Attorneys general in 14 states and Washington, D.C., accuse TikTok of designing its app to keep users hooked. Court-released edited video shows some company staff discussing the toll it can take on children and teens.
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Newly unsealed and edited video shows TikTok employees and consultants expressing concern that potentially addictive features of the app could harm users’ mental health.
The video compilation, which was shared with CBS News by the North Carolina Department of Justice, is part of the evidence in a 2024 lawsuit the state’s former attorney general filed against TikTok alleging the company misled the public about the safety of the social media platform.
North Carolina Special Superior Court Judge Adam Conrad on Tuesday ordered that the video and complaint be unsealed. In a separate ruling, he also denied a motion by TikTok’s parent company, China-based ByteDance, to dismiss the North Carolina lawsuit.
“These clips clearly show that social media companies know they’re designing their apps to hook our children even at the expense of their health,” said North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson in a statement to CBS News. “That’s why the company fought so hard to keep the video out of the public eye.”
In a statement to CBS MoneyWatch, a TikTok spokesperson called the video a “shameful attempt to distort an open internal conversation about making the platform safer when TikTok was just beginning five years ago.”
“This manipulation relies on conversations taken out of context with the sole purpose of misleading the public and grandstanding,” he added.
The spokesperson also said TikTok has over 70 features and settings designed to support the safety and well-being of teens and other app users. Those features include a 60-minute daily screen time limit and another that automatically triggers a guided meditation exercise after 10 p.m. for teen users scrolling on TikTok.
In a complaint issued in October 2024, former North Carolina Attorney General Joshua Stein alleged TikTok’s design fosters “excessive, compulsive and addictive use” and that the company knew about the harm it was causing. Stein also claimed TikTok ignored the addictive nature of the app “because their business model and desire for advertising revenue require keeping consumers on the app as much as possible.”
The lawsuit is part of broader litigation brought by 14 state attorneys general last year over allegations that TikTok harms children’s mental health. Minnesota’s attorney general joined the fight this week with a separate lawsuit.
TikTok has denied the claims.
“We strongly disagree with these claims, many of which we believe to be inaccurate and misleading,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch at the time. “We’re proud of and remain deeply committed to the work we’ve done to protect teens and we will continue to update and improve our product.”
The 3 1/2-minute video released this week features a series of clips of internal company meetings, with speakers describing what they viewed as harmful features of the TikTok app, including some that promote “compulsive use.”
The meetings featured in the video took place a few years ago, according to a spokesperson for the North Carolina Department of Justice, who said they were unable to disclose the exact dates.
“We obviously wanted people to spend as much time as possible on TikTok, which can be in contrast to what is best for your mental health,” said Ally Mann, whose LinkedIn profile lists her as a creator marketing and events lead at TikTok.
In a separate clip, Ashlen Sepulveda, who is labeled in the video as working on trust and safety at the company, explains potential pitfalls of the TikTok algorithm that she said selects content based on users’ searches.
“Let’s say for eating disorders, for example,” Sepulveda said in the video. “The more the user looks up things about fitness or diet, it turns into losing weight and then soon enough the entire ‘for you’ feed for this user is really soft disordered eating behavior that is being discussed by their peers with no opportunity to remove themselves from that bubble.”
In another clip, Brett Peters, who according to his LinkedIn profile is global head of creator advocacy and reputation at TikTok, said TikTok’s goal is to produce such a diversity of content that “you never want to leave” the app.
Sixty-three percent of teens said they used TikTok in 2023, according to a Pew Research Center poll.
Meanwhile, TikTok continues to face an uncertain future as it stares down an approaching deadline, recently extended to Sept. 17 by President Trump, requiring the app to separate from its China-based parent company or be banned in the U.S.
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U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy is calling for stronger guidelines for social media use among children and teens, pointing to a growing body of research that the platforms may pose what he described as a “profound risk” to young people’s mental health.
In a report issued on Tuesday, Murthy urged technology companies and lawmakers to take “immediate action” by formulating policies to protect young people from “addictive apps and extreme and inappropriate content” on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. Current guidelines on social media use have been shaped by media platforms and are inadequate, he added.
“Our children and adolescents don’t have the luxury of waiting years until we know the full extent of social media’s impact,” Murthy said in the 25-page advisory. “Their childhoods and development are happening now.”
The surgeon general advised parents to create “tech-free zones” for their children and to model healthy relationships with their devices as more definitive research about social media usage comes out. His report also urged young people to refrain from sharing deeply personal information online and to reach out for help from trusted adults if they are harassed or bullied.
Social media also can have a positive impact, such as helping teens “develop social connections” and creating “spaces for self-expression,” he noted.
While the research on the mental health impacts of social media usage isn’t conclusive, many parents have expressed concern about the impact of tech on teens. For example, nearly three-quarters of U.S. parents of children under age 18 think social media imaging tools and filters are detrimental to young peoples’ body image, according to a national survey conducted by the The Harris Poll.
Their intuition may not be wrong. In one study, teens and young adults who halved their social media consumption reported improvements in how they felt about their weight and general appearances, research published by the American Psychological Association found.
Murthy offered other recommendations for what parents and caregivers can do to help protect young people.
Concerns about young people’s use of social media and their overall wellness come at a time when mental health issues are on the rise in young women. More than half of teen girls — an all-time high — reported feeling “persistently sad or hopeless,” a 2021 survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Hundreds of extreme weight loss and cosmetic surgery videos were easily found with a simple search on TikTok and available to a user under the age of 18, in violation of the platform’s own policies, CBS News has found.
CBS News created a TikTok account for a hypothetical 15-year-old female user in the United States and found that, at the very least, hundreds of extreme weight loss and cosmetic surgery videos were searchable and watchable on the platform using the account.
Once the CBS News account interacted with a handful of these videos, similar content was then recommended to the account on TikTok’s “For You” feed.
Searchable videos ranged from content with captions such as, “nothing feels better than an empty stomach,” to “what I eat in a day” videos promoting restrictive, 500-calorie-per-day diets. Guidelines published by the U.S. National Institutes of Health suggest that girls between the ages of 14 and 18 ingest between 1,800 and 2,400 calories per day.
Many of the videos promoted thin body types as aspirational targets and included the hashtag “harsh motivation” to push extreme weight loss advice.
Some of those videos included messages or slogans such as “skinny is a status symbol” and “every time you say no to food, you say yes to skinny.”
TikTok’s community guidelines say the platform only allows users over the age of 18 to see content promoting restrictive, low-calorie diets, including videos promoting medications for weight loss or idealizing certain body types. The Chinese-owned platform also says it bans users under the age of 18 from viewing videos that promote cosmetic surgery without warning of the risks, such as before-and-after images, videos of surgical procedures, and messages discussing elective cosmetic surgery.
But CBS News found a range of videos by entering basic search terms on the platform, such as “skinny,” “thin,” and “low cal,” that promoted thin bodies as ideal, while also pushing harmful weight management behaviors. One such video showed an image of a scale with a weight of 39.9 kg (88 pounds) alongside a caption saying “weight loss” and the hashtag “ed,” which is a common abbreviation for “eating disorder.”
Another graphic video with the caption “ana gives you wings” showed a series of models with protruding collar bones and spines. The term “ana” is an abbreviation for the eating disorder anorexia.
Responding to CBS News’ research, a TikTok spokesperson said Thursday that it was “based on a very limited sample size and does not reflect the experience of the vast majority of our community.”
“TikTok does not allow content that promotes disordered eating or extreme weight loss behaviours, and we work with health experts to provide in-app support resources where needed,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson pointed to a study published in May by the University of Southern California, which found that a majority of the eating disorder content on TikTok is discussion among users about recovery from such conditions.
The same study noted, however, the platform’s “dual role in both challenging harmful cultural norms and potentially perpetuating them,” regarding body image perceptions and eating disorders.
“We know that this isn’t a one-off error on TikTok’s part and that children are coming across this content on a scale,” said Gareth Hill, a spokesperson for the Molly Russell foundation, a charity in the United Kingdom that works to prevent young people from committing self-harm.
“The question for TikTok is, if this is not representative, then why has this account [created by CBS News], which is a child’s account, been shown this content in the first place, and then why is it continuing to get recommended to it?”
CBS News also found a wide variety of videos available to the under-18 user promoting the weight loss drug Ozempic and various forms of cosmetic surgery. That included videos that showed up on the recommended “For You” feed, which promotes cosmetic surgeries such as rhinoplasty, breast augmentation, and liposuction.
In one case, a user talking about their waist reduction surgery included a voiceover saying: “I would rather die hot than live ugly.”
A TikTok spokesperson declined to comment specifically on CBS News’ findings regarding cosmetic surgeries being promoted to underage users.
TikTok says it has taken a range of measures over the past several months to address criticism regarding the availability of extreme weight loss content on the platform. In early June, the platform suspended search results for the viral hashtag #SkinnyTok, after drawing criticism from health experts and European regulators. The hashtag had been associated primarily with videos promoting extreme weight loss, calorie restriction and negative body talk, often presented as wellness advice.
A TikTok spokesperson also told CBS News on Thursday that searches for words or phrases such as #Anorexia would lead users to relevant assistance, including localized eating disorder helplines, where they can access further information and support.
“I think we’re understanding more and more about how this content shows up and so even when you ban a particular hashtag, for example, it’s not long until something similar jumps up in its place,” Doreen Marshall, who leads the American nonprofit National Eating Disorders Association [NEDA], told CBS News.
“This is going to be an evolving landscape both for creating content guidelines, but also for the platforms themselves and, you know, while some progress has been made, there’s clearly more that can be done,” Marshall said.
TikTok is not the only social media platform that has faced criticism for the accessibility of extreme weight loss content.
In 2022, 60 Minutes reported on a leaked internal document from Meta that showed the company was aware, through its own research, of content on its Instagram platform promoting extreme weight loss and fueling eating disorders in young people.
At the time, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, declined 60 Minutes’ request for an interview but its global head of safety, Antigone Davis, said, “We want teens to be safe online” and that Instagram doesn’t “allow content promoting self-harm or eating disorders.”
Last year, 60 Minutes reported that the Google-owned YouTube video platform, which is hugely popular among teenagers, was also serving up extreme weight loss and eating disorder content to children.
Responding to that report, a YouTube representative said the platform “continually works with mental health experts to refine [its] approach to content recommendations for teens.”
Available resources:
National Eating Disorder Association
If you or someone you know is experiencing concerns about body image or eating behaviors, NEDA has a free, confidential screening tool and resources at www.nationaleatingdisorders.org
F.E.A.S.T. is a nonprofit organization providing free support for caregivers with loved ones suffering from eating disorders.
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