IU Kelley prof: More TikTok suits likely
Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
An associate professor of business law and ethics at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business expects to see a growing number of lawsuits from other states against social media company TikTok. Abbey Stemler says lawmakers are skeptical of what the Chinese government might be doing with user information obtained through the Chinese-owned video platform. In early December, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita filed suit against the company, accusing TikTok of exposing children to “salacious and inappropriate content.”
In an interview with the Associated Press, Stemler said the platform appears to be misleading.
“Lawmakers are quite skeptical of what the Chinese government might be doing with user information,” said Stemler. “But in particular, we’re seeing a lot of movement with TikTok being challenged for its protection of young people in particular TikTok’s use of a advertising itself as something appropriate for children, when in fact it is not.”
Rokita claimed in a complaint that while the social video app says it is safe for users 13 years and older, the app contains content inappropriate to young users who had access to it “for unlimited periods of time, day and night.”
He says the age-appropriate designation on the Apple Store and in the Google Play Store was insufficient, and TikTok should instead advertise itself as for adults 17 and up.
Stemler, who is also a faculty associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, says lawmakers and state attorneys general may fight a 25-year-old amendment to the Communications Act of 1934 to combat social media companies, like TikTok.
“Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which has been used for a long time to protect social media platforms from any type of regulation, we’re beginning to see that immunity that Section 230 provides being chipped away, and lawmakers are figuring out clever ways to get around the federal protections,” said Stemler.
In addition to the Rokita complaint, the Indiana is also preventing state employees from using the Chinese-owned social media app from state devices.
According to the AP, the Indiana Office of Technology “blocked TikTok from being used in our state system and on our state devices” as of Dec. 7, office spokesman Graig Lubsen told The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.
Stemler expects to see lawmakers put greater pressure on tech firms to design better protection systems.
“I think we’re going to be seeing lawmakers really put the emphasis on the tech firms to design better systems to protect young people to prevent terrorist activity to make sure the Internet is a safe place for all to be,” said Stemler.