Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers released excerpts from internal TikTok documents showing that TikTok knows its platform is addictive, that compulsive use is rampant, and TikTok’s purported safety tools are ineffective. 

In May, Hilgers filed a lawsuit against TikTok, claiming the company engaged in deceptive and unfair trade practices by intentionally designing and operating a platform that is addictive and harmful to teens and children while holding itself out as “family-friendly” and “safe” for young users.

The lawsuit also claims that TikTok’s features fail to protect kids and regularly expose underage users to age-inappropriate and otherwise harmful content. 

Excerpts of the internal TikTok documents are part of the lawsuit, which is proceeding before Judge Lori A. Maret in Lancaster District Court. The internal TikTok documents quoted in the complaint were initially redacted so the public couldn’t see them, Hilgers said.

The excerpts were made public in August. Hilgers said it shows that: 

• TikTok achieves its success from “many coercive design tactics” and features that “limit user agency,” including infinite scroll, auto-play, and constant notifications.
• TikTok affects its users in a way that is psychologically similar to a “slot machine” and TikTok admits that the “product in itself has baked into it compulsive use” and that “compulsive usage on TikTok is rampant.”
• TikTok admits that its young users “have minimal ability to self-regulate effectively” and lack the “executive control function” needed to control their screen time. 
• Compulsive usage of TikTok “correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety.”
• TikTok is aware that compulsive usage of its platform interferes with users’ “essential personal responsibilities like sufficient sleep, work/school responsibilities, and connecting with loved ones” and causes “negative emotions.”
• Beyond being aware that TikTok use regularly interferes with users’ sleep, TikTok also knows that “[s]leep [is] unanimously linked to health outcomes” and that “[b]ad sleep is a source of mental health issues.”
• TikTok is aware that many teens on its platform find that TikTok is addictive, inappropriate, and interferes with their lives in unhealthy ways.
• TikTok knows that many of its publicized safety features, like age verification and Family Pairing, are easily circumvented or not widely used but still considers them “good talking point[s]” in response to scrutiny from “policymakers.” 

These significant portions of the complaint have now been unredacted and are available to the public, Hilgers said.

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