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TikTok settles addiction lawsuit ahead of trial
On the doorstep of a high-stakes social media trial that claims certain platforms harm children, TikTok settled a major lawsuit accusing the company of knowingly designing addictive products that are harmful to younger users.
LOS ANGELES - The ever-controversial TikTok settled a major lawsuit over alleged design of addictive products, knowingly harmful towards younger users. Almost half of America, about 150 million people, subscribe; mostly adults under 30, especially 18 to 24-year-olds, evenly split between men and women.
Preemptive settlement
TikTok, just taken over U.S. buyers, decided to bite the bullet and settle with plaintiffs who claim social media is made to be deliberately addictive and often dangerous to young minds. "That's their business model. The more time people spend on it, the more money they make," said psychology professor Jean Twenge.
Embracing addiction?
We spoke to folks at the College of Marin. "It's really fun, and it's short, and it has so much information in a short time. Even though it's not good for you, it's gonna shorten your attention span, but I love it," said student Vinh.
Probate lawyer Avid Alavi uses it sometimes because it helps her get her mind off work and get to sleep. "It picks up on the algorithms of what I looked at online or even sometimes text messages with friends, and then I always have a bunch of videos that relate that, and I do find it addictive," said probate lawyer Avid Alavi.
Undisclosed details
What we don't know:
But, the TikTok settlement details remain undisclosed. "If the agreement was they would stop doing the claims complainants complained about, then that would benefit everyone," said tech analyst, journalist, columnist and advisor to tech companies, Larry Magid.
He also says Meta and Google continue the court fight. "A loss in a case like this would be devastating for both Google and Meta," he said.
TikTok's tough week included major outages harming many of TikTok businesses. "For some people, it's a huge deal. It could be denying them revenue that they depend on," said Magid.
New terms of service
Last week, TikTok's new Terms of Service caused widespread anger when the app said it will gather personal ethnic, racial, sexual orientation data from users.
"It would be improper for any social media company or tech company to be collecting information like this without the explicit permission of the user," said Magid.
Add to that, dissatisfaction with TikTok's new conservative owners over alleged censorship, causing many users to quit and causing the state of California to investigate to protect free speech and young minds. "As an adult, I'm able to recognize that and stop it. But I think as for my younger self, I probably wouldn't know any better," said lawyer Alavi.
The tech companies deny deliberately harming children, citing the many guardrails they enforce as well as user self-defense tools.
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