TikTok faces another lawsuit for allegedly harming children's mental health

Accordingly, the Attorneys General have sued TikTok, accusing the platform of violating the law due to many factors, including addictive algorithms, harmful content and violating the privacy of young users.

Lawsuits against TikTok are growing, with individual lawsuits filed by members of a coalition led by Attorneys General Letitia James of New York and Rob Bonta of California.

TikTok also faces a number of other legal pressures, including a bill that could ban the app in the US, a lawsuit from the federal Justice Department over the illegal collection of children's data, and legal action from other states.

Last June, New York passed a new law that tightens regulations on social media platforms' algorithms, specifically requiring platforms to display content in chronological order to users under 18.

The rule could force TikTok to make significant changes to how it operates, and 42 state attorneys general have joined forces to call for warning labels about the harm social media can do to children’s mental health.

“These claims are completely false and misleading,” said TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek. “We are proud of the strong safeguards we have in place to protect our users, especially young people, and we are committed to continually improving our product’s safety features to promote a safe online environment.”

For its part, TikTok has repeatedly said it believes the platform is safe for kids and offers safety features like default screen time limits for younger users and optional parental monitoring tools.

TikTok has "worked diligently with the Attorneys General for over two years and it is disappointing that they would take this step instead of working with us to find constructive solutions to industry-wide challenges," Haurek added.

However, the coalition of states that filed the lawsuit on October 8 said TikTok's efforts have not been enough to address the serious problems caused by the platform.

“TikTok’s fundamental business model is focused on maximizing the time young users spend on the platform so that the company can increase revenue from selling targeted advertising,” the attorneys general said in a statement. “TikTok uses an addictive content recommendation system designed to keep minors on the platform as long and as often as possible, despite the potential risks.”

In the lawsuit, Attorney General Letitia James alleges that TikTok deliberately designed its platform to be addictive, causing serious mental health consequences for millions of American children, despite the company knowing about the risks. The lawsuit also alleges that TikTok flouted age regulations, targeting children under 13 as a target audience for exploitation, despite public statements that it only allows users 13 and older.

Letitia James alleges that the profit motive has led TikTok to disregard the negative impacts on the mental health of its users, especially teenagers. With revenue of up to $16 billion in the US in 2023, TikTok has proven that prioritizing profit over safety is an effective business strategy.

The lawsuit also cites a Harvard University study that found TikTok earned $2 billion in advertising revenue in 2022 from American teens between the ages of 13 and 17.

The lawsuit argues that beauty filters on TikTok, by creating unrealistic beauty standards and encouraging social comparison, may contribute to an increase in body image and mental health issues among teens, especially young girls.

In addition, TikTok 'challenges', where users imitate dangerous actions, have encouraged reckless behavior among young people. The death of a Brooklyn teenager while performing the 'subway surfing challenge' is a prime example of the serious consequences of this.

James’ lawsuit also alleges that TikTok violates the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by failing to prevent children under 13 from joining the app and collecting personal information from children without parental consent. Specifically, TikTok claims that the platform is not intended for children under 13, but it “features children’s content, characters, activities, music, and other content, as well as advertising directed at children.”

“By maximizing the addictive nature of the TikTok platform, TikTok has nurtured a generation of young users who spend far more hours per day on the platform than they would like to, which is extremely detrimental to young people’s development and ability to meet their own needs and responsibilities,” Letitia James said in the complaint.

The lawsuit seeks financial penalties against TikTok, including requiring the platform to repay any profits it made from ads directed at teens or minors in New York.

Report shows frequent social media use affects teenagers' mental health

Following the Attorneys General's lawsuit, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report highlighting the prevalence of social media in the lives of American teens and its significant link to mental health.

According to data from the Teen Risk Behavior Survey, more than 75% of high school students are online regularly, using social media multiple times a day. And about 30% of high school students use social media more than once an hour.

Students who use social media frequently are more likely to have significantly more negative experiences and emotions than students who use social media less.

About 43% of high school students who used social media frequently said they felt persistently sad or hopeless, compared with 32% of those who used social media less frequently. They were also more likely to admit to being bullied both at school and on social media and to have considered suicide.

Survey results show that teenage girls are more likely to have mental health problems than their male counterparts. At the same time, girls also tend to use social media more frequently.

For more than three decades, the CDC has been conducting surveys of risky behavior among American teens to assess the well-being of high school students. The latest report, updated through 2023, collected data from more than 20,000 students from 155 nationally representative schools.