More than a dozen states sue TikTok, alleging that it’s designed to addict kids

Fourteen states have just filed lawsuits against TikTok that claim the social media platform damages the mental health of young users and collects their data without consent. Each lawsuit was filed individually. The suits, which are led by the attorneys general of New York and California, say the platform violated the law by “falsely claiming its platform is safe for young people.”

The lawsuits spotlight what the plaintiffs call “addictive” features. These include the kinds of things present with many modern social media apps, like 24/7 notifications and autoplay videos. However, the lawsuit also focuses on “dangerous TikTok challenges.” There have been plenty of these, from challenges that task people with taking an excessive amount of Benadryl to messing with an electrical outlet.

“Young people are struggling with their mental health because of addictive social media platforms like TikTok,” 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.”

It’s worth noting that the aforementioned challenges were issued by other TikTok users, and not by the platform itself. However, the suits do attempt to illustrate TikTok’s “underlying business model”, which is accused of “maximizing young users’ times on the platform so the company can boost revenue from selling targeted ads.”

The various lawsuits even suggest that TikTok allows for the sexual exploitation of its younger users, via a proprietary currency and a live streaming component. The TikTok Live platform is technically only for adults, but one of the suits alleges “lax age verification measures incentivize US minors to lie about their age to gain access.”

Once live, users can receive currency from viewers. The suit suggests that this practice “enables other serious harms to minors including sexual exploitation” and that “TikTok is fully aware that these features combine to create an environment where children are often sexually exploited by users but has chosen to turn a blind eye in favor of increasing its profitability.” 

The suits also accuse TikTok and parent company ByteDance of collecting the data of young users without consent. This is not a new complaint, as the Department of Justice filed a suit back in August that charged TikTok of collecting the personal information of children on the platform and failing to comply with requests for that data to be deleted. Texas also recently sued the platform for violating child privacy laws.

Today’s suits seek to impose financial penalties on the platform, including “the disgorgement of all profits resulting from the fraudulent and illegal practices, and to collect damages for users that have been harmed.”

TikTok has responded to the suits, saying “we strongly disagree with these claims.” The platform went on to call the claims “inaccurate and misleading.” It listed all of the various “robust safeguards” it has put in place to protect kids, including “default screentime limits, family pairing, and privacy by default for minors under 16.” 

This is all happening as parent company ByteDance faces a decision to either sell TikTok to a non-Chinese buyer or experience a nationwide ban. The current deadline for this decision is January 17, but the company’s lawyers recently argued that the terms of this law were unconstitutional.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation provided Engadget with the following statement from the organization’s free speech and transparency litigation director, Aaron Mackey:

We’re still reviewing the complaints filed by the attorneys general, but at first blush, we’re troubled. Social media algorithms aren’t inherently evil – they can sift through vast amounts of data to present users with content they’ll find relevant, entertaining, and educational. The states’ claims regarding features like autoplay and endless scrolling are really just a smokescreen for their distaste for First Amendment-protected content. We doubt the attorneys general would sue if TikTok presented an endless scroll of high school math problems or excerpts from classic literature. Parents and minors, not states, should decide when and how young people use TikTok. Finally, the complaint’s troubling allegations about TikTok processing user data without appropriate consent shows once again the need for strong privacy first legislation to protect all users.

Update October 8, 3:18PM ET: Added the EFF’s statement.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/more-than-a-dozen-states-sue-tiktok-alleging-that-its-designed-to-addict-kids-151242893.html?src=rss