HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday filed a lawsuit Tuesday against social media giant TikTok, accusing the company of misrepresenting its content available to minors and purposefully maintaining an addictive online platform that jeopardizes the health and wellness of children in the name of boosting company profits.
The lawsuit was filed in Allegheny County Court against TikTok and its related companies, including parent company ByteDance of China and American operations successor TikTok USDS Joint Venture.
Sunday accuses TikTok and related defendants of violating the Pennsylvania Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law. The attorney general asks the court to declare TikTok has violated the law and that it be temporarily and permanently enjoined from continuing its challenged practices.
The lawsuit filed by Sunday accuses TikTok specifically of misrepresenting content available to minors to achieve a favorable age-appropriate rating, and also of purposely making its social media platform addictive, citing the endless scrolling function and app notifications.
The filing comes one day after, according to Reuters, a federal appeals judge upheld a lower court ruling against major tech firms including TikTok, Meta, Google and Snapchat, ordering them to stand as defendants in an estimated 3,000 lawsuits in federal court accusing them of purposefully making their products addictive for children.
“To achieve a 13-plus age rating in the app stores, TikTok claims mature audience content is infrequent on their apps. Our investigation reveals that this could not be further from the truth, and it is TikTok’s 13-plus age rating that opens the gates for kids. That age rating gives parents the illusion of safety, but actually it opens the door to putting content literally in the palms of our kids hands whenever they want it,” Sunday said during a press conference held Tuesday at the State Capitol.
“TikTok intentionally designed its platform to be addictive to young people,” Sunday said. “They want users, including children, to crave the app. They want users to endlessly scroll while they rake in astronomical ad revenue. I’m standing here today to say enough is enough, and my office is taking action with this lawsuit,” he said.
Though estimates vary, multiple online sources say TikTok has more than 1.5 billion users globally. Users as young as 13 can open an account.
According to Sunday, the social media company’s age verification system is “essentially worthless” and has easy workarounds for minors to misrepresent themselves as being of adult age.
He said features like “restricted mode” and “family pairing” to prevent adult content from being viewed by minors don’t work well, and that the company knows this, alleging that TikTok is acting deceptively.
“These tools do not increase anyone’s safety. They do not meaningfully protect minors from mature content, nor do they meaningfully limit the app’s addictive effects,” the lawsuit states.
A spokesperson for TikTok released the following statement: “This lawsuit relies on misleading and inaccurate claims and deliberately ignores the concrete safety measures TikTok has voluntarily implemented to support the well-being of our community. Teen accounts have 50 preset safety, privacy and security settings built-in, and TikTok’s Family Pairing tools give parents direct control over screen time and content filters. We will vigorously defend against these claims.”
Sunday’s lawsuit comes on the heels of his office’s teenTALK initiative that included roundtables with school students across Pennsylvania and an ensuing report about the potential dangers of social media.