\n
Oct 8 (BBC\/GNA) \u2013 More than a dozen states in the US have sued TikTok, accusing the social media platform of helping to drive a mental health crisis among teenagers.<\/p>\n
A bipartisan group of 14 attorneys general from across the country allege that the company uses addictive features to hook children to the app and that it has intentionally misled the public about the safety of prolonged use.<\/p>\n
TikTok called the lawsuit \u201cdisappointing\u201d and said it believed many of the claims were \u201cinaccurate and misleading\u201d.<\/p>\n
The platform is already battling a law passed by Congress in April that would ban it from the US, unless Chinese parent company Bytedance agreed to a sale.<\/p>\n
\u201cTikTok knows that compulsive use of and other harmful effects of its platform are wreaking havoc on the mental health of millions of American children and teenagers,\u201d said the lawsuit filed in New York on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite such documented knowledge, TikTok continually misrepresents its platform as \u2018safe\u2019 [and] \u2018appropriate for children and teenagers\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
New York Attorney General Letitia James said young people across the country had died or been injured doing TikTok \u201cchallenges\u201d and many others were feeling \u201cmore sad, anxious and depressed because of TikTok\u2019s addictive features\u201d.<\/p>\n
She cited a 15-year-old boy, who died in Manhattan while \u201csubway surfing\u201d \u2013 riding on top of a moving subway car. His mother later found TikTok videos of such activity on his phone, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTikTok claims that their platform is safe for young people, but that is far from true,\u201d Ms James said in a statement announcing the action.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit singles out certain features as problematic: alerts that disrupt sleep; videos that vanish, driving users to check the platform frequently; and beauty filters that allow users to augment their appearance.<\/p>\n
Though TikTok has promoted tools aimed at helping people limit their screen-time or resetting what content they are served, it has misrepresented their effectiveness, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
The lawsuits were filed by 13 states separately and in the District of Columbia, where the attorney general also accused the company of running an unlicensed money transmission business via its \u201cvirtual currency\u201d offering.<\/p>\n
TikTok said in a statement on Tuesday: \u201cWe strongly disagree with these claims, many of which we believe to be inaccurate and misleading.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re proud of and remain deeply committed to the work we\u2019ve done to protect teens and we will continue to update and improve our product.\u201d<\/p>\n
GNA\/Credit: BBC<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oct 8 (BBC\/GNA) \u2013 More than a dozen states in the US have sued TikTok, accusing the social media platform of helping to drive a mental health crisis among teenagers. A bipartisan group of 14 attorneys general from across the country allege that the company uses addictive features to hook children to the app and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":228453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-news"],"yoast_head":"\n
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