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kids online safety act
State AGs Launch Lawsuit Against TikTok for Harming Children
"We are suing TikTok to protect young people and help combat the nationwide youth mental health crisis," explained New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Oct 08, 2024
Attorneys general from over a dozen states and the District of Columbia on Tuesday announced lawsuits against TikTok, accusing the company behind the popular social media platform of deliberately making the site addictive for children and deceiving the public about its dangers.
"We're suing the social media giant TikTok for exploiting young users and deceiving the public about the dangers the platform poses to our youth," Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta
explained Tuesday morning in San Francisco. "Together, with my fellow state AGs, we will hold TikTok to account, stop its exploitation of our young people, and end its deceit."
New York Attorney General Letitia James, also a Democrat, said in a
statement that "young people are struggling with their mental health because of addictive social media platforms like TikTok."
"TikTok claims that their platform is safe for young people, but that is far from true," she continued. "In New York and across the country, young people have died or gotten injured doing dangerous TikTok challenges and many more are feeling more sad, anxious, and depressed because of TikTok's addictive features."
"Today, we are suing TikTok to protect young people and help combat the nationwide youth mental health crisis," James added. "Kids and families across the country are desperate for help to address this crisis, and we are doing everything in our power to protect them."
James' office said in a
statement:
TikTok uses a variety of addictive features to keep users on its platform longer, which leads to poorer mental health outcomes. Multiple studies have found a link between excessive social media use, poor sleep quality, and poor mental health among young people. According to the U.S. surgeon general, young people who spend more than three hours per day on social media face double the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes, including symptoms of depression and anxiety.
According to James' office, TikTok's addictive features include:
- Around-the-clock notifications that can lead to poor sleep patterns for young users;
- Autoplay of an endless stream of videos that manipulates users into compulsively spending more time on the platform with no option to disable;
- Attention-grabbing content that keeps young users on the platform longer;
- TikTok "stories" and TikTok live content that is only available temporarily to entice users to tune in immediately or lose the opportunity to interact;
- A highlighted "likes" and comments section as a form of social validation, which can impact young users' self-esteem; and
- Beauty filters that alter one's appearance and can lower young users' self-esteem.
The attorneys general also accuse TikTok of violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which is meant to shield children's online data; of falsely claiming that its platform is safe for children; and of lying about the effectiveness of its so-called safety tools meant to mitigate harms to youth.
In addition to California and New York, the following states are part of the new lawsuit: Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, and Washington. So is the District of Columbia.
All told, 23 states have now filed lawsuits targeting TikTok's harms to children.
However, the issue is by no means limited to TikTok. Last October, dozens of U.S. states
sued Meta—which owns the social media sites Facebook and Instagram—for allegedly violating consumer protection laws by designing their apps to be addictive, especially to minors.
Twitter, the social platform known as X since shortly after it was
purchased by Elon Musk in 2022 for $44 billion, was sued in 2021 by child sex trafficking victims for allowing the publication of sexually explicit images of minors and refusing to remove them as requested by the plaintiffs and their parents.
Last month, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission
published a report detailing how social media and streaming companies endanger children and teens who use their platforms. The report's publication sparked renewed calls for Congress to pass legislation including the Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act and Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) to better safeguard minors against the companies' predatory practices.
However, rights groups including the ACLU condemned KOSA, which the civil liberties organization
warned "would violate the First Amendment by enabling the federal government to dictate what information people can access online and encourage social media platforms to censor protected speech."
The two bills—which were
overwhelmingly passed by the U.S. Senate in July—were last month approved for advancement in the House of Representatives.
In May 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an advisory on "the growing concerns about the effects of social media on youth mental health."
The White House simultaneously announced the creation of a federal task force "to advance the health, safety, and privacy of minors online with particular attention to preventing and mitigating the adverse health effects of online platforms."
Murthy has also called for tobacco-like warning labels on social media to address the platform's possible harms to children and teens.
Some critics are wary of singling out TikTok—which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance—for political or xenophobic purposes.
Earlier this year, U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a $95 billion foreign aid package containing a possible nationwide TikTok ban. The legislation requires ByteDance to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese company within a year or face a federal ban. TikTok subsequently sued the federal government over the potential ban.
Approximately 170 million Americans use TikTok, which is especially popular among members of Gen-Z and small-to-medium-sized businesses, and contributes tens of billions of dollars to the U.S. economy annually.
Evan Greer, who heads the digital rights group Fight for the Future, slammed the law as "one of the stupidest and most authoritarian pieces of tech legislation we've seen in years."
However, children's advocates welcomed the new lawsuits.
"We are pleased to see so many state attorneys general holding TikTok accountable for deliberately causing harms to young people," said Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay. "Between state and private lawsuits, state legislation, and Federal Trade Commission enforcement actions, the tide is turning against Big Tech, and it's clear the status quo of social media companies harming kids cannot and will not continue."
"Now we need leaders in the House to join their Senate counterparts in passing the Kids Online Safety Act and the Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act so that all platforms, not just those involved in legal settlements, will have to be safe by design for children from day one," Golin added.
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Rights Groups Warn Senate-Passed Online Safety Bill 'Makes Kids Less Safe'
Sen. Ron Wyden echoed their concerns that "a future MAGA administration could still use this bill to pressure companies to censor gay, trans, and reproductive health information."
Jul 30, 2024
As the U.S. Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed legislation intended to better protect children on the internet, rights groups renewed their intense criticism of parts of the package.
The Senate voted 91-3 on the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act (KOSPA), which includes the Children's and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) as well as the controversial Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which opponents say "makes kids less safe."
KOSA requires online platforms to enable the strongest privacy settings for children by default as well as prevent and mitigate specific dangers to them. It also requires independent audits and research. Critics argue some provisions would "threaten young people's privacy, limit minors' access to vital resources, and silence important online conversations for all ages."
The trio who voted against the bill on Tuesday was Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a longtime privacy advocate who said on social media last week that "the final version of this bill is improved" but he would still vote no.
"The changes that I, LGBTQ+ advocates, parents, student activists, civil rights orgs, and others have fought for over the last two years have made it less likely that the bill can be used as a tool for MAGA extremists to wage war on legal and essential information to teens," Wyden said.
"While constructive, these improvements remain insufficient," he continued. "I fear KOSA could be used to sue services that offer privacy technologies like encryption or anonymity features that kids rely on to communicate securely and privately without being spied on by predators online."
Wyden added that "I also take very seriously concerns voiced by the American Civil Liberties Union, Fight for the Future, and LGBTQ+ teens and advocates that a future MAGA administration could still use this bill to pressure companies to censor gay, trans, and reproductive health information."
The ACLU and Fight for the Future reiterated those concerns on Tuesday, joined at a press conference by leaders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, TransOhio, and Woodhull Freedom Foundation.
"We need legislation that addresses the harm of Big Tech. And still lets young people fight for the type of world that they actually want to grow up in," declared Evan Greer, director at Fight for the Future.
Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, said that "as state legislatures and school boards across the country impose book bans and classroom censorship laws, the last thing students and parents need is another act of government censorship deciding which educational resources are appropriate for their families."
The bill still needs to get through the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives. Already, two of the chamber's leading progressives, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) have come out against it. Leventoff declared that "the House must block this dangerous bill before it's too late."
Last week, the ACLU led over 300 students in a lobbying day on Capitol Hill to oppose the package.
"It's called the Kids Online Safety Act, but they have to consider kids' voices, and some of us don't think it will make us safer," Anjali Verma, a 17-year-old high school senior, said Tuesday. "We live on the internet, and we are afraid that important information we've accessed all our lives will no longer be available. We need lawmakers to listen to young people when making decisions that affect us."
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) celebrated the package's passage, joined by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), and Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
Cassidy and Markey spearheaded COPPA 2.0, which has not elicited criticism from rights groups the way KOSA has. They said in a joint statement that their bill's passage "is an overdue and much-needed victory" for young people and with the vote, "the Senate has sent a clear message that Big Tech's days of targeting and tracking kids and teenagers online are over."
"Enough with harmful targeted advertising," the senators said. "Enough with collecting deeply personal information on young people. Enough with ignoring the health and well-being [of] millions of young people. Enough with leaving teens and parents powerless to delete a mistaken social media post. Enough with lining Big Tech's pockets at the expense of our young people."
"To the parents, advocates, and young people who have been heroically fighting for these privacy protections for more than a decade, we thank you. We would not be here without your passion, commitment, and bravery," they added. "This vote is a breakthrough moment for tech regulation in the United States with Congress finally stepping up to the plate and putting real guardrails on Big Tech's pernicious business model."
Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay and co-founder of ParentsSOS, said that "today's historic vote is a testament to the tireless efforts of parents who have lost their children to Big Tech's greed and an incredible coalition that believes a better internet for young people is possible. We thank Sens. Blackburn, Blumenthal, Cassidy, and Markey for introducing this game-changing legislation and call on the House to follow the Senate's lead."
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41 States Sue Meta Over Features That Keep Kids Addicted to Social Media Platforms
"Meta has been harming our children and teens, cultivating addiction to boost corporate profits."
Oct 24, 2023
The vast majority of U.S. states banded together Tuesday against tech giant Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, in the largest state-led legal challenge against a social media company to date as state attorneys general sought to protect children from features allegedly designed to keep them hooked on the firm's platforms.
Led by Colorado, Tennessee, and Massachusetts, 33 states filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, arguing that Meta has violated consumer protection laws by designing its apps to be addictive to users—including kids—with features such as "infinite scroll" and constant notifications.
Eight other states were joined by Washington, D.C. in filing a separate but similar lawsuit, asking the court for an injunction that would force Meta to stop using the features that the attorneys general say harm young users, based on an extensive investigation.
"Our bipartisan investigation has arrived at a solemn conclusion: Meta has been harming our children and teens, cultivating addiction to boost corporate profits," California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said in a statement. "We refuse to allow Meta to trample on our children's mental and physical health, all to promote its products and increase its profits. We refuse to allow the company to feign ignorance of the harm that's causing. We refuse to let it continue business as usual."
The states are also seeking financial penalties for Meta, which—particularly since former employee Frances Haugen leaked company documents that showed the company knew its products could harm teenagers' mental health in 2021—has claimed it prioritizes safety for kids using Facebook, Instagram, and its other apps. Days after Haugen testified before Congress, the company unveiled new parental controls for its platforms, although children's advocacy groups said its plans for protecting kids lacked detail.
Since 2021, one of the lawsuits filed Tuesday reads, "Meta deceptively represented that the features were not manipulative; that its social media platforms were not designed to promote young users' prolonged and unhealthy engagement with social media; and that Meta had designed and maintained its social media platforms to ensure safe experiences for young users."
"These representations, both express and implied, were false and misleading," the states said.
One former Facebook executive said in 2017 that he would not allow his own children to use the platform, and the Federal Trade Commission concluded in May that the company failed to protect the privacy of children who use its Messenger app.
With the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act still being debated in Congress and civil rights groups warning the legislation could violate children's privacy, the states sued Meta under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and consumer protection laws.
Politico reported that the company is likely to seek a dismissal of the lawsuits, arguing that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and the First Amendment protect Meta from being held liable for content on its platforms.
The lawsuits, however, focus on Meta's alleged deception as it claimed children were safe using its apps.
"Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens," the lawsuit filed by 33 states says of the company, which reported revenues of $116 billion in 2022. "Its motive is profit."
Haugen called the lawsuits, which involve more than 80% of U.S. states, "a giant leap forward in tech accountability."
"Today is history in the making," she said.
Jim Steyer, founder and CEO of the tech safety group Common Sense Media, thanked the attorneys general for "stepping up to stop Meta, which has knowingly misled the public about the serious dangers of Instagram for kids."
"Meta and Instagram cannot be trusted to keep our nation's kids safe," added Zamaan Qureshi, policy adviser for the Real Facebook Oversight Board. "And 41 states say so. This is huge."
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