Reportedly, Apple has also secretly been pressuring TikTok to raise its age recommendations from 12 to over 17. The comments Apple made were accidentally made public in South Carolina’s complaint against TikTok (they were supposed to be redacted, but somehow were made public instead).
Back in 2022, Apple reportedly had a team review TikTok’s age rating and found that it had “intense mature or suggestive content” frequently. Apple is said to have requested TikTok to make the necessary changes to follow the App Store Review Guidelines. We don’t know the entirety of what Apple requested though, as only some of the redacted content was shown.
It’s also said that TikTok’s own employees had concerns about what the company did to limit content containing profanity and eating disorders. For one, profanity was found in one out of every 50 pop-up alerts shown to minors in the US and UK in a month!
As you would expect, TikTok wasn’t pleased with this leaked information – and it’s now redacted again. TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek said that publishing this redacted info was irresponsible, and claimed that many of the issues were already addressed.
The lawsuit in South Carolina wasn’t the only one that had revealed redacted stuff by mistake though. Kentucky also accidentally made documents public that indicated that TikTok had reportedly found the compulsive usage correlating with negative mental health effects like a decrease in analytical skills and memory formation, and increased anxiety among others.
On top of all of that, TikTok reportedly also knew its time limit tool wasn’t as effective for minors as it should be.
It’s no secret that apps like TikTok and other social media platforms have an interest in keeping people on there, as this is helping them generate revenue from ads. I actually think TikTok is not the only one to blame here, and it’s the focus here just because it’s very popular with teens. But I feel like the whole industry needs to pay more attention to the health and wellbeing of users. For me, a solution is paid subscriptions everywhere – no ads, and you choose when to be there, while the service is also getting paid for what it’s offering. It seems the most fair and healthiest approach to social media, in my opinion.