TikTok faces lawsuit in first U.S. state

WASHINGTON Indiana sued Chinese-owned short-video sharing app TikTok on Wednesday over allegations that it deceives users about China's access to their data and exposes children to mature content.

The Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, a Republican, said that the popular app, owned by ByteDance, violates the state's consumer protection laws by not disclosing the Chinese government's potential access to sensitive consumer information.

In a complaint filed on Wednesday, Rokita's office said that TikTok also deceived young users and their parents with its age rating of 12 plus in Apple's and Google's app stores. The complaint said inappropriate sexual and substance-related content can easily be found and pushed by the company to children using TikTok.

Indiana said its actions were the first of its kind by a U.S. state. Rokita is seeking injunctive relief and civil penalties against the company.

A spokesman for the video sharing app said it did not have a comment on the pending litigation.

The New York Times first reported on the legal action.

Indiana's actions followed an emergency directive issued by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan that prohibited the use of TikTok on state government devices and networks.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem last week signed an executive order banning state employees and contractors from installing or using TikTok on state-owned devices. South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster on Monday asked the state agency to ban TikTok from state government phones and computers.

TikTok said that the concerns that led to state bans were largely fueled by misinformation.

FBI Director Chris Wray said last month that TikTok's U.S. operations raised national security concerns, flagging the risk that the Chinese government could use the video-sharing app to influence users or control their devices.

In 2020, President Donald Trump tried to block new U.S. users from downloading WeChat and TikTok, which would have effectively blocked the apps' use in the United States, but lost a series of court battles.

In June 2021 President Joe Biden withdrew Trump's executive orders that wanted to ban the downloads and directed the Commerce Department to conduct a review of the security concerns posed by the apps.