Utah sues TikTok, alleging it lures children into addictive and destructive social media habits
apnews.com
Utah became the latest state Tuesday to file a lawsuit against TikTok, alleging the company is “baiting” children into addictive and unhealthy social media habits.
TikTok lures children into hours of social media use, misrepresents the app’s safety and deceptively portrays itself as independent of its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, Utah claims in the lawsuit.
“We will not stand by while these companies fail to take adequate, meaningful action to protect our children. We will prevail in holding social media companies accountable by any means necessary,” Republican Gov. Spencer Cox said at a news conference announcing the lawsuit, which was filed in state court in Salt Lake City.
Great! Now sue Facebook and Instagram.
I dunno, if they get a ruling here with a big enough splash this might actually spread to them too.
It'll all depend on if they can establish a solid enough case centered around the addictive nature of the content presentation algorithm, and getting it banned in favor of something like chronological content ordering.
Good thing Mormons have never been known to bait children into addictive and unhealthy habits.
Yeah because UTAH is so good to their youth.
No, but they're also not wrong here.
I've seen it with my own eyes. My SO's younger sisters are 13 and spend all day glued to tiktok, Youtube shorts etc. I've seen the weird challenges encouraging dangerous behavior that the media hypes up show up in their feed (of mostly drama videos doxing strangers on the internet), as well as random videos of dead cats, gore, fentanyl references, and they've complained about videos of topless underage girls in 3rd world countries. Even though I'm politically across the aisle from these people, I support this lawsuit.
But whose responsibility is it to monitor their internet access? Mom and Dad need to step up and actually parent their children!
As a young geek in the 90s, I know that kids can outsmart their parents easily. Most parents aren't tech savvy but their kids are. A parent would literally have to sit there next to them and monitor every webpage and conversation they have, which isn't realistic most of the time.
We all know that social media sites like Facebook and Instagram have a negative impact on those that aren't adults (it still sucks for adults too, but in a different way), and sites like TikTok and other video shorts essentially promote short attention spans and maximize the "reward" (dopamine) that users get.
Social media sites are virtual Skinner Boxes.
Yeah...Isn't this likely unconstitutional given the first amendment? This strikes me as somewhat similar to attempts to regulate video games "for making children violent" or the like. At best this may result in TikTok releasing a children's variation of the app with greater restrictions in terms of use and content, supposing something like that doesn't already exist.
Similar to how YouTube has a variation of their app for children, if I remember right.
Yeah, the only difference from the violent video games thing is that people on sites like this one hate tik tok (or any other social media except the one they use) and like video games.
Like, what, they made their app too entertaining? That comment about their sibling spending all day on tik tok is exactly what many people do with video games. But I bet if you say "we're gonna ban any video game that's too fun because you'll play them all day", then all the tik tok haters will be like "but that's different!"
At some point, the US made it illegal to grow or consume a plant. That seems like it would be impossible to handle legally, but it was made into law.
If objective guidelines can be made on what constitutes damaging behavior, it's possible that it could have legal ground to stand on. I hate tiktok because it takes away so much of my wife's time. I play Xbox, though, so it's not like I don't have habits that eat up time. I remember my grandma complaining about my grandad fishing. She said she saw him more before he retired.
Seriously, are they the party of "personal responsibility"?
They're the party of consolidating power. They have no morals, they will do or say anything to accomplish that goal.
How do you know they aren't in a bad home situation? What then?
Yeah, it's definitely addictive. My neighbor has 3 "tweenage" (10-12) daughters and they're addicted to it, but then again Facebook is and was just as bad back in the mid 2000s. In college my girlfriend couldn't go more than about 10 minutes (literally) without checking Facebook back in like 2009.
If you're around my age (37) and you had access to the internet in the 90s, you definitely saw way more fucked up stuff as a kid (The Stile Project, Rotten.com, etc...). We weren't emotionally and mentally manipulated like the current younger generation is though, which is definitely fucked up. So, like you, I reluctantly support this as well.
I mean I know plenty of adults that are a tuslly addicted to tiktok as well.
Granted they aren't actually doing anything wrong
My teenaged niece and nephew are hopelessly addicted to TikTok. My brother and sister-in-law (who are in their 40s/50s) decided to deal with the problem by also becoming hopelessly addicted to TikTok.
While I am sure this is true, wouldn’t conservatives want this to fall on parents instead of regulations?
You seem confused, let me explain:
The conservative philosophy isn't "you can't tell people what to do," it's "You can't tell me what to do. I can tell you what to do."
I agree. If all of TikTok was shot into the sun tomorrow, the world would be a better place.
I think you support people being better parents more than you support a state curtailing the right to free speech.
Lol did you feel this level of pearl-clutching about yourself being exposed to the internet?
Watching people grapple with the "TV is rotting kids brains" of various generations never stops being equally funny and sad.
Utah. Sacred home of the Mormon cult. Is suing, unironically I might add, for the above reasons...
TikTok should countersue.
Somebody needs to bleed that cult ASAP. 🤷🏼♂️
They have hundreds of billions in assets, sadly. They're not going anywhere.
Well, at least until someone commandeers their colony ship, right? 🤞🏼
We need the Scientologists to start shit with the Mormons.
Can TikTok sue the Mormon church for “baiting” children into addictive and unhealthy habits?
Only the Scientologists could win in court against the Mormons.
Not in Utah they couldn't.
You think they couldn't blackmail Mormons? They will have more leverage than Atlas to rock their world before their afternoon audit.
I would watch that TV show. How many seasons are you planning?
One ok-to-good one, a solid second season, and then like 10 seasons of dragging the premise out long enough that the later seasons are a different genre, there has been 3 musical episodes, and a pretty racist allegorical twist that reveals the real enemy was another religious group that is part of an arc that never has a payoff for the final season.
The movie will air on Tubi and will be a prequel that is basically unwatchable unless you have seen all 12 seasons and 100%'d the lootbox mobile game that is exclusive to the Sony Xperia Pro II in Guam and West Taiwan.
There will be an ARG before the pilot airs. Don't bother trying to play it, you won't figure it out before the kids whose parents have a multicolored puzzle pieces sticker on their car.
A bunch of fastfood execs just started sweating profusely.
I thought that was their default state.
That's just the meat sweats.
Fun fact, back in the 80s, cigarette companies owned most of the food production companies. They are responsible for creating most of the addictive natural and artificial flavorings. When they got slapped for making cigarettes addictive, they quickly sold off all their food holdings because they didn't want to be held financially responsible for making those addictive too.
I can’t see this surviving a first amendment challenge, but we’ll see.
It won't, but that's not the point. Gov. Spencer Cox is campaigning. Ever notice how politicians get real busy and start hitting hard with stuff like this when election season is near?
Think of the children. Vote for me or the gay Chinese Democrats will take your kids.
Mostly just a specific of ideology politicians, in my experience.
I think it could be regulated to a positive effect. We regulate all sorts of things that are addictive, see gambling and substances. We also regulate speech on broadcast TV and radio. And, children should be given elevated protections to data harvesting which is what these companies are really doing. Do i expect the government to fuck this up? Absolutely, but don't let people hide behind first amendment bullshit to avoid the conversation.
Note that I think it’s awful. This won’t fix it.
Downvote me all you want, but this is the way. That shit needs banned or some extreme restrictions need to be implemented. IMO it's literally dumbing down our entire country.
Not happening anytime soon.
So limit freedom of speech that we think is dumb. No way this could backfire.
I'm completely fine putting strict age restrictions on social media.
And who decides that. And who decides what is classified as "social media"? Once you give the govt this power they will be able to use to pretty liberally.
All websites where you can post comments and all multiplayer video games are social media to some degree. And would become so to an even more degree if you ever somehow magically banned kids from more mainstream sites (which is a comical pipe dream that might actually make the sites more appealing).
So basically, they're proposing the internet be blocked for minors. No, they don't actually mean that. You see, they want the sites they dislike to be blocked. Like Facebook. But not the things they use like Lemmy. You see, they're better than you, so the things they like are okay. It's just the things you like that are dumb and harmful.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
Your assumptions are very odd. I'm also fine with disabling comments and interaction on the entire internet for certain ages. Is it feasible? No, but I don't think it's infringing on rights or censoring information to require a somewhat developed brain to engage with the scientifically proven harmful aspects of "social media".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
Why can't Republicans control their kids? Why are they always asking the state to do it for them?
The government they want less of at that.
Something something glass houses, something something throwing rocks
Chinese parent company stands out here. Not sure what that has to do with parental controls and excessive time spent unless they are alleging that the Chinese government is trying to waste Utah kids time.
I hope they win. I mean TikTok is not the only one. Not even close. But I hate platforms like these and would like to see some backlash.
So we should have the government shut down things we don't like? Can no one see how this is a bit of a slippery slope, establishing this pattern. What if they decide lemmy needs to go and use the same reasoning.
Nothing will happen, a notice will be issued and TikTok won't give a fuck. Don't forget it is literally owned by CCP. Why would it fear some US state.
The same reason NY and California can make a law and the entire industry shifts to comply? If you get banned in Utah it won't be long before the rest of the US.
Local opium is better than Chinese opium.
I mean I have issues with TikTok but parents could also just like not let their kids use it. Parental controls are a thing. I don't understand why people get so upset at social media companies for trying to get everyone they possibly can to use their apps as much as they can since it's how they make their money lol. They're corporations, not charities - don't expect them to do the right thing.
They can sue a company doing the corporate media thing very successfully, because it doesn't directly fund them....but they can't hold gun manufacturers, oil and gas companies, etc. accountable for actual harmful effects.
Is social media good? Hell no. But it isn't illegal. These kids can literally work in factories again, be married off to pedos, and these people are faking outrage to distract from all of that.
I hate my state.
Why do they hate freedom so much?
"We're just looking out for the best interest of our children!"
A bunch of 35-45 year old Lemmy users bashing something they don't use but something the kids do. Just like their boomer and silent gen parents.
You guys fucking suck. I'd say I hope you all have sad, pathetic lives, but I know you all already do.
It's a Chinese spying and propaganda machine. Fuck off.....
Can you explain how? All I see are lesbians and black people.
And why does China spying on me matter? It's better than the West, no?
Fuck off troll
How am I being propagandized by TikTok?
Why does China having every single last drop of my information (they don't even, barely a sliver) matter?
You need to back up what you say. Your Western brainwashed idea of common sense and obvious xenophobia/racism ain't an objective truth in the world.
Yeah go suck xinnie the poohs dick troll
Still got nothing. You only have fear. You sound like those parents in the 1980's screaming about the devil when a kid dared to listen to Twisted Sister.
Go suck more authoritarian regime dick, dumb ass. If I have to explain why authoritarian regimes who want to usurp global power by 2040 harvesting your data is a bad thing, you should just go check yourself into a mental institution. Like I said fuck off troll
Im 23 and think its annoying, admitedly my response to things that annoy me is to want to stab it. So... maybe im not the target demographic.
You ok?