TikTok was aware of the risks children and adolescents face on its platform

The details are among redacted portions of the Kentucky lawsuit that contain internal communications and documents uncovered during a more than two-year investigation into the company by states across the country.

The Kentucky lawsuit was filed this week, alongside separate complaints filed by attorneys general from a dozen states as well as the District of Columbia. TikTok also faces another Justice Department lawsuit and is suing the Justice Department itself over a federal law that could ban it in the United States by mid-January.

The redacted information — which was inadvertently revealed by the Kentucky attorney general’s office and first reported by Kentucky Public Radio — touches on a range of topics, including the extent to which TikTok knew how much time young users were spending on the platform and how sincere she was. This was during the deployment of tools aimed at curbing excessive use.

Beyond TikTok use among minors, the complaint alleges that the short-form video sharing app prioritized “beautiful people” on its platform and internally noted that some of the content moderation measures that she published are “largely misleading”.

The unredacted complaint, which was viewed by The Associated Press, was sealed Wednesday by a Kentucky state judge after state officials filed an emergency motion to seal it.

When reached for comment, TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek said: “It is highly irresponsible for the Associated Press to publish information that is under court seal. Unfortunately, this complaint cherry-picks misleading quotes and takes outdated documents out of context to misrepresent our commitment to community safety.

“We have robust protections in place, which include proactively removing suspected underage users, and we have voluntarily launched security features such as default screen time limits, family matching, and privacy by default for users. minors under the age of 16,” Haurek said in a prepared statement. “We are maintaining these efforts.”

TikTok Usage Among Young Users The complaint alleges that TikTok quantified the time it took for young users to become addicted to the platform and shared the results internally in presentations aimed at increasing user retention rates. The “habit moment,” as TikTok calls it, occurs when users have watched 260 or more videos in the first week of having a TikTok account. This can happen in less than 35 minutes since some TikTok videos are only 8 seconds long, the complaint states.

The Kentucky lawsuit also cites a spring 2020 TikTok presentation that concluded the platform had already “hit a ceiling” among younger users. At that time, the company’s estimates showed that at least 95% of smartphone users under the age of 17 used TikTok at least once a month, the complaint notes.

TikTok tracks statistics for young users, including time spent watching videos and how many of them use the platform each day. The company uses the information it gleans from these reviews to power its algorithm, which tailors content to people’s interests and boosts user engagement, the complaint says.

TikTok conducts its own internal studies to discover the impact of the platform on users. The lawsuit cites a group within the company, called “TikTok,” which noted in an internal report that compulsive use was “rampant” on the platform. It also cites an anonymous executive who said kids watch TikTok because the algorithm is “really good.”

“But I think we need to be aware of what this could mean for other opportunities.” And when I say other opportunities, I literally mean sleeping, eating, moving around the room and looking someone in the eye,” the anonymous executive said, according to the complaint.

Time management toolsTikTok imposes a daily screen time limit of 60 minutes for minors, a feature rolled out in March 2023 with the stated aim of helping teens manage their time on the platform. But the Kentucky complaint argues that the delay — which users can easily bypass or disable — was intended more as a public relations tool than anything else.

The lawsuit says TikTok measured the success of the time limit feature not by reducing the amount of time teens spent on the platform, but by three other metrics, the first of which was “improved public trust in the TikTok platform via media coverage.”

Reducing screen time among adolescents was not included as a measure of success, according to the lawsuit. In fact, he alleged that the company planned to “redesign” the feature if the time limit feature caused teens to reduce their TikTok usage by more than 10%.

TikTok conducted an experiment and found that time limit prompts only decreased by a minute and a half compared to the average time teens spent on the app – from 108.5 to 107 minutes per day, according to the complaint. But despite the lack of movement, TikTok hasn’t tried to make the feature more effective, Kentucky officials say. They claim that the feature’s ineffectiveness was, in many ways, intentional.

The complaint says a TikTok executive named Zhu Wenjia gave approval for the feature only if its impact on TikTok’s “core metrics” was minimal.

TikTok — including its CEO Shou Chew — talked about the app’s various time management tools, including the videos TikTok sends to users to encourage them to leave the platform. But a TikTok executive told an internal meeting that the videos were “useful” talking points, but were “not completely effective.”

TikTok Has “Prioritized Beautiful People” on Its Platform In a section that details the negative impacts that TikTok’s facial filters can have on users, Kentucky alleges that TikTok’s algorithm has “prioritized beautiful people,” even though he knew internally that the platform’s content could “perpetuate narrow beauty.” standard.”

The complaint alleges that TikTok changed its algorithm after an internal report noted that the app displayed a “high volume of…unattractive topics” in the app’s main “For You” feed.

“By modifying TikTok’s algorithm to display fewer ‘unattractive subjects’ in the For You feed, defendants took active steps to promote a narrow beauty standard, even though doing so could negatively impact their younger users ” the complaint states.

TikTok ‘leak’ rate The lawsuit also targets TikTok’s content moderation practices.

He cites an internal communication in which the company notes that its moderation measures are “largely misleading” because “we are good at moderating the content we capture, but these measures do not account for the content we miss.”

The complaint says TikTok knows it has — but does not disclose — significant “leak” rates, or content that violates the site’s community guidelines but is not removed or moderated. Other social media companies are also facing similar issues on their platforms.

For TikTok, the complaint notes that “leak” rates include approximately 36% content normalizing pedophilia and 50% content glorifying minor sexual assault.

The lawsuit also accuses the company of misleading the public about its moderation and allowing some popular creators deemed “high value” to post content that violates the site’s guidelines.