TikTok allegedly gave teenagers and children access to a non-functioning safety feature that failed to reset their content recommendations, according to allegations in a lawsuit filed by New York against the social media platform.
The experiment involved thousands of users who had opted to use safety features, including “Algo Refresh”, a tool designed to reset recommendations and prevent users from seeing unwanted or potentially harmful content, Reuters reported.
Although the users believed they had activated the feature, their feeds remained unchanged. Users who were not part of the experiment, however, had access to a fully functioning version of the tool.
The allegations form part of New York’s lawsuit against TikTok, one of more than two dozen cases brought by US states accusing the company of designing its platform to encourage addictive use among children and misleading users about its safety measures.
In response to the allegations, TikTok told Reuters that it regularly tests new products and features to assess user experiences and understand how they perform in real-world conditions.
“We continuously make improvements to our platform which means that, like most companies, we regularly test new products and features to validate the experience and understand how they work in the real world,” the company said.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a separate request for comment.
The lawsuit also alleges that TikTok conducted other experiments involving safety features. Bloomberg reported in June that one such experiment withheld a safety feature from 15 million users in the United States, including a teenager who later died by suicide.
