Reviewed by Michael P. Maddux, Esq. | Board Certified Criminal Trial Lawyer | Florida Super Lawyer for 16 Consecutive Years

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed suit against TikTok and its parent company ByteDance, alleging the platform is knowingly violating Florida’s Online Protections for Minors Act (§ 501.1736) by allowing children under 14 to create accounts without restriction and failing to obtain parental consent before contracting with 14- and 15-year-old users. The complaint also accuses TikTok of deceiving Florida parents by misrepresenting its app store age ratings, falsely claiming that sexual content, profanity, and drug-related material appear only “infrequently” on its platform, and touting parental control features it knows to be ineffective.

Beyond the age-verification violations, the Attorney General alleges TikTok intentionally designed its platform to be addictive, deploying features like infinite scroll, push notifications, autoplay, and algorithmic personalization to exploit the psychological vulnerabilities of young users, despite internal documentation confirming executives understood the platform’s harmful effects.