DENVER – Attorney General Phil Weiser was among a group of attorneys general joining a nationwide investigation into TikTok Wednesday, to probe the potential negative impacts the platform is having on Colorado’s children.
In a news release Wednesday, Weiser’s office said attorneys general across the country are examining whether the company “violated state consumer protection laws that put the public at risk.”
His office said Wednesday the attorney general has long expressed concerned about the negative impacts of social media platforms on the state’s youngest residents.
“I am committed to protecting our kids from harms related to social media. TikTok has an obligation to manage its platform fairly and responsibly, and this investigation is designed to do just that,” Weiser said in a prepared statement.
His office said the investigation will look into the harms social media platforms like TikTok cause to young people and what TikTok knew about those harms.
It’ll focus, among other things, “on the techniques utilized by TikTok to boost young user engagement, including increasing the duration of time spent on the platform and frequency of engagement with the platform.”
In May 2021, a bipartisan coalition of 44 attorneys general urged Facebook to abandon its plans to launch a version of Instagram for children under 13. In November 2021, attorneys general from across the country announced their investigation into Meta Platforms, Inc., formerly known as Facebook, for providing and promoting its social media platform Instagram to kids.
Leading the investigation is a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Vermont. They are joined by a broad group of attorneys general from across the country.