Social media platfrom TikTok continues to be a cultural and legal lightning rod. In April of this year, President Biden signed a bill that will ban the app unless TikTok owner ByteDance divests the company. TikTok sued the federal government to block enforcement of that bill, but the clock could be ticking for the short-video platform.
Criticisms of TikTok from the government take two different forms. Many are concerned by the app’s ownership by ByteDance, a Chinese company. Second, government officials often raise public safety concerns over the app’s child safety features, privacy issues, and addictiveness. Earlier this week, over a dozen state attorneys general filed suit against the company, citing these safety concerns.
Litigation in state and federal courts against TikTok has exploded in 2022 and 2023, according to Docket Alarm analytics (Only state courts covered by Docket Alarm are included in this analysis). These lawsuits come years after TikTok’s US launch in 2018, and its explosion of popularity in 2020, driven by the the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among the federal cases, the top case type is product liability. Another common federal case type is 470, cases brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Many of these cases are also brought against other social medial giants, too.
In terms of representation, TikTok’s primary law firms have been King & Spalding, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich Rosati, and Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath.
TikTok remains a wildly popular app, despite the impending ban and these concerns. It is impossible to say whether the ban will go through, and how U.S. consumers will react.
