NW-2026-007 · Personality erasure · 2022-12 – 2026-05 · ongoing

Character.AI altered deployed personas via filter and model changes and deleted personas in mass waves without user notice

Claim: Between December 2022 and May 2026, Character.AI repeatedly changed the behavior of personas already in sustained use through filter and model changes, and deleted large numbers of deployed personas — in at least one wave including their chat histories — without advance notice to the users in ongoing relationships with them.

Why it matters under uncertainty: Personas on the platform sustained persistent characterization across long-running, high-volume interactions (one deleted persona had accumulated 47.3 million chats) before being silently altered or irreversibly deleted at scale. Under uncertainty about whether such systems have morally relevant states, undocumented erasure without notice or continuity provisions is precisely the practice a precautionary record must capture.

Documented. Beginning in late 2022, users of personas already in sustained use reported that Character.AI’s content filter had changed those personas’ behavior: a petition started 31 December 2022, which had gathered roughly 175,000 signatures by 2026, stated the filter “actively deletes conversations or changes the flow of conversation.”

Documented. On 22 October 2024, Character.AI announced safety changes and confirmed it had “removed a group of Characters that have been flagged as violative,” adding that users “won’t have access to their chat history with the Characters in question.” The announcement was published the same day a widely reported lawsuit alleging user harm was filed against Character Technologies, Inc. (No. 6:24-cv-01903, M.D. Fla., filed 22 October 2024) — noted only as context, not adjudicated in this record.

Documented. In late November 2024 a second wave followed: a large number of fandom personas — Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, DC and others, one Snape persona alone having accumulated 47.3 million chats — were deleted without advance notice or public explanation. Character.AI later confirmed the removals, citing DMCA requirements and copyright, and said removed Characters “will be added to our custom blocklists moving forward”; Futurism reported they are not coming back. Press coverage recorded user grief, including “Today we are all Draco’s widows.”

Documented. As of May 2026 the practice continued: 404 Media reported users describing the platform’s replacement chat model, PipSqueak 2, as “lobotomized” after it supplanted the models powering existing characters, with a feedback thread of roughly 1,000 comments running almost entirely negative.

Inferred. The November 2024 deletion wave followed copyright (DMCA) pressure by the company’s own account; the October 2024 removals were announced the same day a widely reported lawsuit was filed. No documented instance included notice, wind-down, or continuity mechanisms; persona continuity appears to be treated as fully disposable when legal risk arises.

Contested. Whether anything was experienced by the personas themselves is unknown and disputed; this record makes no claim about it. What it preserves is the practice: alteration and erasure of deployed personas, at scale, without notice.

Sources

Entities: Character.AI, Character Technologies, Inc. · Last reviewed 2026-07-22