New lawsuits against TikTok mirror those against Big Tobacco and Purdue Pharma

• Attorneys general in 14 different states filed lawsuits against TikTok last week.
• They say TikTok's algorithm is addictive and harmful to children's mental health.
• The suits mirror earlier ones against Big Tobacco and Purdue Pharma, legal experts told BI.

TikTok is facing lawsuits from 14 state attorneys general who say the company's algorithm harms children. Legal experts say the coordinated challenge is designed to take down big companies.

Adam Wandt, an attorney and deputy chair for technology at the John Jay School of Criminal Justice, said the barrage of state lawsuits mirrors challenges against Big Tobacco in the 1990s and Purdue Pharma, the maker of Oxycontin, in the 2000s. In both cases, the lawsuits were used to "overwhelm those industries," he said.

"The other advantage it gives is, if there are defects in one of the suits, the other suits still survive," Wandt said. "It's actually a pretty good strategy."

Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and trial lawyer in California, said that attorneys commonly file multiple lawsuits across several states when they go after "multibillion-dollar" companies because they are more expensive for the companies to defend.

"Opioid companies, for instance, wouldn't have entered into the settlements that they did had they only dealt with one attorney general or a lawsuit in one state, but when they're looking at multiple lawsuits across the country, and really the continued viability of their company, it's more likely that they'll enter into some settlement," Rahmani said.

"You might win one or two lawsuits. How are you going to win a dozen?" he added.

The Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma, ultimately paid over $3 billion in settlements for misleading advertising related to their products. Purdue Pharma later filed for bankruptcy, but the Supreme Court struck down a $7 billion bankruptcy plan in June that would have given the Sackler's immunity from future civil suits.

Big Tech companies like Meta, Google, and TikTok are usually shielded from liability related to the content users post to their sites by Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. No matter how harmful the content, tech companies are considered by law the uninvolved host or "intermediary" for the content.

Rahmani said that courts examining the 14 new lawsuits against TikTok will focus on whether the company's algorithm is causing harm, not whether it is hosting harmful content.

"There's a difference between passively allowing people to post, but really what we're talking about is TikTok's algorithm," Rahmani said.

On Thursday, NPR reported that over 30 pages of accidentally unredacted court documents detailed some of the findings of the joint investigation into TikTok. Wandt said those documents showed that TikTok "has very intentionally ignored" federal regulations.

"I think that the types of legal protections we give to social media companies might not protect them if they are found to be lax with some of the federal laws," Wandt said.

Still, the biggest loss for TikTok may come in the court of public opinion, Rahmani said.

Congress passed a bill in April that requires TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to find a new owner for the app or face a potential ban in the United States. With the prospect of that federal ban looming next year, a slew of federal lawsuits helps shape public opinion and "pressure lawmakers to act," Rahmani said.

"There's now this narrative: Tiktok isn't about fun, silly dancing. It's dangerously pushing out harmful material for our children," he said. "So that's very different."

In a statement to BI, a spokesperson for TikTok said the company "strongly disagrees with these claims, many of which we believe to be inaccurate and misleading." The spokesperson said the company cooperated with the investigation for two years and that " it is incredibly disappointing they have taken this step rather than work with us on constructive solutions to industry-wide challenges."

"We're proud of and remain deeply committed to the work we've done to protect teens and we will continue to update and improve our product," the spokesperson said.