New York Attorney General Letitia James wrote in a statement attached to the lawsuits that young people are struggling with their mental health because of addictive social media platforms like TikTok. The Attorney General claims TikTok is far from safe for young people. Other states’ attorney generals have also expressed similar concerns about the safety of young people on TikTok.
TikTok is being accused of deliberately adding addictive features that are making children hooked to the app. Such features were said to be auto-playing videos, beauty filters, and even the promotion of temporarily available live content and stories. The lawsuits also accuse the social media platform of promoting video challenges that are dangerous and could lead children to risk their lives in some cases.
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TikTok has beefed up child safety tools, but the states don’t take these actions seriously, claiming they were a publicity stunt. The lawsuits claim that user verification at the time of opening a TikTok account is useless, and children could lie about their age and bypass the child safety tools.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta claims that TikTok child safety tools don’t work as advertised, and the harmful effects of the platform were far greater than acknowledged.
These lawsuits have nothing to do with earlier scrutiny about TikTok being a threat to national security.
The lawsuits seek penalties, and also seek “disgorgement profits resulting from the fraudulent and illegal practices, and to collect damages for users that have been harmed.”
TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek stated that these allegations are misleading, and claimed that TikTok offers robust safeguards and proactively removes suspected underage users. Haurek also said that TikTok has launched safety features such as default screentime limits, family pairing, and privacy by default for minors under 16. In my opinion, all social media platforms have an addictive quality to them, it’s not only TikTok. TikTok’s popularity among young people puts it at the center of attention, but auto-playing vids and stories are a feature of all current social media platforms. Hopefully, in the future, we’ll find more ways to entertain ourselves without being glued to a screen, while social media platforms will focus on what’s most important (and the reason they were supposed to exist): human connection.
