Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller joins Tik Tok probe

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said Wednesday his office has joined a nationwide investigation into TikTok for providing and promoting its social media platform to children and young adults while use is associated with physical and mental health harms.

The attorneys general are looking into whether the social media company violated state consumer protection laws.

“TikTok is just the latest social media platform to draw in children, potentially creating a negative effect on their physical, emotional and mental well-being," Miller said in a news release.

"As with other social media platforms, like Instagram, we must learn more about how TikTok engages with children.”

Miller’s office said the investigation will look into the harms such use might cause young users and what TikTok knew about those harms.

The investigation focuses on techniques used by TikTok to boost young user engagement, including increasing the duration of time spent on the platform and frequency of engagement with the platform, among other items, the release said.

In May 2021, a 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 announced an investigation into Meta Platforms, then known as Facebook, for providing and promoting its social media platform Instagram to children.

Other states involved in the Tik Tok investigation are California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee and Vermont. They are joined by a broad group of attorneys general from across the country.