A bipartisan group of greater than a dozen state attorneys general is filing lawsuits against social media giant TikTok on Tuesday. A grievance accuses the corporate of deceiving users by claiming its app is secure for youngsters despite its “addictive” features and allegedly operates an unlicensed money transfer company.
States filing suit include: latest York and California and the District of Columbia.
“Our lawsuit aims to hold TikTok accountable for its harm to DC children,” he said Attorney General Brian Schwalb of the District of Columbia, in an interview with CNBC.
Schwalb's lawsuit alleges compulsive use of TikTok poses plenty of “significant” risks to the mental health of teenagers and youngsters, including depression, anxiety, sleep loss and body dysmorphia.
Schwalb called the app — which allows users to create, share and watch short videos — “digital nicotine” and said TikTok is “intentionally trying to get young people addicted to its platform.”
He said the app “is causing immense harm to an entire generation of young people.”
“TikTok’s unregulated and illegal virtual economy not only puts its profits above the health of children, but also enables the darkest and most corrupt sections of society to exploit vulnerable victims,” Schwalb said. “The company knows what is happening and has chosen to ignore it. This lawsuit seeks to put an end to his illegal, fraudulent and predatory behavior.”
TikTok didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on the lawsuits, but said in an announcement
“We are proud of and remain deeply committed to the work we have done to protect young people. We will continue to update and improve our product,” TikTok said. “We provide robust protections, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily introduced safety features such as default screen time limits, family pairing, and default privacy for minors under 16.”
“We have sought to work with the state attorneys general for over two years and it is incredibly disappointing that they have taken this step instead of working with us on constructive solutions to industry-wide challenges.”
More than half of young people between the ages of 13 and 17 within the US use the app. TikTok has greater than a billion lively users worldwide.
Schwalb's lawsuit, which alleges violations of D.C. consumer protection laws, accuses TikTok of “using algorithms and manipulative design features” to captivate young users by triggering bursts of dopamine of their impressionable brains.
“TikTok knows that its design features make the app addictive and keep users engaged for longer,” the lawsuit in DC Superior Court says.
“While this may be good for business, it has dangerous consequences for children.”
The grievance also states that in 2019, the corporate introduced “two new dangerous features”: a live streaming feature called TikTok LIVE and a virtual currency system called TikTok “Coins.”
“TikTok is characterized by its use of Coins – an unlicensed virtual currency,” the lawsuit says. “Users purchase coins to send virtual “gifts” during LIVE sessions, which streamers can money out for real money. TikTok is incentivizing users to go LIVE by promising that these money rewards will “get more popular.” [their] Content will likely be.'”
The lawsuit states that TikTok generates “significant revenue” from its coins and charges commissions of as much as 50% for every transaction.
The virtual currency app's deposit and withdrawal process is “a virtual money transfer system” that violates D.C. law by failing to acquire a required money transmitter license, the lawsuit says.
And “Although LIVE, including live streaming and gifting, currently has a minimum age requirement of 18 and older, TikTok knows that its lax age verification measures encourage U.S. minors to lie about their age to gain access,” it says in Schwalb's statement of claim.
The grievance also alleges that LIVE's design, including coins and gifts, “enables other serious harm to minors, including sexual exploitation.”
“TikTok is fully aware that these features together create an environment in which children are often sexually exploited by users, but has chosen to turn a blind eye in favor of increasing its profitability,” Schwalbs said in a press release Office.
TikTok's US headquarters are in Los Angeles, but the corporate maintains a big lobbying presence and office in Washington, DC
The company recently announced a partnership with the NHL's Washington Capitals hockey team to make use of TikTok's logo on its jerseys for away games for the upcoming season, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit demands that TikTok be permanently barred from violating consumer protection laws and ordered to pay compensation to users and face civil penalties.
The lawsuits brought by Schwalb and the opposite attorneys general, who’re filing separate lawsuits in courts throughout the United States, comes at a legally difficult time for the corporate, which is owned by China-based ByteDance.
In September, Lawyers for TikTok argued in a federal appeals court that a brand new law that might ban the app by Jan. 19 unless ByteDance finds a non-Chinese buyer for the corporate was unconstitutional since it violated TikTok users' First Amendment rights.
The bill was approved by the House and Senate in April after members of Congress and others argued that the app posed a national security risk to the United States.
In particular, they claimed that the kind of data being collected might be used as a weapon by America's adversaries in Beijing if the 2 countries ever went to war.
The lawsuits are the newest in a series of civil suits by state attorneys general targeting social media corporations for alleged harm to children and other users of their popular apps.
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