The lawsuit claims that TikTok knows that its product could prove addictive for children and other vulnerable users, yet has taken few meaningful efforts to prevent over-use.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday has filed a lawsuit against TikTok, accusing the social media company of letting the state’s children down.
In a press release, Sunday said that his office is now demanding that TikTok make a series of changes intended to protect children from addiction and age-inappropriate content.
“To achieve a 13-plus age rating in app stores, TikTok claims mature audience content is infrequent on their apps,” Sunday said. “That age rating gives parents the illusion of safety but actually opens the door to putting content literally in the palm of our kids’ hands whenever they want it.”
Sunday also claimed that TikTok intentionally designed its platform to be as addictive as possible, effectively “ignoring that young people are most susceptible to and harmed by those very features.”
“TikTok has built its empire based on a model of addictiveness at all costs, and expanded that empire using deception about what sort of content is viewable for kids,” Sunday said in a statement. “This is not an indictment against modern technology, or a scolding assessment of social media as a whole—rather, this is an action to hold accountable a company that values dollars over mental wellness.”
The lawsuit claims that TikTok knows that its product could prove addictive for children and other vulnerable users, yet has taken few meaningful efforts to prevent over-use.
“TikTok profits from the more time users spend on tis platforms scrolling and generating ad revenue for the company,” Sunday’s office said. “The complaint alleges that TikTok is aware of the addictiveness and barriers that can be implemented to protect kids, but ignores them.”
Sunday said that he’s spoken to Pennsylvania students who introduced him to the term “bedrot,” used to describe the process of mindlessly scrolling content for hours on end.
“They lose hours at a stretch in the morning when they wake up or in the evening, just scrolling on their phones for hours,” Sunday said. “TikTok’s infinite scroll feature promotes that. And if you haven’t been on the app in a while, they will send you a very enticing push notification to try and lure you back.”
A TikTok spokesperson told WHYY that Sunday’s lawsuit is misleading and overlooks many of the platform’s safety and security features.
“Teen accounts have 50 preset safety, privacy and securing settings built-in, and TikTok’s Family Pairing tools give parents direct control over screen time and content filters,” the spokesperson said. “We will vigorously defend against these claims.”
Sunday, for his part, said that these types of features are broadly ineffective and very easily circumvented. “There are wonderful, amazing things that come with technology, but it is critical that technology does not evolve and happen at such a cost to our children,” he said. “We are the people that are tasked with having to fight this fight to protect kids, and they’re worth it.”
Sources
Pennsylvania sues TikTok, saying app has negative impact on kids
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