Attorney General Phil Weiser joins nationwide investigation into TikTok

March 2, 2022 (DENVER) – Today, Attorney General Phil Weiser joined a nationwide investigation into TikTok for providing and promoting its social media platform to children and young adults while use is associated with physical and mental health harms. Attorneys General nationwide are examining whether the company violated state consumer protection laws that put the public at risk.

Weiser has long expressed concern about the negative impacts of social media platforms on Colorado’s youngest residents.

“I am committed to protecting our kids from harms related to social media. TikTok has an obligation to manage its platform fairly and responsibly, and this investigation is designed to do just that,” Attorney General Weiser said.

The investigation will look into the harms such usage causes to young users and what TikTok knew about those harms. The investigation focuses, among other things, on the techniques utilized by TikTok to boost young user engagement, including increasing the duration of time spent on the platform and frequency of engagement with the platform.

In May 2021, a bipartisan coalition of 44 attorneys general urged Facebook to abandon its plans to launch a version of Instagram for children under 13. In November 2021, attorneys general from across the country announced their investigation into Meta Platforms, Inc., formerly known as Facebook, for providing and promoting its social media platform Instagram to kids.

Leading the investigation is a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Vermont. They are joined by a broad group of attorneys general from across the country.

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