In this 2020 photo illustration, the TikTok app is displayed on an Apple iPhone. The U.S. House on Wednesday, March 13, 2024, 352-65 passed a bill that effectively bans TikTok unless the company splits from its Chinese owner ByteDance because of national security concerns. (Photo Illustration by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
COLUMBIA — South Carolina’s chief prosecutor joined 13 other attorneys general filing separate lawsuits Tuesday accusing TikTok of breaking state consumer protection laws.
Attorney General Alan Wilson filed his office’s 86-page complaint in Richland County Court.
“TikTok is knowingly addicting children to their platform and monetizing this behavior, all while deceiving parents about the safety of their business model,” Wilson said in a news release that announced the bipartisan effort and included a heavily redacted version of the South Carolina lawsuit.
TikTok is a popular social media platform that lets users scroll through short videos. About two-thirds of teens in the U.S. ages 13 to 17 use the platform, according to a survey cited in the release.
The lawsuit alleges TikTok deceptively markets itself as appropriate for teens and pre-teens, though content on the site includes profanity, violence and sexual images. It also charges that the app is specifically designed to be addictive to young people.
“TikTok presents an endless scroll of videos designed to hook a user into a dreamlike state of content consumption,” the lawsuit reads. “The more time young South Carolinians spend glued to the app, scrolling with no end, the more TikTok can feed them targeted advertisement after advertisement and generate massive profits through ad revenue.”
The lawsuit claims that TikTok is violating state law by falsely rating its app as appropriate for youth 12 and older, falsely claiming damaging content is kept off the platform, and by using addictive features that are damaging to youth.
There is no specific amount of damages requested. But the lawsuit asks TikTok to pay $5,000 for every time the app has violated state law. The lawsuit gives no estimate for how often that occurs.
TikTok has disputed the claims made in the state lawsuits.
“We strongly disagree with these claims, many of which we believe to be inaccurate and misleading,” a TikTok spokesman, Alex Haurek, told The Associated Press. “We’re proud of and remain deeply committed to the work we’ve done to protect teens, and we will continue to update and improve our product.”
Other lawsuits were filed Tuesday by attorneys general in California, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington state, as well as the District of Columbia. With these states, a total of 23 attorney generals across the country have now sued TikTok.
Earlier this year, the South Carolina state House passed a bill that would have brought greater regulation of social media in the state, but the proposal fizzled in the state Senate.
Congress also took action on TikTok specifically this year, threatening to ban the app if its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, did not sell it.