Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok is facing growing political backlash in the US as it was sued by the state of Indiana over data security and child safety concerns and banned by multiple Republican state governors from government devices.
A pair of lawsuits filed on Wednesday by Indiana’s Republican attorney-general against the popular short-form video platform, which is owned by Beijing’s ByteDance, alleged that the company had made false claims about its practices. The suits are seeking emergency injunctive relief and civil penalties from TikTok.
In one of the lawsuits, the state claims that TikTok had “lured children” on to its platform by suggesting that it only hosted “infrequent/mild” sexual content, profanity, or drug references when the app was actually flooded with such content.