TikTok Sued for 'Wreaking Havoc' on Teenage Mental Health

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 short-form video-sharing 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.

New York Attorney General Letitia James said young people across the country had died or been injured doing TikTok "challenges" and many others were feeling "more sad, anxious and depressed because of TikTok's addictive features".

She cited a 15-year-old boy, who died in Manhattan while “subway surfing” - riding on top of a moving subway car. His mother later found TikTok videos of such activity on his phone, she said.

The lawsuit singles out certain features as problematic: alerts that disrupt sleep; videos that vanish, driving users to check the platform frequently; and beauty filters that allow users to augment their appearance.

The suit also claims that though TikTok has promoted tools aimed at helping people limit their screen time or resetting what content they are served, it has misrepresented their effectiveness.

TikTok has become a pervasive sensation in many parts of the world, and Ghana is no exception.

This lawsuit highlights a greater need to maintain sanity on our internet space and safeguard the mental health of vulnerable teens who are exposed to endless highly-curated content at the tap of a button.