Many U.S. users of TikTok, which accounts for 170 million, almost half the population, disagree with lawmakers and the White House.
The popular social media network TikTok has many new lawsuits filed by various U.S. states accusing it of harming and neglecting to protect young people.
The cases, filed on Tuesday in New York, California, and 11 other states, as well as the District of Columbia, add to the legal problems the Chinese-owned company is currently facing in the U.S. The most recent papers accused TikTok of purposefully using addictive software to keep the kids engaged as long as possible and deceiving the effectiveness of its content filtering according to the age of the users.
TikTok denied numerous allegations, which it believes to be false and deceptive. It expressed disappointment that the states opted to sue them rather than collaborate with them to find constructive answers to issues faced by the whole industry.
ByteDance, the parent company of the social media app, is opposing legislation that may ban TikTok in the U.S. The business has previously stated that it provides many serious protections for parents and kids and completely disagrees with accusations that it fails to protect youngsters.
U.S. lawmakers have said that TikTok might give the Chinese government access to its user data through the wildly popular algorithm to influence Americans. The White House supports the bill.
But, many U.S. users of TikTok, which accounts for 170 million, almost half the population, disagree with lawmakers and the White House. Digital rights and civil liberties organizations argue that a ban would violate the right to free speech.
A coalition of civil rights organizations, the Hispanic Heritage Foundation and the Asian American Foundation argued in June that TikTok is helping the underrepresented population by giving them a platform to express their thoughts and views.
According to attorneys for the group, TikTok is a modern-day digital town square that empowers various communities, often ignored by mainstream media, to communicate their marginalized views with people all over America and the entire world.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has criticized the plans to shut down TikTok and claims that politicians are attempting to exchange First Amendment rights for cheap political points.
The ACLU stated that people can use TikTok and other social media platforms to share ideas, thoughts, and opinions by livestream protests, watching cooking instructions, sharing funny memes, or talking about the news.
According to the most recent cases, TikTok is allegedly trying to target users with ads based on how long they spend on the platform.
According to a statement from California Attorney General Rob Bonta, TikTok encourages social media addiction to increase corporate profits. TikTok is deliberately targeting younger audiences because younger people lack the maturity or necessary capacity to set appropriate boundaries around addictive content.
Young people are struggling with their mental health due to how addictive social media sites like TikTok are.
In addition, Washington’s lawsuit accused TikTok enabled the sexual exploitation of minors by managing its virtual money and live streaming service like a virtual strip club with no age sensitivity.
Brian Schwalb, the attorney general for Washington, DC, claimed that TikTok’s platform is unsafe by design. It is a purposefully designed app meant to addict youngsters to their screens.
According to TikTok, it has inbuilt safety features that include privacy defaults for minors under 16 and default screentime limits.
On Tuesday, lawsuits were filed by the states of Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, and Washington. Texas and Utah, among other states, had already filed lawsuits against the platform. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Justice sued TikTok earlier this year for allegedly failing to protect children’s privacy on the platform.