Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman stands by Kentucky’s lawsuit against TikTok.
In October, Coleman joined attorney generals from several other states in accusing TikTok of being designed to intentionally addict and harm kids. The other states that have sued are California, New York, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
On Thursday, in his final one-on-one interview of 2024 with LEX 18, Coleman further explained his decision to go after the huge social media company.
“What TikTok is – is an addiction machine. TikTok is an electronic addiction machine,” said Coleman.
“I’m a dad before I’m attorney general and it is hard to keep our kids eyes off of these devices to begin with,” he added.
Coleman accused TikTok of being designed “to further drag our kids into the abyss that we know increases anxiety and depression amongst our adolescents.”
According to the Associated Press, Kentucky’s complaint alleges that TikTok has quantified how long it takes for young users to get hooked on the platform, and shared the findings internally in presentations aimed at increasing user-retention rates. The “habit moment,” as TikTok calls it, occurs when users have watched 260 videos or more during the first week of having a TikTok account. This can happen in under 35 minutes since some TikTok videos run as short as 8 seconds, the AP reports the complaint says.