“Simply put, the more people TikTok can get addicted to its app, the more money they make, and the more their users’ mental health suffers,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said. “This conduct is not just deeply immoral, it’s illegal. Today, I am filing a lawsuit to bring an end to TikTok’s preying on Minnesota’s children.”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has filed a lawsuit against TikTok, claiming that the social media company violated state consumer protection laws by “preying on young people with addictive algorithms and exploitative features.”
Filed earlier this week in Hennepin County District Court, the complaint alleges that TikTok has routinely, repeatedly, and deliberated prioritized profitability over the well-being of its youngest users.
Ellison’s office claims that state-led investigations have found that, as TikTok has become increasingly popular among children, rates of youth depression and anxiety have skyrocketed.
One study cited by the attorney general’s office, for instance, found that 54% of all 11th graders in the state reported feeling “down, depressed, or hopeless at least several days a week,” with about 70% claiming to feel “nervous, anxious, or on edge.”
“If you know nothing else about TikTok, you know it’s extremely addicting,” Ellison said.
“My office’s extensive investigation into the company has confirmed that addictiveness is the result of years of intentional decisions that TikTok’s leadership made in the pursuit of profit,” he said. “We also know that spending excessive time on TikTok can be harmful to someone’s mental health. Young people are particularly vulnerable to the harms TikTok can inflict since the regions of their brains that manage things like impulse control, decision-making, and risk-taking are still developing.
“Simply put, the more people TikTok can get addicted to its app, the more money they make, and the more their users’ mental health suffers,” Ellison said. “This conduct is not just deeply immoral, it’s illegal. Today, I am filing a lawsuit to bring an end to TikTok’s preying on Minnesota’s children.”
Ellison emphasized that his office isn’t trying to bankrupt TikTok—instead, he would prefer that the company simply reform its practices and pay more mind to how social media impacts children.
“We’re not trying to shut them down, but we are insisting that they clean up their act,” he said.
Ellison’s office has since established an online reporting system, through which Minnesota parents can forward any complaints or concerns they have about TikTok to the attorney general.
“We’re asking people to contact us at the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office,” Ellison said “They can reach us online at AG-DOT-STATE-DOT-MN-DOT-US or just go to a search engine and put in Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, and they have a complaint for, an online or a virtual complaint, or a social media complaint.”
Sources
AG Keith Ellison sues TikTok for “preying on Minnesota’s young people”
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