PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Pennsylvania’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit against TikTok for allegedly misrepresenting its app as age-appropriate for teens as young as 13 years old.
Making the announcement on Tuesday in Harrisburg, Attorney General Dave Sunday said in order to get a 13+ age rating, TikTok is dishonest over adult-themed material on its platform.
“To achieve a 13+ age rating in app stores, TikTok claims mature audience content is infrequent on their apps. Our investigation reveals that this could not be further from the truth,” said Sunday.
According to Sunday, TikTok has lied about how often adult material, such as sexual content, nudity, profanity and drug use, appears on its platform. The suit alleges the company wants users, including children, to endlessly scroll while astronomical ad revenue is raked in.
“This suit seeks to put into place effective barriers and safeguards that will consider the child consumer’s well being and safety,” he said.
The suit calls on TikTok to provide full disclosure of what the apps contain, so the app stores can provide appropriate ratings to let parents know what their child is watching.
TikTok is one of the most popular apps on social media, with 100 million daily users, according to the Pew Research Center, which finds more than two-thirds of teens between 13 and 17 years old use the app.
In a statement provided to our partners at NBC10, TikTok said, “This lawsuit relies on misleading and inaccurate claims and deliberately ignores the concrete safety measures TikTok has voluntarily implemented to support the well-being of our community. Teen accounts have 50 preset safety, privacy and security settings built-in, and TikTok's Family Pairing tools give parents direct control over screen time and content filters.”
