TikTok’s in trouble once more—this time, 13 states and DC complain it’s breaking laws by harvesting children’s data and keeping them  addicted.

For You Plague

What’s the craic? Bobby Allyn reports: More than a dozen states sue TikTok, alleging it harms kids

“Profits over child safety”
Led by California and New York, [they] are suing TikTok for allegedly duping the public about the safety of the popular video app, claiming it was deliberately designed to keep young people hooked. … The lawsuits, filed [by  a] bipartisan group of attorneys general [from] 13 states and the District of Columbia, argue TikTok has violated consumer protection laws and contributed to a teen mental health crisis.
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Used by half of America, TikTok will now be defending itself against a barrage of state lawsuits that tap into growing national unease. [They are] seeking to force TikTok to change product features that they argue are manipulative and harm teens. The suits are also asking courts to impose financial penalties.
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TikTok, like most social media apps, tries to keep users as engaged as possible. … But the attorneys general say features like its hyper-personalized algorithm, the ability to scroll endlessly and the app’s use of push notifications encourage excessive use that can lead to emotional and behavioral changes. [They] claim TikTok is prioritizing the company’s growth and profits over child safety.

Where’s the security angle? Lawrence Bonk digs in: States sue TikTok, alleging that it’s designed to addict kids

“Sexual exploitation”
The suits also accuse TikTok and parent company ByteDance of collecting the data of young users without consent. [They] say the platform violated the law by “falsely claiming its platform is safe for young people.” [They] focus on “dangerous TikTok challenges,” [from] taking an excessive amount of Benadryl to messing with an electrical outlet.
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The suits … illustrate TikTok’s “underlying business model”, which is accused of “maximizing young users’ times on the platform so the company can boost revenue from selling targeted ads.” [They] even suggest that TikTok allows for the sexual exploitation of its younger users, via a proprietary currency and a live streaming component, [which] “incentivize US minors to lie about their age to gain access.”

Horse’s mouth? Here are two of the 14: Coalition Suing TikTok

“Never stood a chance”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta and New York Attorney General Letitia James today co-led a bipartisan coalition. … Despite knowing certain users are under 13 years old … TikTok has collected and used personal information from children’s accounts without parental consent or notice. [Its] misconduct arises from its underlying business model that focuses on maximizing young users’ time on the TikTok platform so as to enable the company to boost revenue from selling targeted advertising.
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“Young people are struggling with their mental health because of addictive social media platforms like TikTok,” said … James. “TikTok claims that their platform is safe … but that is far from true. In New York and across the country, young people have died or gotten injured doing dangerous TikTok challenges. … We are suing TikTok to protect young people. … We are doing everything in our power to protect them.”
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“Our investigation has revealed … TikTok intentionally targets children because they know kids do not yet have the defenses or capacity to create healthy boundaries around addictive content,” said … Bonta. “When we look at the youth mental health crisis and the revenue machine TikTok has created, … it’s devastatingly obvious: Our children and teens never stood a chance.”

But don’t all social apps do this? tombert gets nuanced:

I think the concern is TikTok’s Chinese ownership. I don’t really like the data collection of Instagram or YouTube either, but at least those are owned by US companies, and as such aren’t centralized in a country we have an semi-adversarial relationship with.
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I don’t think the concern would be as much if TikTok were British or Canadian or French, since the US doesn’t have an adversarial relation with them. The concern is that China, a country that we sort-of-kind-of have a problem with, is surveilling and potentially influencing us.

But AGs gonna generally attorney. So says viperidaenz:

[The AGs] can kind of do what they want here, since the first amendment doesn’t protect foreign companies, and the government is the one that makes the laws. Bytedance should have sold Tiktok and gone public when the US government was telling them to, and then open an alternate headquarters in USA. … But the CCP wouldn’t let that happen.

But won’t somebody please think of the children? JamesO thinks laterally:

Yes children and adults alike are very easily manipulated by constant propaganda. That’s why they still use propaganda: Because it works. And now it’s being fed to children unfiltered and unlimited.

If only something could be done at home. Kai Alpha blames the parents:

For parents that are complaining: Be better parents. … Don’t place blame on something, when it’s your ineptitudes that cause [the] decline of children’s personas and subsequent futures.
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Children will find their path, with or without parents. If it isn’t TikTok, it will be something else. Unless you want to be a spectator to your kids’ lives, stop wasting time and money through litigation, but rather, present the children with something worth aspiring to.

However, Mike Masnick merely rolls his eyes:

These lawsuits are so stupid. They’re based on:
1) A misunderstanding of the research,
2) A misunderstanding of the First Amendment, and
3) Wishful thinking about reality.
Nearly all of this is really the political class trying to shift blame for their own failures in fixing societal-level problems.
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In the 19th century: The waltz was decried as too sexual for kids, chess was called out for making kids stupid, novels were complained about because they were addictive, … taking kids away from more important things. Same thing again and again.

Meanwhile, in a similar vein, here’s tssva:

You forgot the evils of pinball and comic books.

And Finally:

Slow down, Rick

Previously in And Finally

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