Attorneys General Concerned for Safety and Well-Being of Children
FRANKFORT, Ky. (March 2, 2022) – Today, Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced that he is co-leading a nationwide investigation into TikTok for providing and promoting its social media platform to children and young adults even though use is associated with physical and mental health harms. Attorneys general nationwide are examining whether the company violated state consumer protection laws.
“Whether online or on the streets, we are committed to protecting Kentucky children,” said Attorney General Cameron. “This investigation is the latest action we’ve taken to promote online safety for Kentucky’s kids, and it is a necessary step to examine TikTok’s practices and better understand the potential harms and risks to children who use the platform.”
The investigation will look into the harms caused by use of TikTok among young users and what TikTok knew about those harms. The investigation focuses, among other things, on the techniques utilized by TikTok to boost young-user engagement, including increasing the duration of time spent on the platform and frequency of engagement with the platform.
Attorney General Cameron has long expressed concern about the negative impacts of social media platforms on Kentucky’s youngest residents. In May 2021, he joined a bipartisan coalition of 44 attorneys general in urging Facebook to abandon its plans to launch a version of Instagram targeted to children under 13. Later in the year, Attorney General Cameron also joined attorneys general from across the country in an investigation into Meta Platforms, Inc., formerly known as Facebook, for providing and promoting its Instagram platforms to kids.
Attorney General Cameron is co-leading the investigation into TikTok with a bipartisan coalition of Attorneys General from California, Florida, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Vermont. They are joined by a broad group of Attorneys General from across the country.