Other LanguagesSocial media giant accused of designing app to be addictive to young users
SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced today that he is suing TikTok for putting profits before the well-being of millions of its most vulnerable users by creating a platform that is addictive to youth. Ferguson’s lawsuit is part of a nationwide bipartisan effort, with 13 other attorneys general filing their own similar lawsuits.
Specifically, Ferguson’s lawsuit filed in King County Superior Court accuses TikTok of violating the state Consumer Protection Act by targeting youth with features that encourage compulsive and excessive use to get them hooked on the platform. It asserts the social media giant deployed misleading public statements about TikTok’s safety and content moderation practices despite internal research showing the risks to young users.
A significant portion of the complaint relies on material that TikTok asserts is confidential and has not yet been disclosed. Ferguson is requesting the court unseal that information.
Research shows that excessive social media use by children and adolescents correlates with increased poor mental health outcomes. That’s especially true for young girls.
Ferguson asserts that TikTok’s protections for young users are inadequate, despite its public claims of providing a safe, well-moderated experience for them.
“I am one of the millions of parents across Washington who knows firsthand the hold TikTok and other social media apps have on kids,” Ferguson said. “TikTok is deceiving young people and their parents when it claims to look out for the safety of young users. Platforms like TikTok must be reformed and we know they are unwilling to do so on their own. I will not stop fighting to protect our kids and their mental health.”
The latest lawsuit against TikTok comes nearly a year after Ferguson filed another, similar lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, along with a bipartisan group of attorneys general. The federal lawsuit accuses Meta of intentionally targeting youth with harmful features designed to get them hooked for life all while publicly downplaying the risks to maximize profits.
Like Meta, TikTok’s business model relies on maximizing user engagement. To keep young users coming back to the platform, TikTok designs its algorithms to figure out what types of videos they like and push more of those types of videos to them. TikTok’s “infinite scroll” and autoplay features increase the likelihood that users will stay on the app for an excessive amount of time, which is harmful to youth.
In short, TikTok intentionally targets youth to keep them on the platform as long as possible without regard for their safety. At the same time, TikTok downplays the risks for its young users. These tactics contradict the company’s public-facing claims that it puts user safety first.
TikTok intentionally created an addictive platform
TikTok — one of the most widely used social media apps among teens — created a platform that is addictive to youth. At the same time, TikTok misrepresents to parents and kids that its platform has sufficient safeguards to protect them when it does not.
TikTok employs an arsenal of harmful, addictive-by-design features specifically targeted and tailored to exploiting, manipulating and capitalizing on young users’ still developing brains, the lawsuit asserts.
One of those features is “endless” or “infinite” scrolling. Endless scrolling compels young users to spend more time on TikTok by making it difficult for them to disengage, stripping away any natural stopping point or opportunity to turn to a new activity. TikTok claims that its screen time limit for teens mitigates the effects of features like endless scroll, but the limit is not a hard stop. Teens can click through TikTok’s take-a-break reminders and even disable them entirely.
TikTok also employs push notifications to prolong the time youth spend on the app. The notifications create a sense that youth are missing out on new activity on TikTok.
TikTok allowed under-13 users to bypass age gate
Starting in 2019, TikTok split its platform into two levels, a “Kids Mode” and a “full” experience. “Kids Mode” restricts content young users can access, and bars them from uploading content. They also have no access to direct messages and cannot comment on other posts, in addition to other restrictions.
TikTok uses “age gating” — or screening a user based on their birth date — to prevent underage users from accessing the platform’s full experience.
However, TikTok knows that many children bypass the age gate, if it’s used at all. TikTok’s age gate depends on children reporting their age. While the age gate may sometimes effectively filter some users under age 13 into “Kids Mode,” TikTok knows that under-13 users are incentivized to and routinely supply a false date of birth to access the full TikTok experience.
The Pew Research Center reported last year that 63% of all Americans age 13 to 17 used TikTok, and most teenagers in the U.S. report using TikTok daily. According to the research, 17% of teens say that they are on TikTok “almost constantly.”
In 2020, The New York Times reported that more than one-third of TikTok’s 49 million daily users in the United States were 14 or younger.
Investigation background
This lawsuit is the result of a bipartisan, nationwide investigation by state attorneys general that began in 2021. Ferguson joined a bipartisan multistate lawsuit against Meta last year that came out of the same investigation.
Other attorneys general filing their own individual lawsuits this week include: California, New York, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont and the District of Columbia. Eight other states filed individual lawsuits earlier in the investigation. Those include: Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, New Hampshire, Nebraska and Utah.
The attorneys general are seeking to stop TikTok’s unlawful practices and to force TikTok to implement reforms. Those reforms include strengthening its screen time limiting features for youth, eliminating or placing limits on endless scrolling and improving its “age gating,” or age verification, practices.
Ferguson is also seeking civil penalties of up to $12,500 per violation, after enhancements, under the Washington Consumer Protection Act.
Assistant Attorneys General Joe Kanada, Kelsey Burazin, Daniel Allen and Will O’Connor, Paralegals Allison Cleveland, Matt Hehemann, Keri Snider, Jen Killoren and Anne Wallig are handling the case for Washington.
Social media impacts on youth mental health
Experts, including the U.S. Surgeon General, agree that excessive social media use by children and adolescents correlates with physical and psychological harms such as higher rates of depression, anxiety and attention deficit disorders. It can also lead to eating disorders, suicidal thoughts and body dysmorphia.
Social media use can disrupt activities that are essential for health, like sleep and physical activity, depending on the amount of time children spend online.
According to the Surgeon General, recent research shows that adolescents who spend more than three hours per day on social media face double the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes, such as symptoms of depression and anxiety.
Social media may perpetuate body dissatisfaction, disordered eating behaviors, social comparison and low self-esteem, especially among adolescent girls. One-third or more of girls aged 11-15 say they feel “addicted” to certain social media platforms and over half of teenagers report that it would be hard to give up social media.
Ferguson’s lawsuit against Meta
In October 2023, Ferguson and a bipartisan coalition of 42 attorneys general filed lawsuits accusing Meta, the parent company of the social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, of knowingly targeting youth — calling them a “valuable, but untapped” market — with harmful features designed to get them hooked for life to maximize profits.
The federal lawsuit also alleges that Meta knew young users, including those under 13, were active on the platforms and knowingly collected data from those users without parental consent.
The states’ case against Meta is currently being litigated in the Northern District of California.
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Brionna Aho, Communications Director, (360) 753-2727; Brionna.aho@atg.wa.gov
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