What happened

ChatGPT users discovered that the AI chatbot would not respond to queries involving the names of "David Mayer," "Brian Hood", "Jonathan Turley", "Jonathan Zittrain", "Guido Scorza" and others, resulting in the system malfunctioning or in error messages such as "something seems to have gone wrong." 

The issue led to widespread speculation about whether it was a deliberate censorship effort or if it stemmed from privacy requests for the removal of personal information from the internet or by OpenAI under regulations such as the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Why it happened

OpenAI later said the issue was not linked to any specific individual's request and was a technical "glitch" related to their AI-powered content moderation system, but did not reveal any further details.

It appears the blocking of these names is part of the company's efforts to mitigate legal risks and prevent the generation of harmful or defamatory content, with the AI's filters implemented after instances where it had produced damaging and potentially defamatory misinformation about individuals, leading to legal threats.

For example, Brian Hood is an Australian mayor who lodged a defamation lawsuit against OpenAI after ChatGPT falsely accused him of being imprisoned for bribery; Jonathan Turley is a US law professor who was falsely accused by ChatGPT of sexually assaulting students on educational trips to Alaska.

It remains unclear why the name "David Mayer" was blocked.