Utah officials are investigating whether TikTok’s business practices are in violation of the state’s consumer protection laws and claim the social media giant is in contempt of two subpoenas filed earlier this year.
On Tuesday, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, Attorney General Sean Reyes and Utah Department of Commerce Executive Director Margaret Busse announced a legal filing after they say the social media giant failed to comply with two previous subpoenas — one filed in February 2023 and the other in May.
Filed in 3rd District Court and signed Tuesday by Reyes, court documents spell out the Utah Division of Consumer Protection’s investigation into whether TikTok’s business practices “that are harming the State’s children have violated Utah’s consumer protection laws.”
“With hundreds of thousands of Utah users, TikTok is clearly a potential target for the Division to investigate to understand its business practices and whether its conduct may or may not be lawful in the State,” court documents state.
TikTok’s popularity among young users is “concerning,” the state alleges, citing a U.S. Surgeon General report “concerning the impact of social media companies like TikTok” have on teen mental health.
The state also takes issue with TikTok challenges that it says “encouraged children to assault others or destroy property” and led “students to sexually harass other students or to assault school employees.”
“In another incident, a Utah teenager was left with permanent eye damage after being targeted through a TikTok challenge encouraging teens to shoot each other with polymer beads,” court documents read.
The state’s investigation started with a subpoena sent on Feb. 6, according to the legal filing, “seeking the production of documents and written responses to several investigative specifications.”
In the subpoena, the state asks TikTok to clarify a number of business practices. Among the 80 specifications are:
- Explain how TikTok “prohibits nudity and sexual solicitation and removes accounts that redirect users to sexual content or services.”
- “Describe in detail what information TikTok collects from users when they create a TikTok account, including any methods of age verification.”
- “List all, if any, third-party fact checkers with whom TikTok contracts for fact-checking services on the TikTok platform.”
- “State whether any person in China may access any data that is generated by use of TikTok within the United States. If so, state what data is accessible within China.”
The subpoena makes 55 separate requests for documents related to things like age verification, data collection, the company’s algorithm and content curation, beauty filters, hashtags and challenges that deal with issues like suicide, eating disorders and criminal behavior, community guidelines and TikTok’s relationship with the Chinese government.
On May 30, the state issued another administrative subpoena “containing specifications and document requests informed by the Division’s investigation to date.”
But according to court filings, the two entities could not agree on a schedule to respond to the requests. On June 19, after a meeting with TikTok lawyers, the division said the company provided responses to only around 70% of the specifications.
“TikTok has simply failed to credibly explain why one of the world’s largest technology companies cannot respond to these requests within this time, instead offering a counter schedule offering ambiguous ‘initial’ responses almost four months from the subpoena’s issuance and further reserving the right to unilaterally kick out its proposed schedule even further. For good reasons, the Division has rejected that schedule, and asks this Court to force TikTok to justify it as part of a show cause hearing,” court documents read, claiming the company is in contempt of the state’s original subpoena.
In a news release issued Tuesday, Cox, Reyes and Busse all took aim at the social media giant.
“Utah will not stop insisting that social media companies be held accountable for the harm they are causing our youth. That TikTok won’t even appropriately respond to the investigative subpoenas speaks volumes about the lack of TikTok’s credibility and transparency,” said Cox, who has been outspoken on the link between teen mental health and social media, and signed some of the country’s first and most restrictive laws regarding the issue during the legislative session.
Reyes said the probe asks two questions — how is TikTok operating in Utah, and what is its impact on children?
“As Attorney General, I will never stop fighting for the safety of our children. That is why we have filed a Motion asking the Court to order TikTok to cooperate with our subpoenas. We will not accept further excuses or delays. No one is above the law,” he said.
And Busse described the state’s investigation as a “proactive approach” to push back on the impact social media has on youth mental health.
“The Utah Governor’s Office, Attorney General Reyes, and the Utah Department of Commerce are not willing to stand by while our young people are at risk. Utah residents deserve to have confidence in the companies they interact with, but TikTok’s evasive actions have eroded that trust,” she said.