Attorney General Brenna Bird of Iowa filed a lawsuit against TikTok on Wednesday, claiming the popular social networking app is “misleading parents” by featuring profanity and sexual content while having a “12+” rating on the Apple App Store.
Bird released a statement saying, “TikTok has slipped past parental blocks by misrepresenting the severity of its content. But that’s no longer the case. As a mother and a prosecutor, I’m dedicated to holding TikTok responsible and providing parents with the knowledge they need to keep their children safe.”
TikTok is being sued by the state of Iowa in response to allegations that it misleads users about the quantity of “inappropriate content” that is available on the site for kids.
Iowa argues in the complaint against TikTok and its Chinese parent company, Byte Dance, that the platform’s age designation of 12 and older in app stores is misleading due to the “frequent and intense” adult and sexual material.
“TikTok has sneaked past parental blocks by misrepresenting the severity of its content,” Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said in a statement.
Social media giant ‘TIKTOK’
TikTok has over 140 million users in the United States and was the most downloaded app in 2022. Every year, billions of videos are added to the app.
Both human and machine assessments of uploaded videos are part of its content moderation procedure. The community standards state that hostile and violent content, harassment and bullying, nudity and sexually explicit content, and graphic content are among the things that are prohibited on TikTok.
TikTok features an age-restricted option for those under the age of 18, and it needs users to be 13 years old to access the program. It restricts “overtly mature content” for minors, according to its website.
“We are committed to tackling industry wide challenges and will continue to prioritize community safety.” “TikTok has industry-leading safeguards in place for young people, including parental controls and time limits for those under 18,” an email from the company stated.
Claims against ‘TIKTOK’
“The Community Guidelines are misrepresentations, deceptions, and false promises because they mislead many users by creating a net impression that these kinds of content are unavailable on TikTok and, in particular, that they are unavailable to minors,” the complaint states.
In the case, Bird claims that TikTok is not being truthful about the amount of vulgarity, sexually explicit content, and drug-related information that is available on the platform.
Similar claims have been brought in Utah, Arkansas, and Indiana; however, a court rejected Indiana’s complaint in November. According to state legislation, installing the free social media app TikTok does not qualify as a consumer transaction, according to the judges there.
Actions taken
The firm has “safeguards in place for young people, including parental controls and time limits for those under 18,” according to a TikTok representative, and it is dedicated to tackling what it called “industry wide challenges.”
Governor Kim Reynolds of Iowa banned people from using TikTok on state-owned smartphones, as many others have done, in late 2022 due to security risks associated with the app’s Chinese ownership.
To limit teenagers’ access to pornographic information, Reynolds also suggested this year that the Republican-led Legislature implement a new law requiring pornography websites to verify their age. Search engines, news websites, and social networking platforms would be excluded from this requirement.
