Iowa sues TikTok over alleged online safety misrepresentations

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Iowa’s attorney general filed a lawsuit in state court against TikTok, alleging the social media company keeps parents “in the dark” concerning its child safety policies. 

Key Players

Brenna Bird (R), the attorney general of Iowa, sued TikTok, asserting that the company exposed children to unsafe content.  

On Dec. 13, 2022, Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) banned TikTok on state government devices because of national security concerns. Seventeen days later, President Joe Biden followed suit, issuing a national ban on government devices. 

TikTok is a Chinese-owned video-sharing social networking app owned by ByteDance, which has faced accusations that it collects users’ data and hands it over to the Chinese government.

Further Details

On Jan. 17, 2024, Bird sued TikTok in Iowa District Court for Polk County, alleging that the social media platform misled parents by purporting to be a safe online venue for children. 

“It’s time we shine a light on TikTok for exposing young children to graphic materials such as sexual content, self-harm, illegal drug use, and worse,” Bird stated. “As a mom and prosecutor, I am committed to equipping parents with information to keep their kids safe and to holding TikTok accountable.” 

Specifically, the lawsuit asserts that TikTok’s 12+ rating in the Apple App Store misrepresents the content frequently shown on the app. Although TikTok is approved for children over the age of 12, the lawsuit claims that the app contains pervasive adult material, and that such content has generally been labeled as “mild” on the app. 

“Users are presented with this content in their algorithmically driven For You Feed without having searched for it, including users registered as only 13 years old,” the lawsuit states. In addition, users are able to search easily for such content using hashtags or the search feature. 

As asserted in the lawsuit, “TikTok is lying to Iowa consumers” and “misrepresenting itself in Apple’s App Store” by having a rating of suitable for children over 12. 

Despite having an age-restricted form for young users, the content on users’ For You pages is monitored only by AI and human moderators. The lawsuit criticizes this, saying, “Restricted Mode does not work and has never worked the way TikTok claims it does.”

Outcome

Iowa seeks to prohibit TikTok

Iowa is pursuing monetary compensation and a court order to prohibit TikTok from continuing its misleading practices in the state. Bird has called for the app to be reclassified in the App Store. 

Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, called this lawsuit a “gimmick.”

“Various levels of government have tried things like this before, first with movie and TV ratings and later with video games,” Corn-Revere told The Des Moines Register. “When movie ratings first came out, numerous local governments tried to use those ratings as a designation of whether certain content was age-appropriate under the law. Those attempts inevitably ran into First Amendment problems, as will this suit.”

Some also criticized Bird for redacting portions of the lawsuit, so that the media and the public could not have access to them. As of Feb. 20, 2023, there were no further developments.