Legal/Law/Criminal Justice and Reform

Fourteen Attorneys General Slam TikTok With Lawsuits Alleging App Harms Children’s Mental Health

TikTok on iPhone in hand in a cafe or coffee shop. (Flickr/https://nordskovmedia.dk/)

Fourteen attorneys general filed lawsuits Tuesday alleging social media app TikTok illegally collected users’ data and caused harm to children’s mental health.

A bipartisan coalition of attorneys general in New York, California and Washington, D.C., among others, sued the company in separate suits, with California Attorney General Rob Bonta stating the platform uses “manipulative features to addict young users” with endless scrolling and autoplay features, according to a press release. Recent crackdowns on social media platforms have sought to address potential harm caused to children, with U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recently calling for policymakers to work to restrict minors’ access to inappropriate content.

The California suit also alleges TikTok “preys on young people’s unique psychological vulnerabilities” with features like temporary stories that encourage them to open the platform more often, the lawsuit states. Its “beauty filters” also “foster unrealistic beauty standards, among other body dysmorphic impacts that are known to harm self-esteem and induce negative body image,” which Bonta says TikTok is aware of and maintains the feature anyway.

“Our investigation has revealed that TikTok cultivates social media addiction to boost corporate profits,” Bonta said in the press release. “TikTok intentionally targets children because they know kids do not yet have the defenses or capacity to create healthy boundaries around addictive content. TikTok must be held accountable for the harms it created in taking away the time — and childhoods — of American children.”

My office filed a lawsuit against TikTok for its harmful business practices targeting children and allegedly deceiving the public about the social media platform’s dangers: https://t.co/i7nUpGCL0U pic.twitter.com/0kL2hXOxRu

— Illinois Attorney General (@ILAttyGeneral) October 8, 2024

Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont and Washington all joined the coalition, the release said. Nine other attorneys general have previously filed action against the company, including Utah, Nevada, Indiana, New Hampshire, Nebraska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and Texas.

In Texas’ Oct. 3 lawsuit, Attorney General Ken Paxton alleged the app violated the state’s parental rights law by collecting personal data from minors. Utah sued in October of 2023 over the app’s alleged harm to children and its deceptive relations to China.

The Department of Justice alleged in July that TikTok was illegally farming user data relating to sensitive political topics and stated that its link to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) made it a “potential threat to U.S. national security.” In May, President Joe Biden signed legislation that gives the app’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, until January of 2025 to sell TikTok in order for it to remain available in the U.S

“TikTok claims that their platform is safe for young people, but that is far from true,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “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. Today, we are suing TikTok to protect young people and help combat the nationwide youth mental health crisis. Kids and families across the country are desperate for help to address this crisis, and we are doing everything in our power to protect them.”

TikTok did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

(Featured Image Media Credit: Flickr/https://nordskovmedia.dk/)