Utah sues TikTok alleging its live streams could be used to exploit underage users

TikTok has been in trouble for quite some time now, with its potential ban in the US ever looming... now, the social media giant has found itself facing a lawsuit filed by Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes. The lawsuit alleges that TikTok was aware that TikTok Lives were exposing minors to concerning messages from adults, and that the company profited off of some of the exchanges through TikTok Live's virtual gifting system.

According to the lawsuit, TikTok conducted a review called "Project Meramec" into TikTok Live. Allegedly, the company found that hundreds of thousands of children were getting around TikTok's age restrictions... and were also housing live streams, interacting with adults.

TikTok gets a portion of the sale of digital gifts during live streams, and as such, it's technically making money from such situations. And since TikTok's algorithm favors live streams where gifts are being exchanged, the lawsuit says, some of these streams exploiting under-age users may have been viewed more widely than they would have been otherwise.

Also, according to the lawsuit, the company found that criminals were selling drugs or running fraud operations during livestreams as well.

Meanwhile, TikTok, in answer to the lawsuit, says that the lawsuit is ignoring the proactive measures TikTok has implemented to support community safety and well-being. TikTok accuses the lawsuit of cherry-picking outdated documents and presenting info out of context.

TikTok says that it offers robust safety protections and screen time limits for teen accounts enabled by default, Family Pairing tools for parents to supervise their teens, strict live streaming requirements, and aggressive enforcement of its Community Guidelines on an ongoing basis.

The Utah lawsuit isn't the first time the company has come under scrutinizing eyes over child and teen safety. The FTC investigated TikTok, and the ban of the app was partially pushed over concerns about how the social media app can be used to influence young users.

I think that generally social media nowadays can be dangerous to young users. It's not just TikTok, in my opinion, it's all of them. We need to figure out a way to make social media safer as a society for younger people, and that includes TikTok but also all other big players on the market, such as Instagram and even chat apps. We'll see how the industry evolves to better address these concerns and ensure the safety of our most vulnerable.