TikTok staff acknowledged the platform’s negative effects on young users but limited preventive actions to avoid a reduction in traffic, according to internal documents released Friday by a US public radio station.
The papers, stated in a demand issued by the Kentucky attorney general, are part of a lawsuit brought by 13 states and Washington, D.C., accusing TikTok of endangering the mental health of its teenage users.
The documents show TikTok’s understanding of the platform’s popularity and its recommendation algorithm, which provides a seemingly limitless stream of short videos.
One unidentified TikTok executive mentioned the importance of being “cognizant” of the app’s impact on “sleep, eating, moving around the room, and looking someone in the eyes.”
Kentucky Public Radio rebuilt the internal communications before a state judge ordered them erased from public record.
The lawsuit claims: TikTok’s research discovered that after watching 260 videos, a user is likely to become addicted to the app.
The company’s studies also linked “compulsive usage” to poor mental health consequences, including as “loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety.”
While TikTok has incorporated elements to limit young users’ screen time, such as parental controls and a one-hour timeout, the records indicate that ByteDance, TikTok’s parent firm, did not endeavor to improve these tools, despite their poor usefulness.
A TikTok project manager stated, “Our goal is not to reduce time spent” on the platform.
TikTok responded by calling the publishing of sealed court information “highly irresponsible.”
“Unfortunately, this complaint cherry-picks misleading quotes and takes outdated documents out of context to misrepresent our commitment to community safety,” it reads.
The state cases come as the popular video-snippet sharing app threatens a ban in the United States if it is still owned by Chinese company ByteDance.
The US government claims that TikTok enables Beijing to collect data and spy on consumers. It also claims TikTok is used to propagate propaganda. China and the firm vigorously refute these allegations.