A coalition of now over 20 U.S. state attorneys general are suing TikTok on grounds that the Chinese-based company is harmful to the health of U.S. children.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill joined them on Tuesday, her office announced in an official statement.
“TikTok is targeting youth with content that shocks the conscience – and it’s designed to target young people and addict them to an endless scroll of extreme content that generates massive profits,” Murrill said. “TikTok has knowingly been misleading the public about the content it’s serving up to kids. Parents deserve to know the truth and Louisiana law, at the very least, requires TikTok to stop lying. I intend to hold TikTok accountable and protect kids.”
Murrill alleges TikTok violates laws related to Louisiana’s consumer protection statuses.
“TikTok … is rife with profanity, sexual content, violence, mature themes, and drug and alcohol content. TikTok presents virtually endless amounts of extreme and mature videos presented to children as young as thirteen,” a Louisiana petition reads.
The suit seeks fines and penalties for TikTok’s alleged misconduct.
TikTok has over 1.5 billion monthly users, data from Statista shows; most live in the U.S. Over 44% of those users belong to Generation Z, those aged 12-27, data from Emarketer shows.
Around two years ago, there were pushes in the Louisiana Legislature to ban TikTok on LSU’s campus.
This development from the states’ chief legal officers comes after months of pressure from bipartisan, national-level lawmakers. Broadly, they’re threatening to ban TikTok unless its parent company, ByteDance, is sold to a non-Chinese owner.
Multiple media outlets report that lawmakers fear ByteDance could hand over the data of U.S. users.
President Joe Biden signed a bill in April that gave the company a timeline to sell or it’d be banned.
Former President Donald Trump also made efforts to get the app banned in his term.
“This unconstitutional law is a TikTok ban, and we will challenge it in court. We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail,” an April statement from TikTok reads.
TikTok said the ban would suppress the freedom of speech and falter the business endeavors of millions of Americans.
