ATTORNEY GENERAL Andrea Campbell filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against TikTok and its affiliated companies alleging that the social media company violated Massachusetts consumer protection laws by intentionally designing the platform to be addictive to young people and deceiving the public about efforts to ensure safety on its platform.
TikTok is a platform for sharing and watching short videos that is particularly popular among children and teenagers. This lawsuit – filed along with attorneys general in 12 other states and the District of Columbia – comes almost exactly a year after Campbell and attorney generals in 42 states filed lawsuits against Meta for allegedly using Facebook and Instagram to hook and harm young people. Once again, Campbell is co-leading the effort.
“The reason we’re focused on taking on social media platforms [like] Meta, Instagram, and TikTok is because we are prioritizing the well-being of our kids,” said Campbell at a press conference. “The depression, the anxiety that we’re seeing with our young people, requires us to step up and to really go after those who would target them.”
Like the Meta lawsuits, the TikTok lawsuits follow a two-year-long multistate nationwide investigation that was launched in Massachusetts by Campbell’s predecessor as attorney general, Maura Healey, who is now the governor.
The lawsuit argues that TikTok is fully aware of the serious harm it is causing and that the platform knowingly targets US children. “Internally,” the lawsuit states, “TikTok knows that its platform is designed to coerce kids into compulsive use and that this use causes them harm.”
Campbell said TikTok’s sister app in China, called Douyin, has stricter controls to protect children. The Chinese government passed a law back in 2021 which limited the use of the platform for children under 14 to 40 minutes between the hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
These lawsuits only add to the challenges currently facing TikTok with a national ban scheduled to start January 19 unless the company separates from its China-based parent company, ByteDance. TikTok is currently trying to fight the ban in court.
Campbell said she is not seeking an all-out ban of the platform but she hopes to get an acknowledgment of the harm it is causing and changes to features that the lawsuit alleges harm young people. These features include infinite scroll, which allows a user to never reach the bottom of their feed, near-constant notifications, and autoplay on videos. Both Instagram and Facebook were accused of using similar tactics in the Meta lawsuit.
TikTok denied any wrongdoing and said in a statement that the company has provided “robust safeguards,” removed under-aged users, and voluntarily launched safety features like screentime limits, family pairing which allows parents to control their children’s activity on the app, and privacy for minors under 16.
“We strongly disagree with these claims, many of which we believe to be inaccurate and misleading,” said Alex Haurek, a TikTok spokesperson. “We’ve endeavored to work with the attorneys general for over two years, and it is incredibly disappointing they have taken this step rather than work with us on constructive solutions to industry-wide challenges.”
Campbell said that the safety features on TikTok have been ineffective in preventing children and teens from becoming addicted to the app. For example, she said, the screen time limit is simply a pop-up that warns the user to stop using the app. The pop-up can be easily removed and the user can continue scrolling, she said.
She also brought up a TikTok feature that allows users to apply beauty filters on their face, which smooths skin texture and enhances the person’s appearance in real-time. There is one filter called “bold glamour” which dramatically changes the user’s appearance like in this video posted to X.
“TikTok claims that youth well-being is its top priority. That is simply false,” said Campbell. “Let’s take the beauty film filters as an example. That platform provides users with filters and effects that can be used to dramatically alter one’s appearance and foster unrealistic beauty standards. This is particularly harmful to the platform’s users, especially young girls.”
Campbell said that TikTok deployed features – like the beauty filter – that the company knew were harmful to young people.
“Records show that the company knew these filters caused harm to young people but deliberately chose to keep them because they knew their removal would decrease a user’s time on the platform,” Campbell said.
Campbell urged parents to talk to their children about the positive and negative impacts of social media use.
“As our US surgeon general has recognized, it is not a fair fight,” said Campbell. “Companies are employing the most gifted of engineers and deploying the most sophisticated technology just for the purpose of addicting our young people. So please know that your attorney general along with this office will always prioritize the well-being of our kids and we’ll do everything to hold these companies accountable.”
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