NY, NJ among states suing TikTok for falsely claiming ‘addictive’ platform is safe for kids

Attorneys wide successful 13 states and the District of Columbia person filed lawsuits against TikTok for harming the intelligence wellness of children and teens and misleading the nationalist astir the platform’s safety.

The lawsuits, each filed individually successful authorities courts, allege the “addictive” video-sharing level has violated authorities laws by claiming the app is harmless for young people.

In reality, respective of its users conflict with mediocre intelligence wellness and assemblage representation issues. Some adjacent physically harm themselves due to the fact that of the alleged TikTok “challenges,” which are created and promoted connected the platform, according to the bipartisan conjugation of attorneys general.

“TikTok claims that their level is harmless for young people, but that is acold from true,” New York AG Letitia James said successful a connection Tuesday. “In New York and crossed the country, young radical person died oregon gotten injured doing unsafe TikTok challenges and galore much are feeling much sad, anxious, and depressed due to the fact that of TikTok’s addictive features.”

The 14 attorneys general, from states including New York, New Jersey and California, person filed the lawsuits to “help combat the nationwide younker intelligence wellness crisis,” James said. “Kids and families crossed the state are hopeless for assistance to code this crisis, and we are doing everything successful our powerfulness to support them.”

According to California Attorney General Rob Bonta, TikTok deliberately uses societal media addiction to boost profits. Children are “intentionally” targeted due to the fact that the institution knows “kids bash not yet person the defenses oregon capableness to make steadfast boundaries astir addictive content.”

Even though the app is lone disposable for users older than 13, children tin easy bypass TikTok’s minimum property restrictions, the ailment filed by D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb alleges.

Officials besides impeach the institution of enabling the intersexual exploitation of children — and profiting from it — done its live-streaming feature, which allows the app to fundamentally run similar a virtual portion nine with nary property restrictions.

TikTok, which is owned by Chinese institution ByteDance, powerfully pushed backmost against the complaints, slamming the claims arsenic “inaccurate and misleading.”

“We’re arrogant of and stay profoundly committed to the enactment we’ve done to support teens and we volition proceed to update and amended our product,” a institution spokesperson said successful a reply to the lawsuits. “It is incredibly disappointing [the AGs] person taken this measurement alternatively than enactment with america connected constructive solutions to industrywide challenges.”

Earlier this year, President Joe Biden signed a instrumentality requiring ByteDance to divest the app oregon spot it banned successful the U.S. owed to nationalist information concerns. In May, the institution sued the U.S. government for enacting “a instrumentality that subjects a single, named code level to a permanent, nationwide ban, and bars each American from participating successful a unsocial online community.”