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Formella Joins Lawsuit Targeting TikTok, Says Children’s Health at Risk

New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella says he believes the TikTok app is hurting children and teens and adding fuel to the nation’s youth mental health crisis. Now he has joined a national effort by his fellow attorneys general demanding more transparency from a company known for its ties to China’s communist regime.

Last December, Gov. Chris Sununu signed an executive order banning TikTok from state-issued smartphones.

On Monday, Formella joined 46 other state attorneys general in asking a Tennessee judge to order the company to open up its internal communications for review. 

Our youth spend hours on social media platforms each day. We already know that on TikTok they are being exposed to harmful content including, but certainly not limited to, potentially deadly viral challenges, bullying, and graphic content showcasing sexual images and drug use,” Formella said. 

The Tennessee lawsuit has become a national fight as evidence mounts that too many children and teens are ending up with mental health disorders because of social media addictions enabled by the tech giants. Parents and communities need to act to protect children, and states need to get involved, too, according to Formella.

Attorney General John Formella

“As we work to help parents better protect their children online, we must be able to thoroughly investigate and understand the methods and techniques utilized by TikTok to boost young user engagement, including how the company specifically works to increase the duration of time spent on the platform as well as the frequency of engagement with the platform,” he said.

The attorneys general want to review internal TikTok communications to see if the company engaged in deceptive, unfair, and unconscionable conduct that harmed the mental health of TikTok users, particularly children and teens. The company has been stalling, handing over useless data and even deleting records, according to claims made in court documents.

The amicus brief signed by Formella and his counterparts claims TikTok employees use a messaging system called Lark for internal communications, and that the employees have the app set to erase the content.

“TikTok has flouted its duty to preserve communications and provide them in an unusable format. They have instead continued to allow employees to send auto-deleting messages over the Lark platform after the start of the investigation and have provided messages to the states in a format that is difficult to use and navigate,” according to Formella’s statement.

 Congress could move this week to give President Joe Biden the authority to institute a national ban on the app, which is considered a national security threat.

“TikTok is the Chinese Communist Party’s backdoor into American phones,” Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, the House Foreign Affairs Committee chair who is behind the law authorizing Biden to ban apps and software nationally.

TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, which has ties to China’s Communist government. There are concerns about TikTok gathering intelligence data on Americans, as well as the app giving an authoritarian and hostile China the ability to easily disseminate misinformation.

FBI Director Christopher Wray considers the app a potential threat.

“All of these things are in the hands of a government that doesn’t share our values, and that has a mission that’s very much at odds with what’s in the best interests of the United States. That should concern us,” Wray said.

Formella is focusing on the impact TikTok is having on teens and preteens, especially girls. 

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released findings demonstrating a startling increase in challenges to youth mental health, youth experiences of violence, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors among teenagers, especially teenage girls. This includes a finding that nearly one-third of teen girls seriously considered suicide in 2021, a nearly 60 percent increase from a decade prior,” Formella said in the statement.

A TikTok spokeswoman noted Congress passed a ban on the app from federal devices in December, dismissing it as “little more than political theater.”

“The swiftest and most thorough way to address any national security concerns about TikTok is for CFIUS to adopt the proposed agreement that we worked with them on for nearly two years. These plans have been developed under the oversight of our country’s top national security agencies, and we are well underway in implementing them to further secure our platform in the United States,” she said.

Some analysis finds TikTok is replacing Google as a top source for information, including news, among Gen Z consumers.

Sununu Bans TikTok on State Phones As National Furor Grows

State employees won’t be able to use the video-sharing social media app TikTok now that Gov. Chris Sununu has signed an executive order outlawing the service from state-issued smartphones. 

“New Hampshire is joining the growing list of states that have banned TikTok and other Chinese companies from state government devices and networks. This move will help preserve the safety, security, and privacy of the citizens of New Hampshire,” Sununu said.

The order banning the tech, linked to the Chinese Communist Party, was signed on Wednesday.

Sununu’s decision is supported by House Speaker Sherm Packard (R-Londonderry) who told NHJournal, “There’s no way in hell TikTok should be on any state-owned device.”

Several states with Republican governors have banned the software from government-issued phones, including Maryland, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah. And Indiana is suing TikTok, claiming the app exposes children to harmful content.

TikTok is popular with teens and Gen Z, but it carries a known security risk. TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, is required by Chinese law to make the app’s data available to the Chinese Communist Party.

This week Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) was successful in getting the Senate to pass a measure banning the app from federal government-issued phones and devices. 

Rubio says his Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act (ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act) would protect Americans by blocking and prohibiting all transactions from any social media company in, or under the influence of, China, Russia, and several other foreign countries of concern.

“This isn’t about creative videos — this is about an app that is collecting data on tens of millions of American children and adults every day,” Rubio said in a statement. “We know it’s used to manipulate feeds and influence elections. We know it answers to the People’s Republic of China. There is no more time to waste on meaningless negotiations with a CCP-puppet company. It is time to ban Beijing-controlled TikTok for good.” 

Rubio’s bill now goes to the House of Representatives.

New Hampshire cannot ban the app from private users, but it can control what goes on to the phones it hands out to state employees. Individual New Hampshire state agencies are responsible for issuing iPhones to employees to use for state business purposes, but all the phones are controlled through the DoIT.

Denis Goulet, commissioner for the Department of Information Technology, said Thursday the state already prohibits the use of the app on the state-issued iPhones.

“We hadn’t been allowing TikTok on our state devices anyway,” Goulet said.

Goulet said employees already agree not to use TikTok as part of the agreement when they are issued their phones. All non-state business is already banned. “Stuff that is clearly non-business, or things that are inappropriate, or things that are a risk are proscribed,” Goulet noted.

Asked about Sununu’s move, House Majority Leader Jason Osborne simply replied, “I am going to miss the daily dance videos from the Insurance Department.”