Attorney General Knudsen sues TikTok for harmful effects on children, deceptive practices

HELENA - Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen filed a lawsuit against social media giant TikTok today for knowingly sharing addictive and harmful content with children and teens and engaging in other deceptive practices in violation of the Montana Consumer Protection Act.

The lawsuit was filed after an investigation into the app by the Montana Department of Justice found there are "virtually endless amounts of extreme and mature videos presented to children as young as thirteen." TikTok is also specifically targeting young people and purposefully designed the app to be addictive, while lying about the mature and extreme content on the highly addictive app.

"TikTok must be held accountable for poisoning the minds of children and lying to parents about the videos their children can view on the app. Parents need to know the truth about the content their children have access to on the app and TikTok is pushing to their feeds," Attorney General Knudsen said. "As attorney general, it's my job to hold bad actors deceiving Montanans accountable and I intend to do just that."

TikTok is in violation of the Montana Consumer Protection Act, which protects Montanans from "unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce." Under the Act, Attorney General Knudsen is seeking a permanent injunction compelling TikTok to cease its deceptive, misleading, false and unfair statements and conduct.

TikTok's age ratings in Apple's App Store, Google Play, and Microsoft Stores are deceptive. For example, the social media company deceptively states that in each category in the Apple App Store including "profanity or crude humor," "mature/suggestive themes," "sexual content and nudity," and "alcohol, tobacco, or drug use references" is infrequent and mild, but in every case the investigation revealed it is much more extreme.

• TikTok claims in the Apple App Store that profanity on the app is infrequent and mild, but many videos with hundreds of millions of views are set to music with extremely profane language and are readily available to users.
• TikTok claims that alcohol, tobacco, and drug use references are infrequent or mild, but investigators found numerous examples of frequent and intense content. In one example, a woman is smiling and then showing a wobbly room with the text "This is what ket feels like." "Ket" is short for the drug ketamine.
• Sexual content and nudity are also not infrequent or mild as claimed by TikTok, as Montana's investigation revealed many sexualized videos are readily available to users, including "Magic Mike" performances of male strippers dancing and grinding on women on stage and a video describing at length an encounter at a "rub n tug" massage parlor.
• Videos including other mature and suggestive themes that are psychologically damaging for young users. For example, the investigation revealed numerous videos that glorify extreme thinness.

Still, TikTok chooses to give itself an age rating of "12+" in the Apple App Store even though mature and adult content promoting suicide, self-harm, and eating disorders; recipes for highly alcoholic drinks; sexually explicit videos; and advice and encouragement about using certain drugs readily available to users registered as 13-year-olds.

TikTok has also intentionally pursued innovative design features to keep young people in the app, which do not comport with their age ratings in app stores and have led to addiction in young Montanans which is a detriment to their well-being, development, and mental and physical health.

For example, the TikTok Live feature facilitates user engagement in dangerous activities such as binge drinking in exchange for compensation. One user died of excessive alcohol consumption the day after Christmas in 2022 after earning money by taking drinks "bought" for him by other users.

Features like "effects," which can alter a user's appearance, can have a profoundly negative impact on young women, causing body image issues, eating disorders, and even suicide which remain undisclosed by TikTok.

Further, the social media company has also made deceptive claims about restrictive controls and information in its community guidelines, leaving parents without the information they need to decide whether to allow their child to use TikTok.

For example, TikTok states that "Restricted Mode is an option at the account settings level that limits the appearance of content that may not be appropriate for all audiences." However, it does not work the way TikTok claims as even when restricted mode is enabled, users - even 13-year-olds - can see mature content, and TikTok does not warn parents that restricted mode does not meaningfully restrict the visibility of mature content on the app.

"Parents also care about safety and parental control features, such as TikTok's Restricted Mode. Parents who use these controls rely on them to do what TikTok says they will do-limit the amount of inappropriate, mature content their kids see," Attorney General Knudsen wrote in the lawsuit. "Parents need to know the limits of these so-called "safety" features before they decide whether, and how, to permit their children to use TikTok. Misrepresentations about these safety features are particularly acute and deceptive when combined with TikTok's other deceptive representations."

Click here to read the lawsuit.

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