Prosecutors general across the country are investigating whether TikTok harms the mental health of young users by using deceptive tactics to lure them into the widely popular video-sharing platform.
A bipartisan coalition of senior state prosecutors from eight states – inclusive CaliforniaFlorida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee and Vermont – are leading the investigation after leading a similar movement for Instagram.
The previous multi-state coalition called The goal to abandon intentions to release an Instagram version for children under 13. Their lobbying prompted the company to press the pause button in these plans.
AG is now turning its attention to TikTok, which has previously been tested for attention deficit hyperactivity and addiction for young consumers. They will investigate whether the company violates state laws for consumers and deliberately puts children’s mental health at risk.
“Our children are growing up in the age of social media – and many believe they have to conform to the filtered versions of reality they see on their screens,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta. “We know that this has a devastating effect on the mental health and well-being of children.
“But we don’t know what social media companies knew about this damage and when.”
A bipartisan coalition of prosecutors general is investigating whether the popular video-sharing platform TikTok is deliberately harming children’s mental health and using fraudulent tactics to increase engagement
The investigation will test whether TikTok is aware of the damage its content can do to flexible young minds and the techniques it uses to engage children.
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, co-chair of the national investigation, said the investigation was necessary to ensure the well-being of the children.
“Whether online or on the street, we are committed to protecting children in Kentucky,” he said. “This investigation is the latest action we have taken to promote online safety for Kentucky children, and is a necessary step to explore TikTok’s practices and better understand the potential harms and risks to children using the platform.”
Incumbent New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said any social media platforms found to be violating state laws would be considered.
“Many parents and advocates for children are rightly concerned about the impact of the use of social media on the safety and well-being of young people,” he said. “If social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram break our laws and expose young users to psychological and physical harm, we will hold them accountable.”
Last September, a similar investigation was directed at Instagram, which last September suspended plans for Instagram Kids. He paused the release after facing a reaction to ignoring research that found it harmed the mental health of teenage girls.
Concerns about Instagram Kids were expressed in May when a bipartisan group of 44 prosecutors general wrote a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg urging him to resign.
The letter warns that Instagram Kids could increase cyberbullying, leave children vulnerable to online predators and perpetuate what they called Facebook’s “verified record” by not protecting children’s privacy on their platforms.
Facebook has known for two years that Instagram is toxic to young girls, but has continued to add beauty editing filters to the app, although six percent of suicidal girls in America accuse it of wanting to commit suicide, according to documents provided by Wall Street Journal
A report by the Wall Street Journal found that the app makes one-third of teenage girls surveyed feel worse than their body image.
The magazine’s findings, citing a review of internal company documents, including research reports, online discussions of employees and drafts of presentations to senior management, say researchers from Instagram’s parent company Facebook have identified “bad effects of the platform” but not managed to correct them.
Instagram has continued to add beauty editing filters to the app, although six percent of suicidal girls in America blame it for wanting to commit suicide, the documents said.
Other documents obtained from the magazine reveal that one-fifth of teenagers feel worse after using Instagram.
Snapchat outweighed the risk of depression, with users tending to report feeling unwell once and a half. This was followed by Facebook and TikTok, with users coming in with just under one and a half times more likely to report symptoms of depression.
Which social media platforms are most likely to be associated with depression?
The Harvard study asked 5,395 elderly Americans with an average age of 56 to personally assess their mental health in two separate cases in one year, as well as the use of social media.
Of these, 482 (9 percent) of the participants showed clinically significant deterioration in their mental health, with a higher score for possible signs of depression.
Looking at the social media used by these people, the researchers found:
Overall, Snapchat was the app most often associated with signs of depression, followed by Facebook and TikTok.
For people over the age of 35, the link between depression and Snapchat and TikTok is higher than the overall figure, but lower for Facebook.
However, the opposite was true for those under 35 years of age.
A number of studies have shown that spending too much time on social media is detrimental to children’s developing brains and self-esteem.
An investigation last year found that TikTok advertised videos of extreme weight loss among 13-year-old teenagers. The revelation came when investigative journalists created a dozen fake profiles registered as 13-year-olds on the video-sharing platform, which recently became the world’s most-downloaded app.
They found that in just a few weeks, TikTok’s algorithm flooded accounts with tens of thousands of diet posts.
Another study found that just one hour a day on social media was enough to reduce children’s happiness, with the effect being worse for girls than for boys.
Another study from last year warned that even middle-aged adults are “significantly” more likely to be depressed if they are social media users.
Researchers at Harvard University have found that adults feel even sadder when they use platforms preferred by young people, such as TikTok and Snapchat, probably because it makes them feel old.
They surveyed 5,400 American adults twice, with an average age of 56, once in May 2020 and then again a year later.
Participants were asked to complete a nine-question mental health questionnaire and which social media they used.
Lead author Professor Roy Perlis told NBC News: “People who use Facebook, people who use TikTok, and people who use Snapchat are significantly more likely to come back and tell us they feel depressed the next time you fill out the survey.
But researchers could not rule out that depressed people may be more likely to go on social media, perhaps as an escape.
Participants were interviewed during the coronavirus pandemic – when the rate of depression rose anyway.