TikTok allegedly fueling teen mental health crisis will be focus of first US trial against platform

An Alabama jury will hear the state’s claims that TikTok and ​its Chinese parent company ByteDance made the platform addictive to young users and misled consumers about its safety, in the ‌first case against the company to reach trial in the sweeping litigation over social media’s impact on teen wellbeing.The trial, which is scheduled to kick off Monday in Montgomery state court and expected to last two to three weeks, could provide a rare look inside TikTok, which has settled prior cases selected for trial and ​sought to keep details of its operations from public view.Alabama’s lawsuit was filed last year by state Attorney General Steve Marshall, a ​Republican.At least 27 other states and Washington, DC, have also sued.TikTok has said it designed its platform ⁠with teen safety as a key priority and argued that Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act shields online platforms from liability ​over user-generated content.Representatives for the Alabama attorney general’s office and TikTok, whose US operations were transferred this year to an entity led by US ​investors and 20% owned by ByteDance, did not respond to requests for comment about the trial.Alabama claims TikTok’s endless stream of videos makes it the most addictive social media platform and that its algorithm pushes young users toward increasingly intense content about violence and self-harm, contributing to a teen mental health crisis and causing the number of emergency room visits for self-harm in the state to “skyrocket.”The lawsuit accuses TikTok of falsely claiming it limits access to sexual and violent content for young users in order to have its app rated safe for teens in app stores run by Google, Apple and Microsoft and of misleading users about the Chinese government’s access to US users’ data.The state seeks penalties and other relief.TikTok’s decision to settle key cases and efforts to seal or heavily redact court records have kept much of the evi...