Utah sued TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, Tuesday for "inciting" and luring minors to consume content that is harmful to them. Republican Governor Spencer Cox and state Attorney General Sean Reyes announced that they had filed a lawsuit in Salt Lake City court against the platform for causing children to spend hours hooked on the social network. Cox assured that this was something the state was not willing to allow, per the AP:
We will not stand by while these companies fail to take adequate, meaningful action to protect our children. We will prevail in holding social media companies accountable by any means necessary.
According the lawsuit, the social network’s tactics to attract minors have caused serious concerns about the public health of young people.
Social media companies are illegally baiting our children into addictive and unhealthy use of their platforms. Today we announced a lawsuit against TikTok for that exact reason. This action follows the landmark legislation we signed requiring social media companies to protect…
— Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox (@GovCox) October 10, 2023
Children at serious risk due to excessive use of TikTok
In fact, the state explained in the lawsuit, children who spend more than three hours a day on social media, be it TikTok, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) or Instagram, double their risk of "suffering from mental health problems, including anxiety and depression." However, in the case of the Chinese social network, the situation is worsening, as explained by Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, in statements picked up by Reuters:
What these children (and their parents) do not know is that TikTok is lying to them about the safety of its app and exploiting them into checking and watching the app compulsively, no matter the terrible effects it has on their mental health, their physical development, their family, and their social life.
For this reason, the state is seeking to force the digital platform to change its "destructive behavior." To do this, Reyes explained, they will impose fines and sanctions with the aim of subsidizing the damage that excessive use of the application has caused to Utah children.
The social network defends itself
TikTok issued a statement via email claiming that the accusations made against it by the state of Utah are not true. According to platform spokesperson Alex Haurek, the social network has developed several tools to limit the time that children spend on it:
TikTok has industry-leading safeguards for young people, including an automatic 60-minute time limit for users under 18 and parental controls for teen accounts. We will continue to work to keep our community safe by tackling industry-wide challenges.
