On October 8, 2024, the California Attorney General (AG) announced that it filed a lawsuit against TikTok Inc., TikTok U.S. Data Security Inc., TikTok LLC, TikTok Pte. Ltd., TikTok Ltd., ByteDance Inc., ByteDance Ltd., and Does 1 through 100 inclusive (collectively, TikTok) for violation of State consumer protection legislation. The California AG outlined that AGs from New York, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia filed separate enforcement actions against TikTok.

Firstly, the California AG provided that TikTok's business model is intended to maximize users' engagement with TikTok as measured by the time users spend on the platform and other indices. TikTok was also alleged to collect the personal data of young users and failed to seek parental consent before doing so. The California AG specifically noted that TikTok's exploitative and manipulative features are deployed to addict young users and maximize their time on the platform, with algorithms and design decisions intended to cause young users to spend increasing amounts of time on TikTok.

Notably, the California AG outlined specific TikTok features allegedly intended to manipulate young users into compulsive and excessive use, such as:

• filtering effects;
• autoplay;
• endless/infinite scrolling features;
• TikTok stories and TikTok live; and
• push notifications intended to return users to the platform.

Accordingly, the California AG alleged that TikTok:

• deceives the public about the efficacy of numerous features and tools that it advertises as promoting safety and well-being;
• misleads the public about the extent of its content moderation enforcement;
• deceives the public about the application and enforcement of its Community Guidelines; and
• exploits children's data without parental notice or consent:
  • collecting the personal information of users it knows are children;
  • directing the platform to children;
  • collecting personal information from children subject to the Children's One Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) and the COPPA rule; and
  • failing to obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting or maintaining personal information from TikTok users under the age of 13.

You can read the press release here and the complaint here.