TikTok’s already long list of legal troubles continue, with 13 states and the District of Columbia filing new lawsuits that claims its “addictive algorithm” is part of a profit model that harms children.
The lawsuit, filed individually by each party Tuesday, accuses TikTok of falsely advertising its platform’s content moderation and safety policies for minors. Through its intentionally addictive software, the lawsuit claims, children are incentivized to keep watching videos for as long as possible, resulting in poor mental health and body image issues, as well as harm from viral TikTok challenges.
As New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement: “TikTok claims that their platform is safe for young people, but that is far from true. In New York and across the country, young people have died or gotten injured doing dangerous TikTok challenges and many more are feeling more sad, anxious, and depressed because of TikTok’s addictive features.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote that a state investigation found “TikTok cultivates social media addiction to boost corporate profits.” The platform “intentionally targets children,” said Bonta, “because they know kids do not yet have the defenses or capacity to create healthy boundaries around addictive content.”
Washington D.C.’s filing also accuses the company of operating an unlicensed money transmission business through its live streaming and virtual currency features, Reuters reported, which also facilitate the sexual exploitation of underage users. Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont and Washington state also filed suit against TikTok.
Only a few days prior, the state of Texas announced its own lawsuit against the Chinese-owned social media giant, accusing the platform of violating the state’s Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act by not providing proper privacy settings for minor accounts and advertising to them indiscriminately. In August, the U.S. Justice Department sued TikTok for allegedly violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which requires websites obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children under 13.
These filings are the latest legal blows to the social media platform, following a 2022 report and subsequent investigation of the company’s knowledge and complicity in fostering an unhealthy online environment for young people.
Other social media sites have also been under fire for jeopardizing the mental health and safety of their users. Last week, New Mexico filed a lawsuit against Snap (Snapchat), accusing the company of deceptively marketing its platform to children despite known problems of grooming and sexual scams targeting minors. The state has taken similar action against several other websites. Meta (Instagram, Facebook) has also weathered several lawsuits, including ones directly implicating CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
