TikTok sued by 13 states and DC, accused of harming younger users

TikTok faces new lawsuits Tuesday filed by 13 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, accusing the popular social media platform of harming and failing to protect young people.

The lawsuits, filed separately in New York, California, the District of Columbia and 11 other states, extend Chinese TikTok’s legal battle with U.S. regulators and demand new financial sanctions against the company.

The states accuse TikTok of deliberately using addictive software designed to keep children watching as long and often as possible and misrepresenting the effectiveness of content moderation.

“TikTok cultivates social media addiction to increase corporate profits,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. “TikTok intentionally targets children because they know children don’t yet have the defenses or ability to create healthy boundaries around addictive content.”

TikTok is trying to maximize the amount of time users spend on the app to target them with ads, the states say.

“Young people are struggling with their mental health because of addictive social media platforms like TikTok,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James.

TikTok said Tuesday that it strongly disagreed with the claims, “which we believe are often inaccurate and misleading,” and that it was disappointed that the states chose to sue “rather than with us to work together on constructive solutions to sector-wide challenges.”

TikTok offers safety features including default screen time limits and privacy standards for minors under 16, the company said.

Washington DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb alleged that TikTok operates an unlicensed money transmission business through livestreaming and virtual currency features.

“TikTok’s platform is dangerous by design. It is an intentionally addictive product designed to get young people hooked on their screens,” Schwalb said in an interview.

The Washington lawsuit accused TikTok of facilitating the sexual exploitation of underage users, saying TikTok’s livestreaming and virtual currency “operate like a virtual strip club without age restrictions.”

Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont and Washington state also filed suit Tuesday.

In March 2022, eight states, including California and Massachusetts, said they had launched a nationwide investigation into TikTok’s impact on young people.

The US Department of Justice sued TikTok in August for failing to protect children’s privacy on the app. Other states have previously sued TikTok for failing to protect children from harm, including Utah and Texas. TikTok rejected the allegations in a lawsuit on Monday.

TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance is fighting a US law that could ban the app in the United States.

(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Jamie Freed and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)