Security News > 2022 > March > TikTok under investigation in US over harms to children

Reports that ByteDance-owned social media platform TikTok is harmful to children are under investigation by a number of US attorneys general.

"Our children are growing up in the age of social media - and many feel like they need to measure up to the filtered versions of reality that they see on their screens," said California attorney general Rob Bonta.

Researchers Abbie Richards and Olivia Little found that it took 400 TikTok videos before hateful content was introduced to a viewer following an interaction with transphobic content.

While 400 video sounds like a significant amount, the brevity of TikTok videos means this can be achieved in just two hours.

TikTok took to their website in 2020 to give some information on how it recommends videos but revealed very little about the company's algorithm.

Ai last November predicted TikTok would surpass 1.5 billion active users in 2022.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/03/04/tiktok_harms_to_children/