On Oct. 8, 2024, a coalition of 14 attorneys general, including California Attorney General Rob Bonta, filed lawsuits in their respective states and Washington, D.C. against the social media giant TikTok for allegedly exploiting and harming young users and deceiving the public about the dangers of using the platform. The California lawsuit, filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court, asks the court to assess penalties and order injunctive and monetary relief. According to the complaint, TikTok’s business practices violate California’s Business and Professions Code by making false and misleading statements, and are unlawful, unfair, and/or fraudulent. The complaint also alleges that TikTok unlawfully collects and uses children’s data without parental consent, in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a federal law.
The complaint emphasizes that TikTok’s business model aims to maximize user time spent on the platform. This creates the opportunity for large revenue returns because the company can sell space for advertisements targeted at user preferences. Based on TikTok’s business model, an algorithm (also called a content-recommendation system) that the complaint alleges is purposely designed to promote excessive, compulsive and addictive behavior is deployed to keep young users engaged with platform as long as possible.
According to the complaint, TikTok’s platform also uses features such as beauty filters, infinite scroll, “Stories” (content that disappears 24 hours after being posted), “TikTok LIVE” (a livestreaming feature), autoplay, likes and comments, and push notifications to keep young users constantly engaged and checking for content. As alleged by the complaint, such constant use of the platform comes with many dangers for young users, and, in some cases, has resulted in physical and psychological harm. The complaint claims that TikTok is well aware of these dangers, but has chosen to ignore them.
In addition, the complaint alleges that TikTok engages in a coordinated scheme to deceptively market the platform as protective of young user’s safety and well-being. The complaint provides examples of features marketed as beneficial for user’s well-being, such as a 60-minute use limit, screentime management tools, the ability to “Refresh” (leave a “rabbit hole” or series of sequential videos on the same topic), and Restricted Mode (an option to limit content that may be inappropriate), but the complaint states these features are ineffective and therefore the marketing is false.
New York, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia also filed similar lawsuits against TikTok on the same day in a concerted effort to challenge the actions of the company.
This concern about the way that social media impacts young people is not new. Instead, it has been a growing focus of educators, lawmakers and public officials in various governmental roles. As detailed in the June 2023 California School News, school districts across the country have filed lawsuits against major social media companies such as Meta (owner of Facebook), Snap, Alphabet (owner of Google) and TikTok arguing that the platforms maintained by these companies are addictive and harmful to young people.
Similarly, in October 2023, Attorney General Bonta filed a federal lawsuit with 33 other attorneys general against Meta, alleging that Instagram and Facebook utilize harmful features that addict young people and cause mental and physical harms. Senate Bill 976 was signed into law in California in September in an effort to mitigate this harm by making it unlawful for operators of “addictive internet-based service[s] or application[s]” to use algorithmically determined feeds for users that are under 18 years of age without parental consent. The outcome of these actions remains to be seen, but the efforts to change the impact that social media has on children and teens is widespread and continuous.
