More than a dozen states are filing lawsuits Tuesday accusing TikTok of harming the well-being of children by using addictive product features that keep them hooked on the platform, in a bipartisan salvo that amplifies the company’s legal perils as it tries to stave off a federal ban.
Attorneys general from 13 states and the District of Columbia are alleging in a series of lawsuits that TikTok violated local consumer protection laws by designing itswildly popular video-sharing app in ways that lead to compulsive use, exposing young users to mental and physical risk. And they claim the company, which is owned by China-based tech giant ByteDance, has misled the public about how safe its platform is for children.
The complaints represent the second multistate attempt to hold a major social media company accountable over claims they are contributing to a youth mental health crisis in the United States, following a flurry of similar lawsuits against Facebook and Instagram owner Meta last year.
The nascent legal approach — linking how companies design their products to addictive or harmful behavior among youth — reflects mounting concern across the political spectrum that social media companies are prioritizing their profits over the safety of their youngest users.
The lawsuits, announced by a bipartisan coalition of state and local AGs, take aim at such TikTok features as autoplay, which authorities contend keep young users endlessly scrolling; beauty filters, which they say foster unhealthy body image issues; and push notifications, which encourage frequent app use.
California AG Rob Bonta, who is co-leading the effort alongside a fellow Democrat, New York AG Letitia James, told The Washington Post in an interview that TikTok knowingly designed the app to “feed on young users’ particular affinity for excessive use.”
TikTok is already facing two massive legal threats at the federal level, one of existential proportions.
President Joe Biden in April signed into law legislation to ban or force a sale of TikTok by ByteDance. Congress overwhelmingly and swiftly approved the measure amid fears the app could allow the Chinese government to conduct surveillance or influence operations.
TikTok is now fighting to strike down the divest-or-ban law in federal court, arguing it violates the free speech rights of millions of U.S. users. If the law is upheld, the company would have until Jan. 19 to divest from ByteDance or be banned from operating in the United States.
The company is separately facing a lawsuit by the U.S. Justice Department alleging it violated federal laws protecting children’s online privacy by collecting data on millions of users under 13.
The latest state lawsuits, however, represent the most significant challenge to TikTok stemming from claims it is endangering the safety of children on its platform.
As scrutiny over child safety has picked up across the tech sector in recent years, TikTok has beefed up protections for children and teens.
The company requires its youngest users to enlist in an “under-13 TikTok experience,” featuring stronger privacy and safety settings, instead of its regular app. The company also restricts how teenagers interact with the site, making all their accounts default by private, limiting their ability to view some harmful content and setting daily screen time limits.
“TikTok is vigilant about enforcing its 13 and up age policy, and offers an experience for teens that is much more restrictive than you or I would have as adults,” TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told Senate lawmakers in his opening testimony at a child safety hearing in January.
Those policies have done little to assuage critics who say TikTok and other social media companies are still failing to adequately head off potential risks to children. Bonta said some of TikTok’s changes, like the screen time limits, amounted to “empty gestures” that children could easily circumvent.
The latest lawsuits mirror ones 41 states and D.C. filed last year against Meta. States took a different legal tack at the time. Thirty-three of them banded their efforts together in a joint federal lawsuit, while the rest filed individual complaints in local, state or federal courts. Against TikTok, states are forgoing a joint federal lawsuit in favor of separate local complaints.
While the complaints largely overlap in scope, some feature distinct legal claims that open up new fronts against the company. One of the lawsuits, which D.C. AG Brian Schwalb (D) is filing, accuses TikTok of operating an unlicensed payment system that reels in young users and allows them to solicit money for performing sexually explicit acts.
“TikTok has designed its money transmission business to lure children in, using childlike cartoons and emojis to make it look like the children are playing games, when in fact they are being exploited financially,” Schwalb said in an interview.
Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont and Washington are also filing lawsuits.
Some of the states, including California and New York, have passed new child online safety laws in recent years aimed at curtailing potentially harmful social media feeds and design features. But state enforcers said they believe they have ample evidence that the company is already breaking existing consumer protection laws.
“We’re not waiting for new laws,” said Bonta, the California AG.
It is not clear what impact TikTok’s ongoing battle against a potential ban will have on the child safety claims.
If the app is banned, state enforcers could still seek damages from the company over claims of past misconduct. But if it is sold or otherwise allowed to continue to operate in the United States, authorities could push for structural changes aimed at making the platform safer for children.
“Our case is indifferent to who the owner is of TikTok,” said Bonta. “The lawsuit will continue if they’re operating in the United States.”
Many legal observers said a hearing last month in the federal D.C. Court of Appeals augured poorly for TikTok’s chances to avoid a nationwide ban. The three judges expressed skepticism about a number of TikTok’s free-speech defenses, and reflected that they were considering decades-old national security cases as precedents.
While it is unclear when the appeals court will make its decision, the two sides have requested an expedited ruling by December, to allow time for a potential appeal to be filed with the Supreme Court before the sale-or-ban deadline of Jan. 19.
“It was incumbent upon us to bring action now to stop dangerous behavior from happening as soon as possible,” Schwalb said.
Eva Dou contributed to this report.
This is a developing story and will be updated.