• Source: Lawsuits involving TikTok

TikTok has been involved in a number of lawsuits since its founding, with a number of them relating to TikTok's data collection techniques.




Tencent lawsuits


Tencent's WeChat platform has been accused of blocking Douyin's videos. In April 2018, Douyin sued Tencent and accused it of spreading false and damaging information on its WeChat platform, demanding CN¥1 million in compensation and an apology. In June 2018, Tencent filed a lawsuit against Toutiao and Douyin in a Beijing court, alleging they had repeatedly defamed Tencent with negative news and damaged its reputation, seeking a nominal sum of CN¥1 in compensation and a public apology. In response, Toutiao filed a complaint the following day against Tencent for allegedly unfair competition and asking for CN¥90 million in economic losses.




Data transfer class action lawsuit


In November 2019, a class action lawsuit was filed in California that alleged that TikTok transferred personally identifiable information of U.S. persons to servers located in China owned by Tencent and Alibaba. The lawsuit also accused ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, of taking user content without their permission. The plaintiff of the lawsuit, college student Misty Hong, downloaded the app but said she never created an account. She realized a few months later that TikTok had created an account for her using her information (such as biometrics) and made a summary of her information. The lawsuit also alleged that information was sent to Chinese tech giant Baidu. In July 2020, twenty lawsuits against TikTok were merged into a single class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. In February 2021, TikTok agreed to pay $92 million to settle the class action lawsuit. The court approved the settlement in July 2022.




Inappropriate content for minors


In December 2022, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita filed two separate lawsuits against TikTok in the Allen County Superior Court in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The first complaint alleged that the platform exposed inappropriate content to minors, and that TikTok "intentionally falsely reports the frequency of sexual content, nudity, and mature/suggestive themes" on their platform which made the app's "12-plus" age ratings on the Apple and Google app stores deceptive. The second complaint alleged TikTok does not disclose the Chinese government's potential to access sensitive consumer information. The two lawsuits were later consolidated and dismissed. In dismissing the lawsuit in November 2023, the Superior Court cited that the court “lacks personal jurisdiction” over TikTok.
In November 2024, a group of French families sued TikTok over exposing adolescents to harmful content, leading two to take their lives. The families alleged TikTok's algorithm exposed the children to content promoting self-harm, eating disorders and suicide.




Voice actor lawsuit


In May 2021, Canadian voice actor Bev Standing filed a lawsuit against TikTok over the use of her voice in the text-to-speech feature without her permission. The lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York. TikTok declined to comment. Standing had taken up a contract with the Chinese government-run Institute of Acoustics narrating English for translations but says she never agreed for her voice to be used in other ways. The voice used in the feature was subsequently changed.




Collecting children's data


In June 2021, the Netherlands-based Market Information Research Foundation (SOMI) filed a €1.4 billion lawsuit with an Amsterdam court on behalf of Dutch parents against TikTok, alleging that the app gathers data on children without adequate permission. In interlocutory judgments issued in October 2023 and January 2024, the Amsterdam District Court allowed the claims of SOMI to proceed, along with those of the Foundation Take Back Your Privacy and the Foundation Mass Damage & Consumer.
On August 2, 2024, the US Department of Justice sued TikTok for allegedly violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). In October 2024, Texas sued TikTok, accusing it of violating state law by sharing children's personal identifying information without consent from their parents or legal guardians. The same month, thirteen states and District of Columbia filed lawsuits against TikTok over mental health concerns involving minors. One of the lawsuits, filed by the Attorney General of Kentucky, stated that TikTok developed an internal strategy to influence U.S. senator Mitch McConnell and other politicians.




Blackout Challenge


Multiple lawsuits have been filed against TikTok, accusing the platform of hosting content that led to the death of at least seven children. The lawsuits claim that children died after attempting the "Blackout challenge", a TikTok trend that involves strangling or asphyxiating someone or themselves until they black out (passing out). TikTok stated that search queries for the challenge do not show any results, linking instead to protective resources, while the parents of two of the deceased argued that the content showed up on their children's TikTok feeds, without them searching for it.
In May 2022, Tawainna Anderson, the mother of a 10-year-old girl from Pennsylvania, filed a lawsuit against TikTok in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Her daughter died while attempting the Blackout Challenge on TikTok. The District Court dismissed the complaint in October 2022 and held that the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. § 230, immunizes TikTok. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed and remanded the case to the lower court in August 2024, holding that Section 230 only immunizes information provided by third parties and not recommendations made by TikTok's algorithm.
According to The Independent, the Blackout Challenge reportedly was linked to the deaths of 20 children between 2021 and 2022, 15 of whom were under the age of 12.




Discrimination


In September 2023, two former ByteDance employees filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) asking the EEOC to investigate TikTok's practice of retaliation against workers who complain about discrimination.
In February 2024, Katie Puris, a former senior executive at TikTok filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against the company, alleging discrimination based on age and gender. Prior to this lawsuit, she had filed a complaint with the EEOC against the company in May 2023, alleging discrimination and retaliation.
In August 2024, Olivia Anton Altamirano, a TikTok UK content moderator, sued the social media platform and its parent company, ByteDance Ltd., in the London employment tribunal, alleging disability discrimination and a toxic workplace culture that caused her stress and pregnancy complications. TikTok denied the allegations. After a hearing, a UK judge allowed the case to proceed.




Mental health of minors


In May 2024, the Nebraska Attorney General filed a lawsuit against TikTok for allegedly harming minors' mental health through an algorithm designed to be cultivate compulsive behavior.




See also


Lawsuits involving Google
Lawsuits involving Meta Platforms




References

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