For Immediate Release:
Friday, December 15, 2023
Contact: Nazneen Ahmed
919-716-0060
(RALEIGH) Attorney General Josh Stein today won a court order requiring TikTok to comply with his investigative demand as part of his ongoing investigation.
“Keeping North Carolina children safe is job one – wherever they are, including online,” said Attorney General Josh Stein. “TikTok does not get to choose which parts of the law it complies with, and I’m pleased that the judge is requiring them to comply with my investigative demand. We’re going full steam ahead in our investigation to protect our kids.”
Attorney General Stein announced in 2022 that he was investigating TikTok along with a large bipartisan group of state attorneys general over concerns the company has violated consumer protection laws and promoted its platform to children.
During their investigation, the attorneys general discovered that TikTok had a secret archive of tens of thousands of recorded internal Zoom meetings that it initially failed to disclose for nearly a year and a half. The videos, some of which lawyers from attorneys general offices reviewed, showed that TikTok executives and employees knew and discussed how their platform addicts and harms children, that the safety features TikTok promotes to parents are ineffective, and that TikTok’s business goals are more important to the company than concerns about children’s safety.
The attorneys general asked TikTok to produce other videos that were relevant to the states’ investigation, but TikTok has refused to conduct a meaningful search of its records or even produce a list of videos. It told the attorneys general that it would not comply with other investigative requests.
Today’s court order requires TikTok to comply with the state’s’ investigative demand and turn over lists of all Zoom recordings that may help the attorneys general in their investigation.
A copy of the order is available here, and a copy of the original complaint is available here.
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