Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday sued TikTok for the second time in recent months, accusing the social media company of violating deceptive trade law by downplaying its addictiveness and exposing children to explicit material.
The suit argues that TikTok, a short-form video app, violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by listing itself on app stores as appropriate for children and not enforcing its community guidelines effectively. The Apple App Store lists TikTok as rated for those 12 and older, while the Microsoft and Google Play Stores list the app as appropriate for users who are 13 and older.
The 66-page filing, which has several redactions, details several TikTok posts containing inappropriate material that seemingly violate the guidelines and ways the app can circumvent parental controls on smartphones through an in-app browser. At one point, the lawsuit states the inappropriate material also included child sexual abuse content, although that section of the suit is largely redacted.
