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Gov. Chris Sununu likes to tout his pro-business bona fides, but they aren’t stopping him from targeting the wildly popular social media platform TikTok with a lawsuit accusing the company of putting profits ahead of children.

“Our lawsuit alleges that TikTok has shamelessly exploited young users through deceptive design features that foster addiction and endanger mental health. We contend that TikTok knowingly deceived New Hampshire families with false assurances of safety while profiting from the vulnerabilities of its youngest users,” Sununu’s Attorney General John Formella said in a statement announcing the lawsuit, filed in Merrimack Superior Court.

The suit attacks TikTok for allegedly violating the state’s consumer protection statute and other laws.

According to the lawsuit, TikTok uses addictive features to exploit young users’ naivete and ongoing brain development and maximize the time they spend on the platform in the interest of profit. TikTok’s addictive design features make it hard for children to disengage from the platform and lead to a cycle of excessive use, the lawsuit states.

The complaint alleges the company knows excessive use results in profound harm to its young users, including depression, anxiety, and isolation from friends and family. As the company deployed those features, it also lied to parents about the platform’s safety, downplaying the risks posed while touting supposed safety measures that the company knows are ineffective. 

“New Hampshire puts our kids first,” Sununu said. “This lawsuit, combined with our earlier executive order investigating the harms of social media on New Hampshire’s youth is another wakeup call for parents on the dangers that social media presents to our kids.”

New Hampshire filed a similar lawsuit against Meta last year, the company behind Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. That lawsuit is currently pending.

“This action underscores our commitment to holding social media platforms accountable for their harmful actions to youth. We will vigorously pursue this case to ensure that TikTok is held responsible and that meaningful changes are made to protect our children’s well-being. This lawsuit is just the latest step in our ongoing efforts to ensure that platforms like TikTok operate responsibly and transparently in our state,” Formella said.

 The lawsuit contends TikTok knew it was deploying potentially harmful features on its platform, gathering data on children under 13, exploiting them for money, and even exposing them to online predators.

“New Hampshire’s children are spending increasingly alarming amounts of time on screens. In 2021, over 37 percent of New Hampshire high schoolers reported 5 hours or more of screen time on an average school day. The U.S. Surgeon General has warned that unchecked use of applications like TikTok has ‘a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents,’” the lawsuit states.

As more of their hours are taken by TikTok, New Hampshire children are being exposed to child sex abuse images and videos, content that promotes self harm, extreme violent content, and even online social interactions with pedophiles, according to the lawsuit. All this despite assurance the company is doing everything it can to keep kids safe.

“TikTok has long been a haven to incredibly disturbing, gruesome videos, including beheadings, mass shootings, and videos of both suicide and eating disorders. TikTok also knows sexual predators use the App to solicit nude photographs and other photographs from/of children,” the lawsuit states.

Formella wants the Court to enter an injunction requiring substantive changes in how the company operates. He’s also seeking penalties and other monetary relief to address the harms that these practices have caused. 

The attorney general’s investigation of other social media platforms for related practices continues.

TikTok, the controversial social media giant is making billions by trapping New Hampshire kids in a psychologically harmful and potentially dangerous web of endless scrolling, according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday by New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella.

Want to meet singles? Or maybe collect a debt? How about getting an AI Joe Biden to tell thousands of New Hampshire Democrats to skip voting?

They are the types of services allegedly provided by Texas entrepreneur Ray Monk’s automated phone system company, Life Corporation. On Tuesday, New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella named Monk as the man behind the tech that brought the Robo-Biden calls to the Granite State 24 hours ahead of the First in the Nation presidential primary.

Neither Monk nor Life Corporation responded to a request for comment.

Formella sent a cease and desist letter to Monk and Life Corporation, as well as to Texas phone service provider Lingo Telecom, as his office gathers evidence for a possible criminal case.

“We will not tolerate any action that seeks to undermine the integrity of our elections and our democratic process. The message to any person or company who would attempt to engage in these activities is clear, and it’s simple: Don’t try,” Formella said.

The fake Biden calls featured the AI-generated voice of the president telling Democratic voters to skip voting on primary day and instead vote in the November general election.

“Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again,” the Robo-Biden voice said. “Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday.”

Biden, who was not on the primary ballot, won an overwhelming victory with a write-in campaign. The head of the Democrats’ write-in campaign, former state party chair Kathy Sullivan, says she suspects the calls were an effort to keep self-identified Democrats from voting for Nikki Haley in the GOP primary.

Monk’s company specializes in creating automated calling systems and interactive virtual recordings for call centers. His business is also no stranger to allegedly skirting the law.

Monk’s Singles Telephone company, based in Texas, got in trouble back in 1990 for automated calls to Tennessee residents advertising a dating service, according to Talking Points Memo.

In 2003, the FCC issued a citation against Life Corporation and a host of AKA business entities for unsolicited robocalls. The AKA businesses had names like Confere Dating Game, Psychic Inroads, and Singles Telephone Company.

In the mid-2000s, then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (now Texas governor) sued Monk and dozens of automated phone system companies for allegedly ignoring that state’s do-not-call registry.

Monk, 70, won the Fort Worth Inc. Entrepreneurs in Excellence Award in 2021 for the success of his polling business, Pollmakers. The company allows customers to create their own polls, and Pollmakers’ automated phone system then calls up to three thousand people per minute with the questions.

Lingo is the phone service Life Corporation used to get the calls out. Lingo representatives stopped the calls once they were contacted by authorities, though.

Formella said other entities were involved in the RoboBiden calls, but he is not naming them at this time. Those involved in making the calls could face state and federal criminal charges, though Formella conceded such investigations are time-consuming.

Formella’s claim he’s “sending a message of deterrence” to actors who might engage in illegal campaign activity is undermined by his office’s lack of action in another recent case. During the 2020 GOP primary in the Second Congressional District, a Massachusetts-based Democratic marketing firm sent illegal mailings to Republican primary voters. The mail shop doesn’t deny sending the mailers, and its activities were reported to both Formella and the Federal Election Commission. More than a year later, no action has been taken.

Asked about the mail shop case, Formella told NHJournal his office “is taking it seriously, we’re investigating thoroughly, and we’re going to take whatever action we can.”

“It often takes a long time to build a criminal case to get to the point where you can bring criminal charges,” Formella added. “We have a lot of work to do.”