AGs in 14 Courts Challenge TikTok for Allegedly Addicting Children
Attorneys general from 13 states and the District of Columbia sued TikTok in 14 separate courts Tuesday. The 10 Democratic and four Republican AGs said TikTok violated state and D.C. consumer protection laws when it allegedly addicted young users and collected their data without consent. TikTok disputed the claims as “inaccurate and misleading.” Separately, more than 20 states asked that a court force TikTok to cooperate with their investigation.
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AGs including from California and New York filed complaints at courts within their jurisdictions. Other complaints came from D.C., Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont and Washington state. Not all the complaints were immediately available.
“These days it's hard to find anything bipartisan," but there is a common "desire to protect our children,” said California AG Rob Bonta (D) at a livestreamed news conference. More states could file similar suits soon, he added. The AGs filed individual claims in their own jurisdictions instead of together in federal court because the FTC and DOJ previously brought a claim against TikTok under the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), said Bonta: That prevented states from bringing the same claim.
California alleged that TikTok violated the state’s false advertising and unfair competition laws. “We're suing the social media giant for exploiting young users and deceiving the public about the vast dangers the platform poses to our youth,” said Bonta.
The various AG lawsuits claimed that TikTok has a business model that keeps kids on the platform as long as possible so it can boost revenue from selling targeted ads. Also, the AGs alleged that TikTok knowingly collects and monetizes data on users younger than 13 without parental consent. In addition, they claimed TikTok falsely states its platform is safe for young users and misrepresents the effectiveness of its safety tools.
TikTok’s addictive features include 24/7 notifications, infinite scrolling, auto-playing videos and content that can be viewed for a limited time only, said the AGs. In addition, the AGs called out beauty filters that may lower young users’ self-esteem and viral TikTok challenges such as the “Kia challenge,” which showed users how to steal the automaker’s vehicles and resulted in thousands of car thefts.
"We strongly disagree with these claims,” a TikTok spokesperson said. “We're proud of and remain deeply committed to the work we've done to protect teens, and we will continue to update and improve our product. We provide robust safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched safety features such as default screentime limits, family pairing, and privacy by default for minors under 16.” TikTok is disappointed AGs sued rather than collaborating “on constructive solutions to industrywide challenges.”
North Carolina AG Josh Stein, Democratic candidate for the state’s governor, said at a news conference that “TikTok designed its app to addict kids, lied to everyone about how dangerous the app was for children and deceived parents and the public by telling them that it had safety features in place to protect kids” despite knowing those tools didn’t work. TikTok did so, added Stein, because the platform “cares more about wealth than well-being.”
Republican Lynn Fitch is “proud to stand with my colleagues from across the country to support parents,” the Mississippi AG said in a news release. “TikTok is conducting a dangerous experiment with our children’s developing minds.”
Common Sense, an advocate for kids’ online safety measures, applauded the lawsuits. AGs “are once again using the power of their offices to protect children online by focusing on design features that are known to be harmful to kids and teens,” said Chief Advocacy Officer Danny Weiss: Algorithms, video autoplay and frequent notifications “cause children and teens to spend far too much time on their devices and drive kids to unwanted places online, resulting in mental, physical, and sometimes deadly, harm.”
The lawsuit follows an investigation opened in 2022. States that previously filed actions against TikTok include Utah, Nevada, Indiana, New Hampshire, Nebraska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and Texas.
TikTok isn’t fully cooperating with the multistate investigation, 22 states said in an amicus brief at a Tennessee court Tuesday. The states supported a Tennessee motion urging the Chancery Court in Nashville to enforce previous orders requiring cooperation. “TikTok's failure to preserve potentially relevant evidence and to produce information in a reasonably useable format is impeding the investigation of both Tennessee and States across the country who continue investigating TikTok.”
“Despite a court order and ample time to comply, TikTok continues to cover up the extent of its destruction of evidence and dodge our investigative demands as we fight to reveal the truth about TikTok's impact on kids,” said Tennessee AG Jonathan Skrmetti (R).