379
submitted 1 year ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

Utah became the latest state Tuesday to file a lawsuit against TikTok, alleging the company is “baiting” children into addictive and unhealthy social media habits.

TikTok lures children into hours of social media use, misrepresents the app’s safety and deceptively portrays itself as independent of its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, Utah claims in the lawsuit.

“We will not stand by while these companies fail to take adequate, meaningful action to protect our children. We will prevail in holding social media companies accountable by any means necessary,” Republican Gov. Spencer Cox said at a news conference announcing the lawsuit, which was filed in state court in Salt Lake City.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] seaQueue@lemmy.world 102 points 1 year ago

Great! Now sue Facebook and Instagram.

[-] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago

I dunno, if they get a ruling here with a big enough splash this might actually spread to them too.

It'll all depend on if they can establish a solid enough case centered around the addictive nature of the content presentation algorithm, and getting it banned in favor of something like chronological content ordering.

[-] potterpockets@sh.itjust.works 58 points 1 year ago

Good thing Mormons have never been known to bait children into addictive and unhealthy habits.

[-] badbytes@lemmy.world 39 points 1 year ago

Yeah because UTAH is so good to their youth.

[-] expr@programming.dev 9 points 1 year ago

No, but they're also not wrong here.

[-] Number1SummerJam@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I've seen it with my own eyes. My SO's younger sisters are 13 and spend all day glued to tiktok, Youtube shorts etc. I've seen the weird challenges encouraging dangerous behavior that the media hypes up show up in their feed (of mostly drama videos doxing strangers on the internet), as well as random videos of dead cats, gore, fentanyl references, and they've complained about videos of topless underage girls in 3rd world countries. Even though I'm politically across the aisle from these people, I support this lawsuit.

[-] Birdie@thelemmy.club 30 points 1 year ago

But whose responsibility is it to monitor their internet access? Mom and Dad need to step up and actually parent their children!

[-] pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

As a young geek in the 90s, I know that kids can outsmart their parents easily. Most parents aren't tech savvy but their kids are. A parent would literally have to sit there next to them and monitor every webpage and conversation they have, which isn't realistic most of the time.

We all know that social media sites like Facebook and Instagram have a negative impact on those that aren't adults (it still sucks for adults too, but in a different way), and sites like TikTok and other video shorts essentially promote short attention spans and maximize the "reward" (dopamine) that users get.

Social media sites are virtual Skinner Boxes.

[-] ALostInquirer@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago

But whose responsibility is it to monitor their internet access? Mom and Dad need to step up and actually parent their children!

Yeah...Isn't this likely unconstitutional given the first amendment? This strikes me as somewhat similar to attempts to regulate video games "for making children violent" or the like. At best this may result in TikTok releasing a children's variation of the app with greater restrictions in terms of use and content, supposing something like that doesn't already exist.

Similar to how YouTube has a variation of their app for children, if I remember right.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] mrbubblesort@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

Seriously, are they the party of "personal responsibility"?

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Number1SummerJam@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

How do you know they aren't in a bad home situation? What then?

[-] pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Yeah, it's definitely addictive. My neighbor has 3 "tweenage" (10-12) daughters and they're addicted to it, but then again Facebook is and was just as bad back in the mid 2000s. In college my girlfriend couldn't go more than about 10 minutes (literally) without checking Facebook back in like 2009.

If you're around my age (37) and you had access to the internet in the 90s, you definitely saw way more fucked up stuff as a kid (The Stile Project, Rotten.com, etc...). We weren't emotionally and mentally manipulated like the current younger generation is though, which is definitely fucked up. So, like you, I reluctantly support this as well.

[-] Zahille7@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I mean I know plenty of adults that are a tuslly addicted to tiktok as well.

Granted they aren't actually doing anything wrong

[-] TenderfootGungi@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

While I am sure this is true, wouldn’t conservatives want this to fall on parents instead of regulations?

[-] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

You seem confused, let me explain:

The conservative philosophy isn't "you can't tell people what to do," it's "You can't tell me what to do. I can tell you what to do."

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

My teenaged niece and nephew are hopelessly addicted to TikTok. My brother and sister-in-law (who are in their 40s/50s) decided to deal with the problem by also becoming hopelessly addicted to TikTok.

[-] o0joshua0o@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I agree. If all of TikTok was shot into the sun tomorrow, the world would be a better place.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] moneyinphx@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago

Can TikTok sue the Mormon church for “baiting” children into addictive and unhealthy habits?

[-] Death_Equity@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Only the Scientologists could win in court against the Mormons.

[-] dezmd@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Not in Utah they couldn't.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago

I would watch that TV show. How many seasons are you planning?

[-] Death_Equity@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

One ok-to-good one, a solid second season, and then like 10 seasons of dragging the premise out long enough that the later seasons are a different genre, there has been 3 musical episodes, and a pretty racist allegorical twist that reveals the real enemy was another religious group that is part of an arc that never has a payoff for the final season.

The movie will air on Tubi and will be a prequel that is basically unwatchable unless you have seen all 12 seasons and 100%'d the lootbox mobile game that is exclusive to the Sony Xperia Pro II in Guam and West Taiwan.

There will be an ARG before the pilot airs. Don't bother trying to play it, you won't figure it out before the kids whose parents have a multicolored puzzle pieces sticker on their car.

[-] Piecemakers3Dprints@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago

Utah. Sacred home of the Mormon cult. Is suing, unironically I might add, for the above reasons...

[-] Ryan213@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago
[-] Piecemakers3Dprints@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Somebody needs to bleed that cult ASAP. 🤷🏼‍♂️

[-] holycrap@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago

They have hundreds of billions in assets, sadly. They're not going anywhere.

[-] Piecemakers3Dprints@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well, at least until someone commandeers their colony ship, right? 🤞🏼

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Jaysyn@kbin.social 18 points 1 year ago

A bunch of fastfood execs just started sweating profusely.

[-] pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

I thought that was their default state.

[-] ThePantser@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

That's just the meat sweats.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago

I can’t see this surviving a first amendment challenge, but we’ll see.

[-] Synnr@sopuli.xyz 13 points 1 year ago

It won't, but that's not the point. Gov. Spencer Cox is campaigning. Ever notice how politicians get real busy and start hitting hard with stuff like this when election season is near?

[-] stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago

Think of the children. Vote for me or the gay Chinese Democrats will take your kids.

[-] TigrisMorte@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

Mostly just a specific of ideology politicians, in my experience.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] toiletobserver@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I think it could be regulated to a positive effect. We regulate all sorts of things that are addictive, see gambling and substances. We also regulate speech on broadcast TV and radio. And, children should be given elevated protections to data harvesting which is what these companies are really doing. Do i expect the government to fuck this up? Absolutely, but don't let people hide behind first amendment bullshit to avoid the conversation.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] JokeDeity@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago

Downvote me all you want, but this is the way. That shit needs banned or some extreme restrictions need to be implemented. IMO it's literally dumbing down our entire country.

load more comments (8 replies)
[-] TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago

Why can't Republicans control their kids? Why are they always asking the state to do it for them?

[-] donescobar@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

The government they want less of at that.

[-] Starb3an@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

Something something glass houses, something something throwing rocks

[-] Greyghoster@aussie.zone 6 points 1 year ago

Chinese parent company stands out here. Not sure what that has to do with parental controls and excessive time spent unless they are alleging that the Chinese government is trying to waste Utah kids time.

[-] Killercat103@infosec.pub 4 points 1 year ago

I hope they win. I mean TikTok is not the only one. Not even close. But I hate platforms like these and would like to see some backlash.

[-] Lightor@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

So we should have the government shut down things we don't like? Can no one see how this is a bit of a slippery slope, establishing this pattern. What if they decide lemmy needs to go and use the same reasoning.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] flipht@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

They can sue a company doing the corporate media thing very successfully, because it doesn't directly fund them....but they can't hold gun manufacturers, oil and gas companies, etc. accountable for actual harmful effects.

Is social media good? Hell no. But it isn't illegal. These kids can literally work in factories again, be married off to pedos, and these people are faking outrage to distract from all of that.

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
379 points (98.5% liked)

News

23232 readers
3384 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS