SALT LAKE CITY — Utah has alleged TikTok knew minors were being sexually exploited on its social media application and had ineffective age restrictions in place, in a partially unredacted legal filing on Friday.
The lawsuit alleges internal TikTok investigations found risks with the platform’s live streaming feature and hundreds of thousands of children ages 13 to 15 managed to get around the age restrictions on the app.
“But TikTok has long known — and hidden — the significant risks of live streaming, especially for children,” the lawsuit states. “By TikTok’s own admission: ‘We’ve created an environment that encourages sexual content.'”
“The revelations in this complaint are not just allegations of negligence — they are evidence of a deliberate choice to prioritize profit over the safety and well-being of our children,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said in a statement. “TikTok knew the harm its platform was causing, yet chose to look the other way, allowing predators to exploit minors in unconscionable ways.”
The state sued the social media giant in June last year, alleging it “operates in part like a virtual strip club” and allowed for the exploitation of young users. Those allegations are based on evidence turned up in discovery from a previous lawsuit Utah filed against TikTok in 2023, alleging the platform is addicting to children and teenagers. Portions of the second lawsuit were publicly redacted and Friday’s filing — which makes most of the previously hidden information public for the first time — comes after legal wrangling over disclosing the private information.
A judge ruled to make some of the private information public on Dec. 19. Melanie Hall, a spokeswoman for the Utah Department of Commerce, said TikTok had fought “tooth and nail” to keep the redactions and called the state’s allegations “incredibly disturbing.”
TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, pushed back on the allegations in a statement to KSL.com.
“This lawsuit ignores the number of proactive measures that TikTok has voluntarily implemented to support community safety and well-being. Instead, the complaint cherry-picks misleading quotes and outdated documents and presents them out of context, which distorts our commitment to the safety of our community,” a TikTok spokesperson said. “We stand by our efforts, which include: robust safety protections and screen time limits for teen accounts enabled by default, family pairing tools for parents to supervise their teens, strict livestreaming requirements and aggressive enforcement of our community guidelines on an ongoing basis.”
Katie Hass, director of Utah’s Division of Consumer Protection, said the state sought to release redacted information from its lawsuit in order to better inform parents about the risks it says exist on the platform. Hass acknowledged the safety features TikTok has touted but said she is skeptical that they will have a meaningful impact on safety.
“They’re window dressing,” she said. “I would just say to parents: know who you’re engaging with when you’re engaging with TikTok and be really careful and cautious if your children are on these platforms.”
She said TikTok allows users to monetize livestreams, which the lawsuit alleges has led to minors being groomed and sexually exploited.
“These underage users also received a significant number of direct messages from adult users, raising red flags to TikTok that these minors were likely being groomed by adults,” a portion of the newly released lawsuit states. It said internal TikTok documents “revealed that TikTok received not only ‘significant revenue’ from ‘transactional gifting’ — to the tune of one million gifts in January 2022 alone — but also that this revenue was in large part generated through transactions for sexual content.”
The lawsuit also alleges a separate TikTok investigation found that its live feature was being used by criminal organizations to launder money and commit fraud. Utah claims TikTok has not created a process to adequately flag suspicious transactions and police its platform for illegal actions.
“Unfortunately, yet unsurprisingly, this has led to a proliferation of TikTok accounts being used by people facing sanctions, including people affiliated with the Russian government or terrorist groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL),” the lawsuit states.
Hass said her department has received “anecdotal stories” from Utahns about being exploited on the app, but said, “We are putting out a call to parents or to teens who have been victimized on the live platform to come forward with their stories.” She directed complaints to the division’s website.
Both of Utah’s lawsuits against TikTok continue to make their way through the courts.
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