New York is accusing TikTok of giving minors and teenagers a placebo safety feature instead of a working tool. The allegation appears in a lawsuit filed against the social media platform by the state.
Thousands of users took part in the experiments run by TikTok. The participants included children and teenagers who chose to activate a safety tool known as Algo Refresh. This feature lets users reset their content recommendations to block unwanted or potentially harmful material.
Users thought they had turned on the functional safety tool. Their feeds stayed exactly the same instead of updating. Other users outside the experiment had access to the fully functioning version of the tool and saw changes.
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The current legal action from New York is one of more than twenty cases filed by states against the company. These lawsuits claim the social media giant designed its platform to foster addictive habits in children and lied to users regarding safety.
TikTok issued a statement responding to Reuters. The company defended its testing practices.
“We continuously make improvements to our platform which means that, like most companies, we regularly test new products and features to validate the experience and understand how they work in the real world,” TikTok told Reuters.
Another test kept a safety feature from users
Bloomberg reported another experiment in June. That test kept a safety feature away from 15 million users in the United States, which included a teenager who later died by suicide.
