North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein announced Wednesday that he is investigating TikTok. PRE’s Meredith Radford has more.
Attorney General Stein is investigating the popular social media app TikTok for providing and promoting its platform to children and young adults.
According to a news release, TikTok use has been associated with physical and mental health harms. Stein and a bipartisan group of attorneys general are examining whether the company violated state consumer protection laws by putting young people at risk.
The investigation will look into the harms caused by young people using the app, and what TikTok knows about those harms, with a focus on the techniques the app uses to boost engagement.
Stein is also part of an executive committee of states investigating Meta, formerly Facebook, for providing and promoting Instagram to kids. He was part of a coalition of attorneys general last year that urged Facebook to abandon its plans to launch a version of Instagram for children under 13.
For Public Radio East, I’m Meredith Radford.
