Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced on Tuesday a lawsuit against TikTok in Hennepin County Court, alleging the app is highly-addictive and the company cares more about profits than the well-being of its user base.

Minnesota

Minnesota has filed a lawsuit against TikTok, accusing the social media platform of employing addictive algorithms and features that target and exploit young users. The lawsuit, led by Attorney General Keith Ellison, likens TikTok's impact to 'digital nicotine' and alleges deceptive trade practices and consumer fraud, particularly regarding the app's safety features and digital currency.

TikTok has responded by rejecting the claims, stating that the lawsuit is based on misleading information and highlighting its voluntary safety features. The state seeks significant financial penalties, with a minimum fine for each violation, defined as every instance a child in Minnesota accesses TikTok. This legal action follows similar lawsuits by other states and mirrors ongoing litigation against Meta for comparable concerns.

Minnesota sues TikTok, calling it ‘digital nicotine’ for young users

at five here. Minnesota is suing Tiktok, accusing the app of preying on young people with addictive algorithms and features meant to exploit the user. Attorney General Keith Ellison compared Tiktok to digital nicotine. Fox signs. Rob Olson is live at the state capitol tonight, just sorting through this lawsuit. So, Rob, would you learn? It's a big lawsuit. Last fall, 13 other states in the District of Columbia also sued Tiktok over similar claims here. Minnesota joining that effort today, saying, as you mentioned, digital nicotine, kind of alluding to the tobacco lawsuit of nearly 30 years ago, saying this app is really designed in many ways to be addictive and to harm kids. Now it is a seven count suit filed by the state of Minnesota, alleging deceptive trade practices and consumer fraud, both over the addictive features, saying that Tiktok misrepresents her own safety features, that they have an illegal currency with the digital tokens that you can buy and gift to other people, acknowledging that the engineered addiction is also affecting adults, too. But with kids, it's leading to depression, anxiety, loss of sleep, that the beauty filters create unreasonable expectations. Again, accusing this app of exploiting Children. It's not fair. It's an unfair thing to expect that a kid can overcome the pressures and the design features and the research and the brain science of some of the most highly trained people in the world. Now, a response from Tiktok today, in part saying this lawsuit is based on misleading and inaccurate claims that failed to recognize the robust safety features. Tiktok is voluntarily implemented to support the well being of our community. Some of those features recently added Attorney General Ellison saying that those are simply ineffective and there needs to be more. The suit is asking for a lot of money, a minimum $25,000 fine for each of the violations, and they say they consider a violation every time a kid in Minnesota has access Tiktok. So that number is astronomical. By the way, this mirrors a lawsuit against Metta, the Facebook parent company filed by Minnesota and other states two years ago, also for addictive features and targeting kids. That is still in what's called the discovery phase, kind of in the mushy legal middle, they say, is that awaits going to trial itself live in ST Paul. Rob Wilson, Fox nine and some interesting statements on both sides there, Rob. Thank you.

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Breakdown