More than a dozen states and the District of Columbia sued TikTok on Tuesday, accusing it of “deceiving” the public about the dangers and abusing and harming young users.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta and New York Attorney General Letitia James led a coalition of 14 attorneys general, each filing a lawsuit in state court alleging violations of the state's consumer protection laws.
Bonta said a national investigation into TikTok found the platform “fosters social media addiction to increase corporate profits.”
The investigation was launched in March 2022 by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from states including New Jersey, California, North Carolina, and Kentucky.
“TikTok intentionally targets children because they know that children do not yet have the defenses or ability to create healthy boundaries against addictive content. ” Bonta wrote.
“This is devastatingly clear when you look at the youth mental health crisis and the revenue machine that TikTok has built, powered by young people’s time and attention. “They have no chance of winning against these huge companies,” he continued. .
TikTok's business platform is said to prioritize maximizing young users' time through an algorithm that determines what users see on the app's “For You” page. This, the lawsuits claim, increases the platform's revenue through targeted advertising.
The social media platform has also been accused of introducing “manipulative features” that hook young users, such as beauty filters, push notifications, ephemeral stories, and live streams.
The lawsuit also mentions TikTok's “autoplay” feature, which continuously plays new or temporary posts, and its “infinite/infinite scroll.”
The attorney general said TikTok allegedly misled users by claiming to prioritize user safety through various tools, community guidelines, and content moderation features.
“The truth is, such features and initiatives are not working as advertised, the platform’s negative impact is far greater than realized, and TikTok is not prioritizing safety over profits.” Bonta's office said in a release.
A TikTok spokesperson told The Hill that the company “strongly disagrees” with the claims, calling them “inaccurate and misleading.”
“We are proud of the work we have done to protect teens and will continue to update and improve our products,” the spokesperson wrote.
“We provide strong security measures, proactively remove users we suspect are underage, and implement policies such as default screen time limits, family pairing, and default privacy for minors under 16. We have voluntarily launched the safety features,” the spokesperson continued.
TikTok has been cooperating with the attorney general for the past two years, the spokesperson said, adding that it was “deeply disappointed” that the company filed the lawsuit without cooperating.
Other states suing include Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
This builds on previous lawsuits filed against TikTok by the attorneys general of Utah, Nevada, Indiana, New Hampshire, Nebraska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, and Texas. .
Other social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram's parent company Meta, have been sued over similar claims that their business models are negatively impacting young people's mental health.
This follows another crackdown by Congress amid national concerns raised by TikTok's China-based parent company ByteDance.
The platform could face a ban in the U.S. after President Biden signed legislation in April setting a timeline for ByteDance to sell the platform or be banned from U.S. app stores and networks. .
ByteDance has argued that a sale would be virtually impossible, meaning the law would effectively amount to a nationwide ban on video-sharing platforms.
Ministry of Justicesued TikTok, ByteDance, and their affiliatesIn August, he was charged with violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits website operators from knowingly collecting or using personal information from children under 13 without parental consent.
