TikTok’s algorithms are poisoning kids’ mental health — and even leading to deaths from boneheaded viral social media challenges, an explosive lawsuit filed Tuesday by state Attorney General Letitia James claims.
James’ legal action comes alongside 14 other states who filed lawsuits as a coalition against the embattled social media company, which is accused of failing to protect children from it’s “addictive” endless scroll and violating data privacy laws.
“In New York and across the country, young people have died or gotten injured doing dangerous TikTok challenges and many more are feeling more sad, anxious, and depressed because of TikTok’s addictive features,” James said in an announcement.
“Kids and families across the country are desperate for help to address this crisis, and we are doing everything in our power to protect them.”
The coalition is looking for the company to halt its “harmful” tactics and pay financial penalties, including profits from allegedly fraudulent practices. James and other state AGs also are looking to collect damages for users, according to a statement.
TikTok’s parent company — China-based ByteDance — stakes its business model on “the addictive nature of social media applications,” and aims to keep its youngest users glued to their screens — despite past claims the social media giant issued protects for underage users, the suit said.
“Teen overuse” is part of the design of the app, the suit claims, and results in “increased rates of major depressive episodes and anxiety, body image problems and eating disorders, sleep disturbance, loneliness, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts.”
Internal data cited in the filing states that the company “considers users under the age of 13 to be a critical demographic,” and as a result, TikTok made conscious decisions to manipulate young brains to spend as much time as possible on the application, the suit claims.
Most of the internal information from the company has been redacted in the filed complaint.
Specific elements of the app, including the customized algorithmic feed, video autoplay, and endless scroll make it harder for young users in particular to break out of dopamine-enhanced feedback loops, the suit states.
Pushing ephemeral “live” content advanced TikTok in their mission of hooking young users by “exploiting young users’ unique sensitivity to the ‘fear of missing out’ (‘FOMO’).”
Other “coercive design” decisions, which highlight “social validations and quantification metrics,” have “an especially powerful effect on teenagers.”
“By maximizing the TikTok platform’s addictive properties, TikTok has cultivated a generation of young users who spend hours per day on its platform—more than they would otherwise choose to—which is highly detrimental to teens’ development and ability to attend to personal needs and responsibilities,” the suit states.
TikTok’s features like “beauty filters” actively harm young people by “perpetuating certain beauty stereotypes” and “encouraging eating disorders, body dysmorphia and related problems,” according to the suit.
The platform also inspires young people to try dangerous — and even deadly — “challenges,” the lawsuit alleged.
“Numerous teen users have injured or even killed themselves or others participating in viral pranks to obtain rewards and increase their number of ‘Likes,’ views, and followers, a foreseeable consequence of TikTok’s engagement-maximizing design,” the suit said.
Multiple high-profile incidents are cited, including a 2023 subway surfing death and the viral wave of Kia thefts, as examples.
But rather than dangerous aberrations, such videos “are a cornerstone of the platform and are among the most popular videos on the platform,” according to the suit.
The anti-TiKTok coalition is being led by James and California Attorney General Rob Bonta and includes Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
All the while, TikTok’s revenue in the US reached $16 billion in 2023 — with studies claiming that roughly 35% of ad revenue comes from minors on the app, even as the company has said the app is not for kids under 13.
ByteDance is fighting a proposed US law that would ban the app in the country.
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