After months of increasingly heated rhetoric, Gov. Spencer Cox kept his word by filing a lawsuit against the social media giant TikTok in state court on Oct. 10 (Image courtesy of Facebook).
SALT LAKE CITY – To fulfill his promises of earlier this year, Gov. Spencer Cox has filed a lawsuit in state court on Oct. 10 against the social media giant TikTok.
“Social media companies must be held responsible for the harms they are causing,” Cox said while announcing the court filing.
“The experts — from the U.S. Surgeon General and behavioral science researchers to parents and teens — all agree that social media is affecting our children’s mental health and it’s time to intervene.”
In the lawsuit, the state alleges that TikTok illegally baits children into addictive and unhealthy use, blatantly misrepresents the application’s safety and deceptively portrays itself as independent of its China-based parent company ByteDance.
The suit was brought in state courts under the provisions of the Utah Consumer Sale Practices Act. It details the impact of TikTok’s conduct on Utah’s citizens, alleging that prolonged TikTok use interferes with Utah children’s mental health and well-being. This is particularly concerning for Utahns, as the Beehive State has the largest number of children per capita of any U.S. state.
TikTok is a social media application for making and sharing short videos. The application has more than 100 million users in the United States.
But TikTok is owned and operated by ByteDance, a company headquartered in China. Utah officials say that Chinese national security laws allow the Chinese government to compel companies based in China to provide it with data, which may include personal data, intellectual property and proprietary information of users in the United States and Utah.
In December of 2022, Cox banned to use of the TikTok application on all state-owned computers. After the Utah Legislature failed to enact new laws controlling social media giants during their 2023 general session, Cox vowed legal action.
The state’s lawsuit alleges that “… TikTok surreptitiously designed and deployed addictive features to hook young users into endlessly scrolling through the company’s app. To make more money, TikTok wants Utah consumers to spend as much time on its app as possible so it can place advertisements in front of them more often.”
The Utah lawsuit also charges that the company misled young users and their parents about the app’s dangers.
“I’m tired of TikTok lying to Utah parents,” said Attorney General Sean Reyes, joining Cox in announcing the lawsuit.
“I’m tired of our kids losing their innocence and even their lives (by becoming) addicted to the dark side of social media. TikTok will only change if put at legal risk—and ‘at risk’ is where they have left our youth in exchange for profit and greed.”
The court filing also alleges that TikTok attempted to conceal its close relationship with its Chinese parent company.
The lawsuit comes as part of a continuing investigation of TikTok’s practices by the Utah Department of Commerce. Reyes also recently file a contempt motion against TikTok for failing to comply with investigative subpoenas.
The lawsuit filed on Oct. 10 seeks to stop TikTok’s alleged illegal business practices and protect Utah’s children and users more generally.
The complaint also asks the state court to impose a penalty and other relief to deter TikTok and other social media companies from committing similar violations of state law in the future.
“Immediate and pervasive threats require swift and bold responses,” Reyes explained. “We have a compelling case against TikTok. Our kids are worth the fight.”