State sues TikTok, citing danger to children
By: Kyle Morel
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
..... New Jersey is suing Tiktok after a multi-year investigation found the social media giant engaged in deceptive and abusive business practice that negatively impact children, state officials announced Tuesday. [10/08/2024]
.....
The lawsuit, filed in state Superior Court, alleges TikTok violated the New Jersey Fraud Act by "designing a platform that consistently and deliberately targets our youth to become more compulsive suers without making them or their parents fully aware of the risks," Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in a news conference.
..... The suit also contends the app is designed to be addictive at great cost to its users, particularly children. Platkin cited a 2023 Pew Research Center study that found 63% of Americans ages 13 to 17 use TikTok, of which 17% are on the app "almost constantly."
..... "This excessive use is by design," Platkin said. "TikTok pushes its young users to spend all of their time on the platform with no regard for the effect it has on their mental health and wellbeing."
..... New Jersey's lawsuit is part of a group of suits filed across the country Tuesday [10/08/2024] by other state officials. It comes almost a year after a similar suit in which more than 40 states, including New Jersey, accused Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg of harmful practices on the platform that affected young users.
..... Cari Fais, New Jersey's acting director of the Division of Consumer Affairs, compared TikTok to tobacco and opioid companies that have previously been the subject of lawsuits. These businesses, she said, are "large sophisticated companies with tremendous resources targeting and deceiving vulnerable suers with misleading marketing."
..... Fais also alleged that TikTok misrepresents safety and moderation features on the app, which are "deceptively designed" to appear beneficial to users without Causing any significant changes.
..... For example, Fais referenced the company imposing a 60-minute time limit for users under 18 years old. In reality, she said, young users are simply prompted to enter a pass-code they created to continue watching. The can also extend the time before they receive the screen time warning or disable the feature entirely.
..... In many instances, Fais said, TikTok does not remove content that goes against its community guidelines such as videos showing gore and drug use. all these actions she said, contribute to a "manipulative and harmful platform" purposely designed to get young ugly hooked on the app.
..... "The ugly truth is that despite knowing the harm its platform is causing to a generation of children, and despite claiming to have implemented feature to limit those harms, TikTok continues to sue unconscionable practices aimed at turning our children into social media addicts," Fais said. "We're here today [10/08/2024] to put a stop to it. today, [10/08/2024] we are sending a clear message that we will not allow corporations to enrich themselves by harming and misleading our residents."
..... TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance Ltd. It maintains two platforms today: [10/08/2024] a restrictive one for Chinese consumers and another for the rest of the world that mainly targets the United States.