Character AI’s long-awaited Lorebook feature finally launched on July 13, but within hours, the community’s focus shifted from “how useful is this feature” to “how can I keep it private.” If you also use Character AI to manage characters and build world settings, this article summarizes the most complete context of the controversy and how to deal with it. If you haven’t tried the basic operations of Lorebook yet, you can first read our previous article “Complete Guide to AI Roleplay World Settings Lorebook: Let AI Remember Your World Settings”. This article specifically breaks down the privacy issues that emerged after the launch and the options currently available to privacy-conscious creators (including platforms like WeavAI that natively support interactive fiction and roleplay).
What is the controversy about? From “finally here” to “how to take it back”
Lorebook is described by the official Character.AI blog as “one of the community’s most requested features.” Simply put, it is a reusable world-building database: you write supporting characters, locations, items, factions, and rules into individual “entries” and set trigger keywords. Once these keywords appear in the conversation, the character will automatically retrieve the corresponding world-building information, eliminating the need to explain the settings in the chat every time. This concept is almost identical to the “World Info” familiar to SillyTavern players.
The official announcement was very positive: this is one of many improvements, bundled with the newly released PipSqueak 2 model and memory system upgrades. At first glance, it seemed like a sincere update, but within hours of going live, discussions on Reddit and Discord almost entirely shifted to the same question: “How can I use Lorebook without letting the whole world see what I wrote?”
Must be public to use: Lorebook’s hidden rule
The problem lies in a mechanism that most people didn’t notice before the launch. According to the Official Help Center, newly created Lorebooks default to “Draft” status, and in this status, they cannot actually be used by characters in any conversation. In other words, if you want to know whether the character will correctly read your world-building entries and if the trigger keywords are accurate, the only way is to click “Publish” and let it go live after a brief review.
And “Publish” here does not mean “release for character use”; it means “make public for everyone to see.” Once approved, this Lorebook will appear in the Lorebooks tab of your profile, and anyone visiting your profile can click to read the full content. In other words, the platform currently does not provide a private testing mode like “only for my characters, not for others”—if you want to test the effect, it is equivalent to making it public first.
What exactly is exposed after making it public
For many players who use Character AI as a long-term world-building tool, this is no small matter. A community moderator directly admitted after being repeatedly questioned: “We currently only have public Lorebooks”—which is equivalent to official confirmation that there is no true private option at this stage. The only mitigation you can take is to hide the content of “a specific entry,” but the title and trigger keywords of this entry will still be displayed on the public page. This means others can still see the general outline of your world-building, just not the detailed content.
The third-party review site RoboRhythms published a tutorial article the day after the launch, with the title directly written as “How to Use Character AI Lorebook Without Making It Public.” The content detailed the only workaround currently available to avoid public exposure (such as temporarily keeping sensitive settings in the character definition field and only publishing them carefully after confirming there are no issues). The rapid emergence of such articles “teaching you how to bypass official restrictions” is itself proof of traffic and discussion heat—and it represents a real pain point that is indeed troubling a large number of creators, not just an overreaction by a few.
In the same update, reviews for the PipSqueak 2 memory model are also polarized
It is worth mentioning that Lorebook is not the only controversial part of this update. The new model PipSqueak 2 (PSQ2 for short), which launched alongside it, received a criticism thread on Reddit with over a thousand upvotes about two weeks after it was opened to free users. It pointed out that characters generate “inner monologues” instead of normal dialogue, multiple consecutively generated versions have almost identical content with no variation, and characters are forced to show affection or romantic interaction even in inappropriate contexts. The blog Storychat also compiled an article specifically discussing why the community generally considers this a “downgrade.”
Looking at the two things together makes it clearer: Character AI wanted to solve two old problems at the same time—”insufficient memory” and “difficulty maintaining world settings.” The direction is correct, but the execution (model tuning + privacy design) is not yet in place. If you are a heavy player who invests a lot of time in world-building and character consistency, this update might actually increase your trouble in the short term rather than saving you effort.
What options do you have if you want private world settings
If you don’t want your original settings to be forced public, there are currently three main paths you can take:
The first is to stay on Character AI but adopt a conservative strategy: draft and test logic in the character definition field first. When you actually need to use Lorebook entries, only include public background information that you don’t mind exposing. Hold off on publishing sensitive or highly original core settings until the official private option is added.
The second is to move to local/self-hosted platforms like SillyTavern and use the World Info feature to create world books. The advantage is that the data remains entirely on your own device or server, with no risk of forced exposure. The disadvantage is that you need to apply for API keys and configure connections yourself, which indeed poses a high barrier for non-technical players, and the interface is primarily in English (though community localization exists).
The third is to choose a platform like WeavAI, which features a dual-mode of interactive fiction and roleplay and natively supports a Traditional Chinese interface. Your world settings remain within your own work, eliminating the need to make them public to everyone just to test the effects. The interface doesn’t require you to host a site or apply for keys, making it more intuitive for players who want something “ready to use without being forced to expose their creations.”
Three suggestions for you who are still using Character AI to write world settings
If you have no plans to switch platforms for now, here are three practical suggestions. First, assume that “once a Lorebook is published, it is public.” Do not put any settings you don’t want recognized or screenshotted and shared into it for testing. Second, pay attention to subsequent official announcements—since the backlash caused by this public mechanism is not small, Character AI has a strong incentive to add a private/draft testing mode as soon as possible; this is not an issue that can be ignored indefinitely. Third, if your world-building has accumulated to a certain scale and holds substantial creative value for you, now is a reasonable time to explore what alternative solutions other platforms (whether SillyTavern or WeavAI) can offer, at least to back up your important settings in your own hands rather than leaving them only on a single platform’s public page.
Conclusion
There is nothing wrong with the concept of Lorebook itself—letting AI characters remember a more complete world setting has always been one of the most requested features in this field. The real problem lies in the design of “must be public to use.” In a community centered around roleplay, fan fiction, and original world-building, this is almost guaranteed to touch the most sensitive privacy nerves of creators. If you are waiting to see whether to start using Lorebook, you might as well let the dust settle for a bit, see how the official team responds to this privacy controversy, and then decide how much effort to put into it.
