The Indiana State Attorney’s Office in the United States filed a complaint on Wednesday against the popular social network TikTok, accusing it of misleading users about data protection and the safety of content offered to children.
The application, known for its short, musical or parody videos, is regularly criticized by the US authorities, who accuse it of its influence on minors or its ties to China, its parent company being the Chinese company ByteDance .
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita filed two complaints. The first accuses TikTok of minimizing to its US-based users the possibility that Chinese authorities may have access to their personal data.
“The company must tell the truth to its users”
More and more US states are banning officials from downloading the app to their office phones, and Texas said Wednesday it wants to take “aggressive action” against TikTok.
The company, for its part, regularly ensures that it has implemented protocols to never allow Chinese authorities to access the data of its users based in the United States.
In a second complaint, the Indiana prosecutor accuses the group of misleading minors and their parents by stating that the app “contains only content of a sexual nature, profanity, or drug references on an ‘infrequent’ or ‘mild’ basis when in In reality, the application is full of extreme examples of this type of content ”, according to a press release sent by their services.
“At a minimum, the company must tell its users the truth about the age-appropriateness of its content and the insecurity of the data it collects,” says the prosecutor in the document. “We hope these lawsuits will force TikTok to come clean and change their ways,” he added.
Source: BFM TV
