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North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein said the attorneys
general investigating since 2022 have discovered TikTok had an
archive of tens of thousands of recorded internal Zoom meetings
that the company initially failed to disclose for nearly a year
and a half.
The court order requires TikTok to turn over lists of all Zoom
recordings that may help the attorneys general in their
investigation, Stein said.
"TikTok does not get to choose which parts of the law it
complies with," Stein said. "We’re going full steam ahead in our
investigation to protect our kids.”
A TikTok spokesperson said on Friday it would appeal the ruling.
The company has said previously it "has industry-leading
safeguards for young people, including an automatic 60-minute
time limit for users under 18 and parental controls for teen
accounts."
In October, Utah sued TikTok, accusing it of harming children by
intentionally keeping young users spending unhealthy amounts of
time on the short-video sharing platform. Indiana and Arkansas
previously filed similar suits.
TikTok, with more than 150 million U.S. users, is very popular
among young people. Pew Research Center said 67% of U.S. teens
ages 13 to 17 use TikTok, and 16% of all teens say they use the
app almost constantly.
Utah's lawsuit said the videos leverage "highly powerful
algorithms and manipulative design features, many of which mimic
features of slot machines" and the result "of these manipulative
tactics is that young consumers become hooked."
Arkansas also sued both TikTok and Facebook-parent Meta
Platforms in March "for pushing addictive platforms."
Last year, a group of Republican lawmakers said "many children
are exposed to non-stop offerings of inappropriate content that
TikTok’s algorithm force-feeds to them."
A Senate panel said the CEOs of TikTok, Meta, X (formerly
Twitter), Snap and Discord will testify on online child sexual
exploitation at a Jan. 31 hearing.
Legislation to give the Biden administration new tools to
address foreign-owned apps like TikTok raising national security
concerns has stalled.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jonathan Oatis and
Bill Berkrot)
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