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.
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.