Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta files lawsuit against TikTok for exploiting young users

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and several other state attorneys general filed a coordinated blitz of lawsuits Tuesday against TikTok, alleging the popular social media app is exploiting young users, violating state consumer protection laws and misleading the public.

A coalition of 14 attorneys general, led by Bonta and New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James, filed separate enforcement actions against the Chinese-owned app that serves as a platform for influencers and internet celebrities.

In a press conference Tuesday, Bonta outlined several features of the app that state regulators say harm the mental health of young people, including beauty filters, infinite scrolling, push notifications and likes.

“They have built a business model centered on exploiting young people’s time, attention and well-being,” Bonta said.

TikTok has 16 million users in California and an outsized presence in Los Angeles, where the company has a large office and many content creators live and work to make money off the app.

The California lawsuit, filed in the Santa Clara County Superior Court, accuses TikTok of violating the state’s Unfair Competition Law and the False Advertising Law. It seeks significant penalties and injunctive and monetary relief to address the app’s alleged misconduct.

“Our investigation has revealed that TikTok cultivates social media addiction to boost corporate profits,” Bonta said. “TikTok intentionally targets children because they know kids do not yet have the defenses or capacity to create healthy boundaries around addictive content.”

TikTok provides “robust safeguards” for its users and denies the lawsuit’s allegations, said spokesperon Michael Hughes.

“We’re proud of and remain deeply committed to the work we’ve done to protect teens and we will continue to update and improve our product,” he said.

Despite efforts by the company to limit the amount of time teens spend on TikTok, Bonta said the safety features are “empty gestures at best.” For example, TikTok allows teens to limit their time on the app for 60 minutes but the users are given a password to bypass the restrictions.

“They have been more worried about the perception that they are doing something to ensure the safety of young people than actually doing something to protect the safety of young people,” he said.

Bonta, who said he’s a father to three young people who use TikTok, said he’s not only worried but “fed up” with the platform. While he acknowledged social media platforms have benefits such as connecting people and creating new jobs, they also have “pitfalls” that regulators are trying to mitigate, he said.

“There are parents throughout the state and this nation who are rightfully worried about their children’s mental health, their safety, their well-being, because of the use of social media and its ubiquity,” he said.

According to a 2023 Pew Research survey, 63% of Americans between the ages of 13 and 17 use TikTok and 17% of American teens said they were on the app “almost constantly.”

The lawsuit is the latest in a string of legal hurdles that TikTok and other social media apps have faced from federal and state regulators. In August, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission sued TikTok, alleging the company violated a federal law that safeguards the privacy of children. The agencies accused the social media giant of collecting personal information from children without notifying their parents.

The FTC released a 129-page report in September that analyzed how TikTok, YouTube and other popular social media apps failed to protect young people and user privacy. Bonta’s office started investigating TikTok’s potential harms to young people in 2022 and filed a similar lawsuit against Facebook’s parent company Meta last year.

TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, has also grappled with national security concerns, and U.S. lawmakers have raised bipartisan concerns about the Chinese government’s connection to the company. Last year, TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew testified before Congress in a marathon hearing in which lawmakers grilled the executive about teen safety, misinformation and other concerns they had about the social media platform.

Those worries culminated in April, when President Biden signed a law that would ban the app in the United States unless it’s sold to an American company by mid-January. TikTok has sued to block the law, alleging it would run afoul of the free speech rights protected under the 1st Amendment.