Utah State Government Sues TikTok For Claims Of Dependence On Children

The Utah state government has filed a lawsuit against China's company-owned app TikTok on charges of harming children deliberately encouraging young users to spend too much time on the short video sharing platform.

Utah's lawsuit is the latest action challenging TikTok's popularity in the United States, where Indiana and Arkansas have also filed a similar lawsuit.

Last month, a federal judge stopped the state of California from enacting a law intended to protect children while using the internet.

"What these children don't know (and their parents) is that TikTok has lied to them about the safety of its apps and used them to continue to check and watch the app comprehensively, regardless of its adverse effects on their mental health, physical development, family, and social life," Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes said in a lawsuit.

Utah's lawsuit filed in state courts states that the videos use "very powerful algorithms and many of them mimic the features of the slot machine" and the result of this "manipulative tactics is that young consumers become addicted."

TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance and has more than 150 million users in the United States, responded to the lawsuit by saying it has a leading protection system for children, including an automatic time limit of 60 minutes for users under 18 and parental controls for teens.

Reyes said the state's investigation is still ongoing and he will ask the court next week to force TikTok to comply with the subpoenas investigation.

Utah calls for civil sanctions as well as a ban on TikTok violating state law that protects consumers from misleading business practices.

Indiana's lawsuit against TikTok, filed in December, is still in progress in state courts.

Arkansas also sued both TikTok and Meta, Facebook's parent company, in March "because it encourages addiction-making platforms."

Last year, a group of US Republican lawmakers said that "many children were exposed to inappropriate content that the TikTok algorithm forced them to be exposed in a sustainable manner."

On Thursday, October 5, a judge will hear arguments in TikTok's lawsuit seeking to stop a ban on the use of TikTok by the state of Montana before taking effect on January 1. Montana's legislative approved a law banning TikTok citing concerns about wiretapping.

Congress has considered legislation for months that would allow President Joe Biden's administration to restrict or ban TikTok from worrying potential wiretapping. TikTok said it had spent more than $1.5 billion on data security efforts.