More than a dozen states in the US have sued TikTok, accusing the social media platform of helping to drive a mental health crisis among teenagers.
A bipartisan group of 14 attorneys general from across the country allege that the company uses addictive features to hook children to the app and that it has intentionally misled the public about the safety of prolonged use.
TikTok called the lawsuit disappointing and said it believed many of the claims were inaccurate and misleading.
The platform is already battling a law passed by Congress in April that would ban it from the US, unless Chinese parent company Bytedance agreed to a sale.
The lawsuit filed in New York on Tuesday says TikTok knows that compulsive use of and other harmful effects of its platform are wreaking havoc on the mental health of millions of American children and teenagers.
Despite such documented knowledge, TikTok continually misrepresents its platform as safe and appropriate for children and teenagers.
