Image: © Rafael Henrique/Stock.adobe.com
The US government recently approved a divestment bill that would force the Chinese-owned ByteDance to sell its stake in TikTok or face a US ban.
More than a dozen US states are suing the popular social media platform TikTok for allegedly misleading the public about the safety of its platform and harming young people’s mental health.
The bipartisan coalition of 14 attorneys general led by New York attorney general Letitia James and California attorney general Rob Bonta filed lawsuits yesterday (8 October).
In the lawsuit filed by James in New York, TikTok is described as exemplifying the addictive nature of social media platforms. “TikTok knows that compulsive use of and other harmful effects of its platform are wreaking havoc on the mental health of millions of American children and teenagers,” the filing reads.
“Its business model seeks to maximise advertising revenue by maximising users’, and particularly young users’, engagement with the platform.”
The coalition wants the court to remedy TikTok’s alleged “fraudulent” and “deceptive” practices and hold the platform accountable for the “harms it has inflicted” by “promoting its addictive and otherwise harmful” app.
Joining James and California Bonta in filing lawsuits are the attorneys general of Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia. Each attorney general filed in their own state jurisdiction.
As part of the coalition, Washington State attorney general Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit against TikTok accusing the platform of violating the state Consumer Protection Act by targeting young people “with features that encourage compulsive and excessive use to get them hooked on the platform”.
“I am one of the millions of parents across Washington who knows firsthand the hold TikTok and other social media apps have on kids,” Ferguson said. “Platforms like TikTok must be reformed and we know they are unwilling to do so on their own.”
TikTok, however, said that they “strongly disagree with these claims”, adding that many of them are “inaccurate and misleading”.
“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.”
The platform said that it was disappointed that the states have filed the lawsuits rather than work with the platform “on constructive solutions to industrywide challenges”.
This is only the most recent legal challenge TikTok is facing in the US. The US government earlier this year announced plans to force TikTok-owner Chinese company ByteDance to sell its stake in the platform through a recently approved divestment bill – reflecting the government’s national security concern given the app’s connection to China. TikTok will face a national ban in 2025 if it doesn’t comply with the bill.
TikTok, in response, sued the US government, stating that this type of divestment is not possible and called the bill “unconstitutional”. The company’s appeal began in a Washington DC court last month.
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