TikTok is facing another legal obstacle, as U.S. lawmakers continue to raise concerns about its impact on youth. 14 attorneys general from across the political spectrum filed lawsuits against the platform last week, claiming that its content and practices are addictive and harmful to children who use the app.
“Our investigation shows that TikTok knows about the dangerous effects of its platform on young users, and can mitigate these harms, but has deliberately chosen not to do so,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in a statement.
“As a parent and as the chief law enforcement officer for New Jersey, I’m here to tell TikTok, as I have told other social media companies in the past, that our kids are more than just data points to be monetized to advertisers to the detriment of their mental and physical health.”
According to CNN, each attorney general filed the lawsuits separately, with two attorney generals for New York and California leading the coalition.
Allegations listed in the lawsuits include claims that TikTok is aware that its app is designed to foster “excessive, compulsive and habitual use by children” through various tools and features that work to keep a user engaged.
According to NPR, internal TikTok communications made public “show a company unconcerned with the harms the app poses for American teenagers.”
Some of those communications indicate that TikTok was aware that the time management features it boasts about, targeted at youth to decrease their screen time, would actually have a negligible impact.
One such feature is a daily screen time limit of one hour, which is turned on by default for users aged 13-17.
The lawsuits filed by the attorneys general also claim that features such as beauty filters have worsened children’s mental health and that TikTok has disregarded the dangers to its users.
Lawsuits Against Social Media Companies Mount Over Mental Health Concerns
The lawsuits filed by the 14 attorneys general represent the latest example of a growing dialogue on how popular social media platforms affect users’ mental health, particularly that of children.
But they are far from the first lawsuits to be filed.
As of this month, nearly 600 social media lawsuits are pending in multidistrict litigation in the Northern District of California. These lawsuits, which plaintiffs have filed against the companies that operate social media giants like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, claim that the use of these platforms leads to serious mental health concerns.
Some of the listed issues include addiction, eating disorders and self-harm.
Reports leaked by a whistleblower in 2021 showed that Meta – the parent company of Facebook and Instagram – had reports showing that one in three teenage girls who use Instagram feel bad about their bodies and have higher rates of mental health issues.
Lawsuits continue to be filed over connections between social media usage and adverse mental health effects.
Editor Lindsay Donaldson contributed to this article.