BOSTON (WHDH) – Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell filed a lawsuit against TikTok and its parent company Tuesday, alleging TikTok’s creators intentionally designed their platform to be addictive and harmful to young people, among other allegations.
Campbell filed the lawsuit in Suffolk Superior Court. As she took action within Massachusetts, attorneys general in 12 other states and Washington DC filed similar lawsuits.
“Massachusetts will not tolerate a future where companies exploit the vulnerabilities of young people for profit,” Campbell said in a statement. “Today’s lawsuit further demonstrates my office’s focus on the wellbeing of our children by laying out arguments that TikTok, primarily driven by greed, designed technology that leads young people to become compulsive and addicted users of the platform, harming their wellbeing and contributing to the ongoing youth mental health crisis across our country.”
Campbell’s lawsuit grew from a multi-state investigation into TikTok’s impact on young people’s safety and wellbeing.
The lawsuit comes as TikTok and other platforms face increased scrutiny related to privacy concerns and the risk of addiction for users.
The suit also follows a similar filing from Campbell’s office in 2023 targeting Instagram and its parent company, Meta.
Campbell’s office said the new lawsuit calls out TikTok features including “infinite scroll,” autoplay of videos and “constant push notifications…that work to override young users’ agency and psychologically manipulate them into compulsive and addictive use of the platform.”
Despite knowing the mental and physical harm that excessive and compulsive use of their platform could cause, the AG’s office said TikTok staff still deployed “coercive design” features and deceived the public about the safety of TikTok.
“The lawsuit alleges such conduct violates the Commonwealth’s consumer protection laws and has contributed…