A series of internal documents from TikTok reveal that the company knows more about its platform's addictive nature than it admits publicly.
The company knows how quickly users can become addicted and how devastating the app can be in children's lives.
Fourteen states are currently suing TikTok, accusing it of making children addicted, mainly over its algorithms, and court filings are about to be made available to the public.
Much of Kentucky's 119-page court filing was redacted when it was uploaded online. But as Louisville public media, reportedKentucky Public Radio was able to read the text beneath the digital compilation, which included summaries and key quotes of TikTok's internal documents and communications.
This summary reveals shocking facts, including the exact amount of videos it takes for a TikTok user to become addicted.
State investigators say TikTok has determined that users need 260 videos before they are “likely to become addicted to the platform.”
“While this may seem like a lot, TikTok videos are as short as eight seconds and are automatically played in bursts to viewers,” Kentucky officials said.
“Therefore, the average user can become addicted to the platform within 35 minutes.”
NPR It reported that internal documents show TikTok was aware that many of its features encouraged young people to keep the app open. According to the company's research, “Compulsive use is correlated with a variety of negative mental health outcomes, including loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety. ”.
Disturbingly, another TikTok study published in 2019 found that younger users are also more likely to become addicted.
“As expected, younger users perform better across most engagement metrics,” the document said.
TikTok says it recognizes that in addition to disrupting sleep patterns, compulsive use of the app tends to interfere with personal needs such as work, school, and even “connecting with loved ones.” It is being said.
“This complaint cherry-picks misleading quotes and takes outdated documents out of context.”
TikTok spokesperson Alex Howrek told NPR in a statement that it would be “irresponsible” to release such information from legal documents.
“It would be highly irresponsible of NPR to release information that has been sealed in court,” Howrek said. “Unfortunately, this complaint misrepresents our commitment to community safety by cherry-picking misleading quotes and taking outdated documents out of context.”
Howreck said the company has “strong safeguards in place, including proactively removing users suspected of being underage, including default screen time limits, family pairing, and restrictions for minors under 16.” “We have voluntarily launched safety features such as default privacy.''
A spokesperson previously said the company is “deeply committed” to protecting teens as it continually updates and improves its products.
sorry you are ugly
The lawsuit also alleges that TikTok is aware of how harmful its filters are to minors, telling employees in an internal memo that the filters could “adversely impact the well-being of the community.” He is said to have said that there is a possibility of perpetuating certain “narrow beauty norms.”
At the same time, an internal report that analyzed TikTok's main video feed found that it was pushing “a large amount of unattractive subject matter,” prompting TikTok to recalibrate its algorithm to increase the number of users it found attractive. .
“By changing TikTok's algorithm to reduce the number of 'unattractive subjects' shown in the For You feed,” [TikTok] “We have taken active steps to promote narrow beauty norms despite the potential negative impact on young users,” the agency wrote.
TikTok also experimented with screen time prompts, but the introduction only reduced the average screen time for teens by about 1.5 minutes, from 108.5 minutes per day to about 107 minutes per day. TikTok suspended the experiment following the results.
“The company failed to reconsider the design of its tools to more effectively prevent excessive use of TikTok,” Kentucky's filing states.
Parent company ByteDance has until mid-January 2025 to sell TikTok under federal law, but it is challenging the ruling in the Washington Court of Appeals.
TikTok is being sued by California, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia. There are 14 states.
TikTok does not allow children under 13 to sign up and restricts some content to those under 18.
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