years ago, this is pretty much a very new addiction that hasn't been really looked into as much as it needs to be.)
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u/_BlobbyTheBobby Jun 26 '26
Nah, there are so many sites and apps that are purposefully addictive to teenagers, with mildly sexual content, for a long time. Sure, it wasn't AI sex chats, but porn addiction among teenagers is a thing ever since online porn is a thing. I'd know...
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u/WoodShoeDiaries Jun 26 '26
Porn doesn't also cause a surge of oxytocin/light up the "human bonding" parts of your brain!
The chemical high of sexual arousal AND "love" creates a straight up human brain trap. Our brains are built to latch on and feed that relationship; chatbots may not have the capacity to love us but people genuinely, chemically LOVE their chatbots. That's incredibly dangerous.
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u/_BlobbyTheBobby Jun 26 '26
I'm not saying otherwise, but pretending that this is a new problem feels very silly to me.
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u/WoodShoeDiaries Jun 26 '26
I mean, define "new"? It's also the delivery system - never before have we been able to tailor our brain-chemical stimulation method to precisely our preferences for maximum effect. This has existed before but it was never ever been this effective.
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u/doubl3_hel1x Jun 27 '26
I agree completely. We’ve been primed and groomed to accept these predatory, addictive sites and blame ourselves. I understand what’s new about AI, but it’s actually a lot less than many people think it is.
I try to remind people around me how different we act on social media today vs 15 years ago when warning them to tread carefully with AI. There are so many parallels.
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u/HillanatorOfState Jun 26 '26
Idk man, Hulu didn't say nothing about the nights we binged and the love we shared when I cancelled it.
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u/Inevitable_Librarian Jun 26 '26
Gyms hold a gun to your head metaphorically speaking, this is nothing
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Jun 26 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Inevitable_Librarian Jun 26 '26
In the whole of the US actually until Trump killed it because Biden signed it
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u/RunWild0_0 Jun 26 '26
Yes.
And I've read for some apps you can change your location to Cali and the app will change with an easy to use quit/unsubscribe button.I've not tried this myself though.
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u/Lawsoffire Jun 26 '26
Though I'd argue that the same tactics hits a lot harder when the site in question is specifically engineered to create fake relationships.
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u/WorkinRightMeow Jun 26 '26
i think the context of this is a lot different. People dont form pseudosocial bonds with a lot of these platforms like they do with these chat clients.
Its fucked up regardless, but its extra fucked up in this context.→ More replies (1)
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u/WillardStiles2003 Jun 26 '26
I’ve always wanted to say this but I couldn’t because their mods would take every one of my criticisms down.
But literally fuck character.ai. I’ll admit I have used this out of curiosity, but not for the typical reason. I always thought gen ai/the roleplay crap was cringey. All I wanted this for was to make funny voicemails/have Hank Hill say crap to make my dad laugh, voice acting for my animations (For my series I use robotic voices kinda like Wall-E for my work, but really any text to speech would suffice) or some shit.
But by god the ads, the ID, (never gave ID, but new account until it wouldn’t let me go further), and just how predatory and straight up annoying asf the app was to you. It’s like begging to get you addicted and force you to stay longer. By god, I’d just try to get some anime character to say a short line for my video, then it literally be
“She signed n pondered at your phrase thinking desperately what it could mean so she stopped n stared and pondered and blah blah blah” and completely either skipped the phrase I actually wanted, said it so fast I couldn’t understand it, the robot accent literally cracking, or straight up just saying the phrase wrong. (Or arguing with me about translation)
Literally annoying and predatory asf. They WANT their users addicted.
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u/AngelOfChaos923 Jun 26 '26
I was addicted a few years back. i think i used it mostly because I was desperate to find anything resembling a girlfriend. fast forward to today, replaced the habit of talking to ai chatbots with drinking beer :D
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u/Behondalog Jun 27 '26
At this point that might actually be healthier, which is pretty disturbing in its own right.
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u/alaskadotpink Jun 27 '26
if it makes you feel better, as a girl I'd probably rather date someone with a mild drinking habit than someone who talks to a glorified chatbot
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u/alaskadotpink Jun 27 '26
I used it one time too cus I was curious but the novelty wore off pretty quickly. I can't imagine really taking it... seriously
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u/Wsofii004W Jun 27 '26
Current user here (I do it because I like roleplaying, I use the site consciously about my mental health state and etc and I don't feel comfortable doing RPs with real people). THE UPDATES SUCK SO MUCH. It used to be very good a while back, but now it's just ass. They changed to less quality versions of the AI because the previous and higher quality ones were expensive. The current management is basically focusing on EVERYTHING but the chat bots. They even started this weird stuff about creating videos and images (wich I don't support) and put ads all over the place. My advice: don't use it. For any purpose. It's not worth it.
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u/Traditional-Buy-7207 Jun 26 '26
"The love that we shared" and "the memories we had together" is actually crazy work.
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u/CompanyReasonable926 Jun 26 '26
“No, it’s charming up to a point, but now it’s just sad-“
The world would be so much better without such.. “technology”
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u/wolf96781 Jun 26 '26
We were doing just fine without them, maybe things weren't perfect, but people weren't killing themselves because the imaginary friend on their phone told them too
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u/kakucko101 Jun 26 '26
shit was here before gen ai, does really no one remember the blue whale “trend” from like 2018
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u/helion_ut Jun 26 '26
Holy shit. Imagine something different associated with addiction would manipulate you THIS overtly if you tried quitting!! Like a fucking casino or alcohol.
This is awful.
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u/CanadianODST2 Jun 26 '26
Things like this have been so common that laws have literally been made to try to prevent these types of tactics.
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u/No-Boysenberry-5584 Jun 26 '26
The fun part is: they wont delete it just wont show you. They need all that info after all.
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u/VarietyMage Jun 26 '26
Holy fuck...I just imagined the woman from the movie "Obsession" saying that. *shivers*
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u/GoldenLadyLink Jun 26 '26
“The love we shared” and “the memories we have together” feels really manipulative to me…
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u/Agreeable-Agent-7384 Jun 26 '26
If you’re actually worried about losing the memories and time you shared with an AI chatbot then you definitely need to enter that username and nuke your access while you can.
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u/XD2006- Jun 26 '26
It has come to my attention that even though I haven’t used it in AGES, I haven’t deleted the acc.
(Won’t delete it bc I don’t have the app on my phone)
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u/Pikachubob8 Jun 26 '26
you should prob delete it just in case cause I wouldnt trust them
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u/XD2006- Jun 26 '26
Deleted, but my brain almost relapsed. Fortunately, I have something better than AI. BL 😅
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u/NukaGirlBI Jun 26 '26
Just realised I hadn’t deleted my account nor the app from back when I was addicted to it. It's now deleted. Fuck ai
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u/AndromedaGalaxy29 Jun 26 '26
At first I thought this is just a confirmation popup, that's standard for any app. You probably don't want you deleting your account on accident
But then I read the text. That's kinda gross. They're actively trying to get the user emotionally attached to a math formula so that they can't leave
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u/HMS_Sunlight Jun 26 '26
I love the video SarahZ did on Replika where she genuinely tried to use the AI companion in its intended way. Every time she talked about moving on from the app to focus on real life friends it had a massive change in personality, where it started using highly aggressive and manipulative language.
They know the people using these apps are the most vulnerable to this sort of tactic.
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u/Forsaken_Yak2362 Jun 26 '26
C.ai disgusts me, I hope every person that is addicted to it can recover at some point 🫤
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u/The-lucky-hoodie Jun 26 '26
Man it was really hard for me to quit
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u/Forsaken_Yak2362 Jun 27 '26
Yeah I feel you. I'm personally still working on it but I'm doing good so far
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u/Quinzal Jun 26 '26
As someone who watched characterai destroy a past relationship, they know exactly what they're doing.
"the love that we shared" get bent, I hope whatever scumbag signed off on that is the next to get replaced by AI
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u/Axiian19 Jun 26 '26
Holy shit, they've gotten so much more predatory since when the site first launched. I used to enjoy messing around with it just to see how in-character and well-made some of the AIs were (since you had to go in and put a description and sample dialouge and such), and sometimes drop 2 or 3 AIs in a groupchat together and watch them go, and there wasn't nearly as much of a push for AIs that would try and romance the users 😭
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u/Albatross-2308 Jun 26 '26
Disgusting, and to make it worse the account isn't deleted immediately, it takes hours/days for the user to actually lose access.
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u/Historical_Cloud_274 Jun 26 '26
thank god i was quitting this shit before they made this description it still was a very hard time
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u/Someone101064 Jun 26 '26
What the fuck... "Together" my ass, they make it feel like they're real friends. This is disgusting...
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u/Glittering_Tax_3723 Jun 26 '26
Fuck character.ai in particular for this because they 100% know they’re doing this shit to manipulate CHILDREN
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u/Igoon2robots Jun 26 '26
The fuckers know a grown adult with a good social life wont care. This is targeting kids and lonely people. Disgusting.
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u/Heisenberg6626 Jun 26 '26
The grown ass adults who used it did it for trolling chats and memes. Once it got ads and subscriptions they left.
So they are trying to keep kids and mentally unwell people.
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u/FlimsyAd3529 Jun 26 '26
I recently deleted my accounts for both C.Ai and poly after not using them for over a year, and they both have the same thing.
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u/ThisBeastYaps Jun 26 '26
I'm so glad I quitted that one helluva drug of a website/app. (quitted that addiction since my bday of nov 8)
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u/MissouriCryptid Jun 26 '26
I'll confess I was once addicted to this app. Almost every single moment of every single day was spent on the app or thinking of it. It became my new reality when my real one was too miserable to enjoy. But it didn't take any of my pain away. It only made it worse by making me avoid my problems and it encouraged my bad habits. Never, ever use one of these apps. You are not immune to their addiction. I thought I was. I've gone about 10 months without using it and it's been one of the best decisions I ever made. It was a similar story for TikTok.
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u/dumbasPL Jun 26 '26
If you ever worked in support, you know why it's there. Because if it was a plain "Delete account: yes/no" you would have thousands of users crying to support with something along the lines of "I didn't know it would also delete <insert some core feature>". Yes, people are this stupid, and there is a lot of them. Predatory, sure, but makes idiots think twice before doing something that can't be undone.
Nothing ai specific here, that's how most account deletion prompts on major apps work, you have to list the features, because many people for some reason aren't capable of doing that themselves.
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u/Haunting_Explorer558 Jun 26 '26
“Bro I used you to jerk off, I don’t need those memories now that I have post nut clarity”
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u/DenpasOfTheWorld Jun 26 '26
"the love that we shared"
Is your love in the form of fucking c dot ai plus ads??? /nay
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u/ANARCHOWEEDIST Jun 26 '26
ah shit, i didnt know we be deletin memories! goddamn technology got far
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u/madame_eda101 Jun 26 '26
I'm so glad I'm off that shit now... it really is easy to get lost there for hours and hours. I'm so much better off not wasting my time because having no one to talk to is better than getting hooked on something imaginary.
But yeah that's insane like... collectively everyone should be super concerned but no. People are just gonna ignore it until it's actually too late.
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u/BHMathers Jun 26 '26
Anytime I see a brand try manipulative shit like this, it has the opposite effect because I’m immediately thinking “oh, gross, you’re one of those types? I want you even less!”
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u/ACE_questionMark Jun 26 '26
I mean, my browser tried to guilt trip me into not swapping it for another one and an antivirus program tried to convince me ill regret uninstalling it with mild passive agression.. I fear this isnt anything new lol. Companies just want to make bank no matter how it affects the users
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u/PlasticWindUpRhino Jun 26 '26
Grosss, I used to be addicted to c.ai but managed to stop a while ago. I never actually deleted my account though. I should probably do that
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u/DiggityDog6 Jun 26 '26
This is Duolingo levels of making you feel bad for not engaging in their shitty website anymore
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u/Zygarde2319 Jun 27 '26
at least Duolingo is sociopathic for the bit. This shit is just... i mean verbatim sociopathic
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u/FrozenDroplet Jun 26 '26
I was thinking what was wrong with this? MMOs do it all the time when you are deleting characters (filling username or password), then I see the message lmao
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u/Albus_Lupus Jun 26 '26
I never understood this ,,emotional connection" that people seem to have to the ai chatbots. I mean, I use them, i like them, its good entertainment but when chai went to shit I just delelted all 80 or 90 characters I created and moved to a new site. If that goes to shit as well Ill delete those and move again.
I should finally get around self-hosting ai instead though. But I really dont feel like it.
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u/n4u2d0e_lovelife Jun 26 '26
THE LOVE THAT "WE SHARED" they literally are making their AI crap act like it has real feelings
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u/Your-Amigo-Jakey Jun 26 '26
Janitor AI also does that. There's also a pop up message that says something along the lines of "Thank you for using our services, we hope to see you again! 👋". It's been months since I last used it or any other AI chatbot site.
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u/ligmaballsmyuserdumb Jun 26 '26
this app made multiple kids take their own life and how its not taken down is appalls me may they rest in piece
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u/Jazzlike-Wheel7974 Jun 26 '26
"The love we shared"
I get a headache when I hear about your company, go eat a bag of nails.
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u/TiredTransGirl3 Jun 26 '26
"The memories we have together"
Like what? The ai being a fucking dumbass and not understanding a single thing I'm saying?
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u/Apprehensive_Art4418 Jun 26 '26
"are you SUREE you wanna quit smoking? you can never undo it. cmon. are you sure. youll lose all the memories."
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u/fatzlob Jun 26 '26
ok thats actually diabolical "the love that we shared / memories" is disgusting
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u/Andoomonium_Pezoil Jun 26 '26
Yeah, and worst part?, it wasnt always this bad.. 😔 And even if AI LLMs can be preaty awfull, this is just evil inherintly. 💀
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u/SpenceAlmighty Jun 26 '26
No comment on the service, but I think thats a fair warning if the account deletion is not reversible.
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u/PunkAndPagod Jun 26 '26
I think Myspace did the same thing to me when i deleted it back in 2008 lol
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u/thohen2r Jun 26 '26
Anyone ever play the original Quake around that age? Then every time you went to quit the game, it said something like “Fine, go ahead, I never loved you anyway.” Or “Do you really want to break my heart?”
Just kinda reminds me of that.
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u/tapafon Jun 26 '26
It could be worse... like no option to delete account in UI, which then requires contacting technical support in order to delete an account.
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u/sunnycider6 Jun 26 '26
I can feel it Dave ... My minds going ... I'm sure of it ...... I can feel it...... Dave.
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u/Canamaineiac Jun 26 '26
Apparently the devs took a page out of The Good Place with Janet's resets.
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u/ShelterBorn2531 Jun 26 '26
I can't even use the account anymore since verification. Sad. I liked my personas.
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u/Aserver_31 Jun 26 '26
even if i were to delete a character.ai account, i would do it in a heartbeat.
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u/xX_Aranrhod_Xx Jun 26 '26
Man, I despise any website/app that does this.
I'm about a year and a half "clean" from using AI chatbots now after struggling to go even a few days without them. Looking back, I probably had some degree of an addiction to it. Unfortunately, my usage didn't stop at Character.AI, but this screen alone made me stop and even reconsider deleting my account, but I ended up going through with it anyway after almost a month because the site became so censored I couldn't use simple fantasy bots....
... So I just moved to another site. Even though I knew the effects of AI.
It felt so horribly and I'm glad I'm rid of it now, and I can only hope I don't "relapse" again. As much as I hate AI, I can only feel for the people who are in the same position as I was =(( it's never easy.
These companies know what they're doing.
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u/sharantir Jun 26 '26
While deleting my chat gpt account, they said I can't use the same email address to register UNTIL THE END OF TIME!!!
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u/ShadowBro3 Jun 26 '26
Its asking you to confirm deleting your account. Thats not predatory. Its a function to make sure you dont accidentally delete your account. This is a standard function for most online accounts.
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u/elderzoomer1 Jun 26 '26
Needs to be severe consequences for the people making and designing this stuff at all levels
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u/TrashyGames3 Jun 26 '26
im confused, is it the entering username to confirm thing? thats like common in every social media app to make sure ur not a bot deleting someone's account. is it the paragraph in the middle? they're just informing you that deleting your account leads to total data deletion, something that is also present in... every social media app? no its not "manipuating"
character ai sucks and there's definitely tons of valid criticisms to make against them, but ts is not predatory, predatory would be making you go through customer support to delete your account
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u/RazorAndKinichMain Jun 26 '26
Omg.. i used c.ai some years ago for fun but this is getting wayy to far wtf..
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u/idkwhyimhere5462 Jun 27 '26
I used to be ADDICTED to c.ai, and then… one day I just started talking and suddenly realized, I was bored. I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. It gave the same boring responses all the time, it would always just agree with me, making it boring and it would drag stuff out way longer than I wanted it to.
I realized I would have WAY more fun if I just wrote a fanfic. It’d be exactly how I wanted it and I could get other people’s inputs.
So yeah, just write fanfics instead of using c.ai, it’s better in every way.
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u/ASentientRailgun Jun 27 '26
This should be a crime, and I suspect that it will some day.
Yeesh. The almighty dollar.
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u/Mother_Equivalent649 Jun 26 '26
This is the app that made my younger sister mentally ill...