Per the press release Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has filed suit against the social media giant TikTok and its parent company ByteDance Inc. Marshall alleged in the complaint  that the social media company has been exploiting children, addicting them to harmful content, and lying about the safety of its platform. The lawsuit, filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court, seeks to hold TikTok accountable for fueling a mental health crisis among Alabama’s youth.

Marshall released the following comments “Today we join concerned parents across our state to stand up for Alabama’s children. TikTok preys on young people, feeding them dangerous and damaging content while lying to parents about how safe the app really is. This platform was designed to addict kids and put profits ahead of the mental health of an entire generation,”

Attorney General Marshall also said. “TikTok’s so-called ‘safety features’ are a joke. They are nothing more than a marketing ploy to trick parents into trusting a product that TikTok knows full well is dangerous. Alabama families deserve the truth, and we will make sure they get it.

The Attorney General alleges in his filed complaint that TikTok’s algorithm is engineered to keep minors endlessly scrolling and exposing them to content that promotes depression, eating disorders, self-harm, and drug use, as well as dangerous viral “challenges.”

Attorney General Marshall went on to say “We cannot ignore the giant problem with this platform: TikTok is owned by Chinese corporation ByteDance, which mines sensitive American data from the People’s Republic of China, where corporations have a legal obligation to share that data collected with the Chinese national intelligence services. TikTok and ByteDance are knowingly committing espionage against Americans’ personal information, and they are exploiting our children specifically.”