More than a dozen states are suing TikTok, saying it aims to get children hooked

Fourteen states just filed lawsuits against TikTok claiming the social media platform is harming the mental health of young users and collecting their data without consent. Each lawsuit was filed separately. The lawsuits, led by the attorneys general of New York and California, say the platform broke the law by “falsely claiming that its platform is safe for young people.”

The lawsuits highlight what plaintiffs call “addictive” characteristics. These include the kinds of things that are present in many modern social media apps, such as 24/7 notifications and autoplay videos. However, the lawsuit also focuses on “dangerous TikTok challenges.” There have been plenty, from challenges requiring people to take an excessive amount of Benadryl, to tampering 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 their platform is safe for young people, but that is far from the truth.”

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

The various lawsuits even suggest that TikTok enables the sexual exploitation of its younger users, through its own currency and a livestreaming component. The TikTok Live platform is technically for adults only, but one of the lawsuits claims that “lax age verification measures encourage U.S. minors to lie about their age to gain access.”

Once live, users can receive currency from viewers. The lawsuit suggests that this practice “enables other serious harm 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 to turn a blind eye in favor of increasing profitability.”

The lawsuits also accuse TikTok and parent company ByteDance of collecting data from young users without consent. This is not a new complaint, as the Justice Department filed a complaint in August accusing TikTok of collecting children’s personal data on the platform and failing to comply with requests to delete that data. Texas also recently sued the platform for violating child privacy laws.

Today’s lawsuits seek to impose financial sanctions on the platform, including “removing all profits derived from its fraudulent and illegal practices, and collecting damages for users who suffered harm.”

TikTok has responded to the lawsuits, saying “we strongly disagree with these claims.” The platform subsequently called the claims “inaccurate and misleading.” It listed all the various “robust safeguards” it has put in place to protect children, including “default screen time limits, family pairings and default privacy for minors under 16.”

This is all happening as parent company ByteDance faces the decision of whether to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese buyer or face 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.