(Photo: Getty Images)
North Carolina’s attorney general sued TikTok and its parent company ByteDance on Tuesday, alleging that the app is addictive for children and demanding the company change its policies and pay penalties.
Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat running for governor, filed the suit in North Carolina Superior Court alongside 13 other state attorneys general of both parties.
“TikTok knowingly created a product that harmed children, and then it deceived everyone about how dangerous and addictive the product was,” Stein said in a news release. “They did this to make more money. It doesn’t matter what you’re selling – you have to be honest about the risks, and you have to follow the law. TikTok failed in both regards, and our children suffer. So, I’m taking them to court to make them do better by our kids.”
In a statement provided to NC Newsline, a TikTok spokesperson said the company “strongly disagrees” with the lawsuit’s claims, which they said were “inaccurate and misleading.”
“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,” spokesperson Michael Hughes said. “We provide robust safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched safety features such as default screen time limits, family pairing, and privacy by default for minors under 16. 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 industrywide challenges.”
Stein’s suit argues that features such as infinite scroll, algorithmic recommendations and video autoplay fuel excessive watching among children. And he alleges that internal documents obtained by the group of AGs show repeated efforts to make changes for children were refused by leadership.
“To convince kids to use TikTok — and their parents to allow them to do so — defendants tell consumers that the platform is safe, fun, and appropriate for teens and children,” the lawsuit says. “But these representations are deceptive because defendants know that TikTok is harmful and addictive.”
Congress has passed a law requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok or have the app banned in the U.S. TikTok has filed its own suit in federal court, calling the law unconstitutional.
Stein last year also sued Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, similarly alleging that the platforms are designed to be addictive for children.