TikTok is quietly changing its terms of use amid increasing legal scrutiny

Parents, schools and even attorneys general have raised growing concerns about how TikTok can lock children into the app and serve them inappropriate content. But some attorneys say it could be trickier to take legal action against the company after TikTok quietly changed its terms of service this summer.

In July, TikTok scrapped rules requiring user disputes to be resolved through private arbitration and instead said complaints must be filed in one of two California courts. Although arbitration has long been considered beneficial to businesses, some attorneys have recently discovered how to make it expensive for businesses by filing consumer arbitration claims en masse.

The terms have also been changed to suggest that legal action must be taken within one year of any alleged harm resulting from use of the app. Previously, there was no specific timeline.

The shifts come as the possibility of people taking legal action against TikTok increases.

A coalition of more than forty attorneys general is investigating the social media giant’s treatment of young users. The two-part investigation, announced last year and led by Tennessee and Colorado, seeks to determine whether the company engaged in dishonest and deceptive conduct that harmed the mental health of children and teens.

If these types of investigations reveal possible misconduct, it could lead to lawsuits against the government and consumers.

In addition, a federal judge in California ruled last month that a case involving hundreds of lawsuits on behalf of young people against the owners of Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat could move forward. She said the company faces certain product liability claims related to the apps’ features.

The judge’s decision was significant because tech giants have often shielded themselves from legal claims by pointing to the First Amendment and laws that shield platforms from liability for user content.

TikTok did not return requests for comment. It has previously said it has “industry-leading safeguards for young people”, including some parental controls and proposed screen time limits.

Kyle Roche, an attorney who, along with another attorney, represents more than a thousand guardians and minors claiming a range of damages resulting from TikTok use, sent a letter to the company on Tuesday disputing the updated terms. He said his clients were minors and could not agree to the changes and that he planned to handle the disputes through arbitration unless they could resolve their claims amicably.

Mr. Roche said he believed TikTok had changed the term in anticipation of a wave of lawsuits based on the attorney general’s investigation and the California lawsuit.

Mr. Roche has found parents of young TikTok users largely through Facebook ads asking people to share their claims on a website. (Former crypto lawyer Mr. Roche resigned last year from a law firm he founded after videos appeared online that made him look corrupt; he has said he was tricked by an adversary and that his statements in the videos have been spliced ​​and taken out of context.)

Leigh Cardinal, a 49-year-old mother from Chico, California, is one of Mr. Roche’s clients. She said her now 15-year-old daughter “went into a dark space” with anxiety and depression for years, which coincided with spending hours scrolling TikTok.

When she heard an ad asking if her family had been harmed by using TikTok and saying she might be eligible for up to $10,000, she clicked.

Over the past two years, many of the same states that investigated TikTok have also investigated Meta’s treatment of young users on its Instagram and Facebook platforms. That case has already moved on. In October, a coalition of 33 attorneys general jointly sued Meta in federal court, alleging the social media giant unfairly entrapped children and teens and misled users about the security of its platform.

Meta has said it has worked for years to make online experiences safe and age-appropriate for teens and that the state’s complaint “mischaracterizes our work using selective quotes and cherry-picked documents.”

Companies have long referred disputes to arbitration to avoid liability through class action lawsuits and reach a resolution behind closed doors. But they dropped such demands after lawyers figured out how to file arbitration claims en masse, which can cost companies millions of dollars in fees for private arbitrators to hear cases and even more in settlements, says Robert Freund, an advertising and e-mail attorney. commerce advisor. lawyer.

“When these big companies are tested in accepting the deal they forced on consumers, they suddenly don’t like it if it means they might have to pay more than they thought,” Mr. Freund said.

Omri Ben-Shahar, a law professor at the University of Chicago, said he expected TikTok would have a difficult time defending the changes to its terms of service in court. “If companies post new terms or just send people an email saying, ‘Hey, by the way, there are new terms,’ that doesn’t work,” he said.

Natasha Singer reporting contributed.