“Arms race for attention:” TikTok’s failed redaction
Photo via: Solen Feyissa, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
In an “arms race for attention” is how TikTok described itself in an internal presentation from 2021, a presentation not expected to be seen by the public.
This internal presentation, meant to be kept hidden, is a part of over 30 pages of incorrectly redacted documents from a lawsuit filed against TikTok by the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office.
The lawsuit is only one of 14 coming against TikTok. Thirteen states, along with the District of Columbia, are collectively suing the company for its alleged purposefully addictive design, claiming it to be in violation of consumer protection laws.
Filed on Oct. 8, the lawsuits were the result of a two-year-long internal investigation into TikTok over online child safety concerns. Each state attorney general case included TikTok-subpoenaed internal communications, documents and research. At the company’s request, certain parts of the documents were redacted due to their privileged and confidential nature and were not available to the public.
However, in the Kentucky Attorney General’s suit, the redactions were done incorrectly.
Kentucky Public Radio revealed this flaw when they copied and pasted redacted parts of the Kentucky filing into a separate document, which usually does not work. Except in this case, it did, and about 30 pages of redacted information was made public.
After the KPR released some of the previously confidential information, the entire filing was removed from public access by a state judge at the request of the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office’s emergency notion to conceal it.
Before this notion was requested, a NPR report was published, detailing all the major findings from the previously-redacted information. The report offered a sombering glimpse into the actions, and motives, of top TikTok executives.
Major findings as detailed by NPR
A primary concern of the lawsuits surrounds the negative effects utilizing TikTok can cause users, especially young people.
Through TikTok’s research, the company found and acknowledged that “compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy and increased anxiety.”
TikTok additionally, through an internal estimate, approximated that 95% of smartphone users under the age of 17 use TikTok. Further research done by the company determined younger users were the most susceptible to becoming addicted.
“As expected, across most engagement metrics, the younger the user, the better the performance,” a 2019 TikTok document stated.
Furthermore, the company concluded it takes scrolling through about 260 videos for users to form a habit. Though 260 videos may seem like a substantial number, as videos on TikTok can be as short as 3 seconds, this number translates to only about 35 minutes on the app.
TikTok is intentional in this addictive design. An unnamed executive acknowledged the app’s powerful algorithm is why users get hooked so quickly and that it was made with the intention of depriving users of other opportunities.
“And when I say other opportunities, I literally mean sleep, and eating, and moving around the room, and looking at someone in the eyes,” the executive said.
Outwardly, TikTok states that one of its “most important commitments is supporting the safety and well-being of teens” and they attempt to follow through with this commitment through in-app tools such as set limits on usage and its “break” videos that prompt users to stop scrolling and take a break.
However, as a project manager for the app said, “Our goal is not to reduce the time spent.” With an internal document stating the success of these tools were measured by how it was “improving public trust in the TikTok platform via media coverage,” and not how it reduced how long users scrolled for.
Research done on the impact of these features found they only reduced user total screen time from about 108.5 to 107 minutes per day–only by one minute. Additionally, these tools were even more ineffective for younger users, as an internal TikTok document stated, “Minors do not have executive function to control their screen time, while young adults do.”
Throughout the 30-pages of documents, the company admits they know and understand the harm their app poses to young people and despite their under-13 age restrictions, when a child under the age of 13 is flagged for posting on the app, TikTok instructs its moderators to not remove them unless they have explicitly said they are under 13. Even when they explicitly say, TikTok reportedly takes little action to remove them.
Moreover, TikTok has even fewer safety measures for users that are above the age of 13 but still minors. As a 2022 Forbes report found, there are a high number of underage users on the app’s live feature receiving digital currency (“gifts” or “coins”) in exchange for stripping.
The company launched its own investigation and found “a significant” amount of adults messaging underage users about stripping on live, with 1 million “gifts” being sent to children engaged in that behavior.
From this investigation a TikTok official determined, “[O]ne of our key discoveries during this project that has turned into a major challenge with Live business is that the content that gets the highest engagement may not be the content we want on our platform.”
Reaction to the NPR report
The article reached the attention of U.S. lawmakers, with Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn –- the co-sponsors of the Kids Online Safety Act — writing to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and requesting that all redacted information in the suits be sent to congress by Oct. 25.
Additionally, earlier this year, President Biden signed a law that would effectively ban TikTok in the U.S. if they did not sell to another buyer within a year. The Biden administration, along with U.S. lawmakers, argued that as TikTok is owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, it is at the will and control of China’s authoritarian regime. This law has been challenged by TikTok, though, and the lawsuit is currently still ongoing.
In response to NPR’s report, TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek said in a statement, “It is highly irresponsible of NPR to publish information that is under a court seal. Unfortunately, this complaint cherry-picks misleading quotes and takes outdated documents out of context to misrepresent our commitment to community safety.”