TikTok Faces More Than a Dozen Lawsuits from States and D.C. Over Its Allegedly ‘Perilous Effects on Children’
Even some of the heavily redacted pages in the District of Columbia’s lawsuit against TikTok contain interesting details. Photo Credit: Digital Music News
Another day, another TikTok lawsuit – or more specifically lawsuits, which have been filed by over a dozen states as well as the District of Columbia due to the video-sharing app’s alleged harmful impact on children.
States including Massachusetts, Kentucky, New Jersey, and South Carolina submitted the suits, which stem from related investigations that kicked off in early 2022. As we covered then, the inquiries aimed to zero in on the controversial platform’s effects on children and teens.
And while the probes evidently laid the groundwork for legal action, today’s complaints are in many ways the tip of the child-safety iceberg for TikTok. Recent years have brought similar regulatory scrutiny (centering on children’s data and privacy as well, not solely harmful byproducts of use) from different states yet, besides related multimillion-dollar fines in the U.S., the U.K., the European Union, and more.
Bringing the focus back to the newest TikTok lawsuits, the lengthy complaints, the public copies of which are replete with redactions, share core arguments and key characteristics. Running with the District of Columbia suit, TikTok has allegedly “designed and cultivated a highly addictive social media application…that it knows harms children.”
In short, the “highly addictive” side of the complaint refers to “algorithms that leverage user data to feed users personalized content recommendations,” attention-grabbing push notifications, “filters and effects that create idealizations of unattainable appearances for users,” infinite scroll, and the TikTok Coins “unlicensed virtual currency system,” per the legal text.
Overall, the “features confuse and control young users, driving them to make choices on the App that boost TikTok’s profits at the expense of their emotional, behavioral, and physical health,” the D.C. complaint proceeds.
Unfortunately, the mentioned redactions mean we lack access to a variety of interesting data points – including total under-18 TikTok users residing in D.C., city-specific usage percentages by particular generations, hours of peak TikTok usage, and even the amount spent on in-app purchases by local users.
However, in keeping with the considerable ground already covered in past TikTok actions, the D.C. suit goes to great lengths to describe the app’s alleged negative impact (in terms of mental health, sleep-schedule disruption, and a whole lot else) on minors.
One of the more interesting and seldom-seen arguments here pertains to TikTok Coins and livestreams. The ByteDance subsidiary allegedly “ignored District law by failing to obtain the required money transmitter license” for its in-app currency, which is said to obscure the actual amount of real cash one is spending.
“Although LIVE, including both live streaming and Gifts, has a current minimum age requirement of 18 and older,” the suit indicates, “TikTok knows its lax age verification measures incentivize U.S. minors to lie about their age to gain access.”
Furthermore, TikTok allegedly designs the virtual “gifts” that users purchase with Coins “in ways that are intentionally attractive to children,” modeling the digital items after “cute, colorful animated emojis reminiscent of cartoons and Disney characters.”
All told, the District of Columbia lawsuit against TikTok is alleging several violations of the Consumer Protection Procedures Act and the money-transmission statute. While far from ideal, the newly filed complaints are hardly the biggest immediate threat to the operations of TikTok, which is staring down a quick-approaching forced-sale deadline in the U.S.
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