TikTok has been sued by more than a dozen US states over allegations its app is deliberately designed in a way that damages the mental health of children. The lawsuits follow an investigation into the impact of TikTok on its users led by the attorneys general of a number of different states. For its part, TikTok insists that it “endeavoured to work” with the attorneys general on their investigation, before adding that it’s “incredibly disappointed” they have now decided to go the litigation route.
According to the lawsuit filed in California, TikTok “has designed and operated a social media platform intended to be addictive, and which is severely harmful to the physical and psychological well-being of young users”. The company, the legal filing adds, “preys on young people’s unique psychological vulnerabilities through an arsenal of harmful, addictive-by-design features that it targets to exploit and manipulate young users’ developing brains”.
More specifically, it says, “TikTok’s algorithms and design decisions are intended to cause young users to compulsively spend increasing amounts of time on the platform”. Those design choices, “exploit the neurotransmitter dopamine, which helps humans feel pleasure as part of the brain’s reward system to encourage reinforcement”.
The lawsuits acknowledge that TikTok is technically not available to children under thirteen and that there are restrictions on content for users under eighteen. However, they insist, “TikTok knows that many children bypass its ineffective age gate”.
The different lawsuits set out what laws they think TikTok has violated by designing its app in this way. Some also raise other issues with the app, including that it operates an “unlicensed virtual economy” with its TikTok Coins digital gifting system and that teenage users who livestream on the platform are “frequently sexually exploited by adults”.
Responding to the lawsuits, TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes says, “We strongly disagree with these claims, many of which we believe to be inaccurate and misleading. We’ve endeavoured to work with the attorneys general for over two years and it is incredibly disappointing they have taken this step rather than work with us on constructive solutions to industry-wide challenges”.
TikTok is used to criticism from lawmakers and regulators, of course. Concerns have been raised in multiple countries about the impact of short form video apps in general, and TikTok specifically, on the mental wellbeing of users, especially young users. In Europe, the EU forced TikTok to drop a rewards feature from the Lite version of its app after regulators criticised the “addictive effect” of that particular scheme.
In the US, meanwhile, concerns over the Chinese government allegedly having access to user-data via TikTok’s China-based owner Bytedance have generally got the most attention, especially this year since the passing of the sell-or-be-banned law in Congress. However, plenty of concerns have also been raised about the impact of the app on its younger users.
One common criticism from TikTok supporters is that angry regulators and lawmakers often don’t really understand how the social media apps work.
Though in New Jersey - one of the states involved in the TikTok litigation - the courts have at least one judge with hands-on experience as a TikTok creator. But, alas, he’s just been suspended for a few months because those TikTok videos involved him lip-syncing songs with sexual content while in his chambers and, sometimes, even in his robes. Judge Gary Wilcox’s judicial colleagues were not impressed, despite the TikToker judge insisting his videos were intended as “silly, harmless, innocent fun”.