Significant legal hurdles seen for California's lawsuit against TikTok

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Another significant development on Tuesday over the role of social media in the lives of children. California Attorney General Rob Bonta – joined by several other states – filed legal action against TikTok. The lawsuits claim the social media company is deliberately preying on kids with algorithms to keep them hooked.

Attorney General Bonta said there are 16 million users of TikTok in California and about one-third of all kids between the ages of 13 and 17 use the service. The lawsuits aim to stop the company from using algorithms that Bonta said can be damaging to the mental health of kids. 

"They have promoted a platform and a business model that preys on the proclivity of young people to use the TikTok platform in a way that is addictive, excessive, and compulsive," Bonta said at a Tuesday news conference in San Francisco. 

Now Bonta – along with attorneys general in 13 other states – are laying out in lawsuits some of the specific concerns. "They have a beauty filter that fosters unrealistic beauty standards, it harms self-esteem, it triggers body image issues, and even physical and mental health disorders.  TikTok has known that, they have their own internal studies that show that, they know they are harming children with their beauty filter and they do it anyway," Bonta said.

"Governments across the globe, including here in the United States, have absolutely decided that they want to control how social media operates," said Professor Eric Goldman, co-director of Santa Clara University’s High Tech Law Institute. Goldman said these lawsuits will have to clear significant constitutional challenges. 

"California is attacking social media aggressively in the legislature and the state AG’s intervention is just extending those attacks. But all of those attacks have significant free speech concerns," Goldman said. 

Danny Weiss, who is the Chief Advocacy Officer for Common Sense Media, which advocates for media and online safety for kids, says this is also a warning for parents. "So what parents need to know is that the attorneys general are providing a warning signal directly by saying you should know more about what your kids are doing online. Some of the things teenagers and kids are doing with their phones and other devices may be unhealthy for them," Weiss said.  

In a statement, TikTok said it is disappointed in the lawsuits, saying in part: "We provide robust safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched safety features such as default screentime limits, family pairing, and privacy by default for minors under 16."