New York Attorney General Letitia James has added new allegations to a child safety lawsuit against TikTok Inc., accusing the platform of running secret experiments on teen users.<\/p>\n
The new claims are attributed to a Bloomberg Businessweek report, based on a confidential TikTok document, about an algorithmic test the company began in 2021 that impacted about 15 million US users, including one teen who died by suicide.<\/p>\n
For the experiment, TikTok withheld a new safety feature from 10% of US users in order to test whether the change reduced user time on the platform.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a result, TikTok has subjected users whom TikTok included in such A\/B tests to an experience that TikTok has made less safe by design,\u201d James said in the amended lawsuit<\/a>, which includes details of the experiment that were previously sealed from public view. The teen who died by suicide was in the test group that didn\u2019t get the safety features TikTok rolled out.<\/p>\n Read More: TikTok Kept a Safety Feature From Millions. One Died by Suicide<\/a><\/p>\n In a court filing, TikTok confirmed that it runs tests on its platform that \u201cmay involve a portion of platform traffic that continued to receive the original experience.\u201d However, the company denied that those tests make the platform less safe for those users.<\/p>\n \u201cWe 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,\u201d the company said in a statement.<\/p>\n New York is one of more than a dozen states that have sued the social media company over claims that its platform is harmful to the mental health of young users and that leaders at the company misled the public about the safety on TikTok.<\/p>\n