Indiana Sues TikTok Over Child Safety And Data Security Concerns

TikTok is reportedly facing its first state lawsuits.

According to the New York Times, Indiana has accused the social media platform of failing to protect underage users from mature content and deceiving the public about its data protection. The state’s attorney general, Todd Rokita, announced the complaints on Wednesday, referencing growing concerns over TikTok’s potential threat to national security.

“The TikTok app is a malicious and menacing threat unleashed on unsuspecting Indiana consumers by a Chinese company that knows full well the harms it inflicts on users,” Rokita said in a statement. “With this pair of lawsuits, we hope to force TikTok to stop its false, deceptive and misleading practices, which violate Indiana law.”

TikTok was launched in 2016 by the Beijing-based technology company ByteDance Ltd. According to content marketing agency Wallaroo, the app has been downloaded more than 210 million times in the United States, and now has more than 138 million active users in the country; 32.9 per cent of those users are reportedly between the ages of 10 to 19.

Source: Complex.com