TikTok has been walking on thin ice in the United States of America. First, TikTok had to fight a lawsuit that claimed that they were sharing private US information with the Chinese government. In this lawsuit, they could face a country-wide ban. However, this has not been the case so far. Now TikTok is being sued by 14 State Attorney General who accuse them of harming kids!
State Attorneys Claim The App Intentionally Targets Kids!
According to the lawsuit, the state attorneys claim that social media platform TikTok targets the kids intentionally with features that keep them glued to the screen. Examples of these features are videos which autoplay, content with beauty filters and promoting live content or “temporary content”.
These features would make the kids stay on the app to reduce the FOMO feeling they’d have if they didn’t have access to TikTok. The app would intentionally let kids interact with highly addictive content. Young kids are not developed enough to deal with this type of content yet. Kids can’t set healthy time management boundaries for themselves. The state attorneys claim that TikTok doesn’t protect the kids enough to keep the profits as high as possible.
According to the lawsuit, TikTok developers would have lied about the implemented safety features of the app. The attorneys seek financial penalties as a punishment for this. The application would also have courts make TikTok stop this harmful behaviour to kids!
TikTok Claims To Offer Enough Parental Control Features
Obviously, TikTok wouldn’t just take the bullet and reply with their own statements. The organisation claims to have multiple parental control features. As a parent, it is your task to set up these features. You need your phone and the phone of your kid to link them. When they’re linked, the parents can set up limits for the kids, such as setting a timer or letting the kids use the app in restricted mode! Parents can also choose to set up screen time limits on the app itself!
