(LEX 18) — Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman stands by Kentucky's lawsuit against TikTok.
In October, Coleman joined attorney generals from several other states in accusing TikTok of being designed to intentionally addict and harm kids. The other states that have sued are California, New York, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
On Thursday, in his final one-on-one interview of 2024 with LEX 18, Coleman further explained his decision to go after the huge social media company.
"What TikTok is - is an addiction machine. TikTok is an electronic addiction machine," said Coleman.
"I’m a dad before I’m attorney general and it is hard to keep our kids eyes off of these devices to begin with," he added.
Coleman accused TikTok of being designed "to further drag our kids into the abyss that we know increases anxiety and depression amongst our adolescents."
According to the Associated Press, Kentucky's complaint alleges that TikTok has quantified how long it takes for young users to get hooked on the platform, and shared the findings internally in presentations aimed at increasing user-retention rates. The “habit moment,” as TikTok calls it, occurs when users have watched 260 videos or more during the first week of having a TikTok account. This can happen in under 35 minutes since some TikTok videos run as short as 8 seconds, the AP reports the complaint says.
Kentucky’s lawsuit also cites a spring 2020 presentation from TikTok that concluded that the platform had already “hit a ceiling” among young users, according to the AP. At that point, the company’s estimates showed at least 95% of smartphone users under 17 used TikTok at least monthly, according to reports on the lawsuit.
The reports goes on to say TikTok tracks metrics for young users, including how long young users spend watching videos and how many of them use the platform every day. The company uses the information it gleans from these reviews to feed its algorithm, which tailors content to people’s interests, and drives user engagement, according to the AP's report.
TikTok is currently set to be banned in the United States, but the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Even if the app is banned, Coleman says Kentucky's lawsuit will continue.
"The goal is to get them to primarily change their conduct, to change their algorithm to better protect our kids from what is an addiction machine," he said.
