A bipartisan group of greater than a dozen state attorneys general is filing lawsuits against social media giant TikTok on Tuesday. A grievance accuses the corporate of deceiving users by claiming its app is secure for youngsters despite its “addictive” features and allegedly operates an unlicensed money transfer company.

States filing suit include: latest York and California and the District of Columbia.

“Our lawsuit aims to hold TikTok accountable for its harm to DC children,” he said Attorney General Brian Schwalb of the District of Columbia, in an interview with CNBC.

Schwalb's lawsuit alleges compulsive use of TikTok poses plenty of “significant” risks to the mental health of teenagers and youngsters, including depression, anxiety, sleep loss and body dysmorphia.

Schwalb called the app — which allows users to create, share and watch short videos — “digital nicotine” and said TikTok is “intentionally trying to get young people addicted to its platform.”

He said the app “is causing immense harm to an entire generation of young people.”

“TikTok’s unregulated and illegal virtual economy not only puts its profits above the health of children, but also enables the darkest and most corrupt sections of society to exploit vulnerable victims,” Schwalb said. “The company knows what is happening and has chosen to ignore it. This lawsuit seeks to put an end to his illegal, fraudulent and predatory behavior.”

TikTok didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on the lawsuits, but said in an announcement

“We are proud of and remain deeply committed to the work we have done to protect young people. We will continue to update and improve our product,” TikTok said. “We provide robust protections, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily introduced safety features such as default screen time limits, family pairing, and default privacy for minors under 16.”

“We have sought to work with the state attorneys general for over two years and it is incredibly disappointing that they have taken this step instead of working with us on constructive solutions to industry-wide challenges.”

More than half of young people between the ages of 13 and 17 within the US use the app. TikTok has greater than a billion lively users worldwide.

Schwalb's lawsuit, which alleges violations of D.C. consumer protection laws, accuses TikTok of “using algorithms and manipulative design features” to captivate young users by triggering bursts of dopamine of their impressionable brains.

“TikTok knows that its design features make the app addictive and keep users engaged for longer,” the lawsuit in DC Superior Court says.

“While this may be good for business, it has dangerous consequences for children.”

The grievance also states that in 2019, the corporate introduced “two new dangerous features”: a live streaming feature called TikTok LIVE and a virtual currency system called TikTok “Coins.”

“TikTok is characterized by its use of Coins – an unlicensed virtual currency,” the lawsuit says. “Users purchase coins to send virtual “gifts” during LIVE sessions, which streamers can money out for real money. TikTok is incentivizing users to go LIVE by promising that these money rewards will “get more popular.” [their] Content will likely be.'”

The lawsuit states that TikTok generates “significant revenue” from its coins and charges commissions of as much as 50% for every transaction.

The virtual currency app's deposit and withdrawal process is “a virtual money transfer system” that violates D.C. law by failing to acquire a required money transmitter license, the lawsuit says.

And “Although LIVE, including live streaming and gifting, currently has a minimum age requirement of 18 and older, TikTok knows that its lax age verification measures encourage U.S. minors to lie about their age to gain access,” it says in Schwalb's statement of claim.

The grievance also alleges that LIVE's design, including coins and gifts, “enables other serious harm to minors, including sexual exploitation.”

“TikTok is fully aware that these features together create an environment in which children are often sexually exploited by users, but has chosen to turn a blind eye in favor of increasing its profitability,” Schwalbs said in a press release Office.

TikTok's US headquarters are in Los Angeles, but the corporate maintains a big lobbying presence and office in Washington, DC

The company recently announced a partnership with the NHL's Washington Capitals hockey team to make use of TikTok's logo on its jerseys for away games for the upcoming season, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit demands that TikTok be permanently barred from violating consumer protection laws and ordered to pay compensation to users and face civil penalties.

The lawsuits brought by Schwalb and the opposite attorneys general, who’re filing separate lawsuits in courts throughout the United States, comes at a legally difficult time for the corporate, which is owned by China-based ByteDance.

In September, Lawyers for TikTok argued in a federal appeals court that a brand new law that might ban the app by Jan. 19 unless ByteDance finds a non-Chinese buyer for the corporate was unconstitutional since it violated TikTok users' First Amendment rights.

The bill was approved by the House and Senate in April after members of Congress and others argued that the app posed a national security risk to the United States.

In particular, they claimed that the kind of data being collected might be used as a weapon by America's adversaries in Beijing if the 2 countries ever went to war.

The lawsuits are the newest in a series of civil suits by state attorneys general targeting social media corporations for alleged harm to children and other users of their popular apps.

politics

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden can be officially nominated because the Democratic presidential candidate through a virtual roll call ahead of the party's official convention in Chicago in August – a maneuver that may allow Biden to seem on the November ballot in Ohio.

The Democratic Party convention, where the president would otherwise be officially nominated, will happen after the polls close in Ohio on August 7. The convention is scheduled for August 19-22.

Ohio lawmakers have moved up the deadline for candidates from each parties previously, but haven’t done so for Biden this yr. Governor Mike DeWine called them right into a rare special session to debate the difficulty.

The virtual event will allow Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to hunt formal party approval. It can be very just like the method utilized in 2020, when the convention was held virtually due to COVID-19 pandemic. In Chicago, Democrats will still hold a state-by-state roll call, a staple of nominating conventions, in response to a Democratic National Committee official. However, it might be largely ceremonial in nature and it’s unclear how that in-person roll call would begin.

The DNC didn’t say Tuesday when the virtual roll call will happen, but changes to the roll call process are expected to be proposed within the weeks following the committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee vote, which is scheduled for June 4.

“Joe Biden will be on the ballot in Ohio and all 50 states, and Ohio Republicans agree. But when it came time to take action, they failed to act every time, so Democrats will land this plane alone,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison said in a press release. “By holding a virtual roll call, we will ensure that Republicans cannot undermine our democracy through incompetence or partisan tricks, and that Ohioans can exercise their right to vote for the presidential candidate of their choice.”

Meanwhile, Ohio lawmakers met for a special session on Tuesday.

Negotiations between the House and Senate over an answer to Biden's voting problem began Friday. State Rep. Bill Seitz told reporters during a conference call that he and state Sen. Rob McColley, each Republicans, are leading the talks, with no solution announced as of Tuesday.

Since Ohio prolonged its certification deadline from 60 to 90 days before the overall election, state lawmakers have had to regulate the requirement twice, in 2012 and 2020, to accommodate candidates from each major parties. Each change has been temporary.

And the flexibility of voters to talk directly on issues similar to abortion through popular initiatives has made it harder to seek out an answer in each chambers, where Republicans have overwhelming majorities.

The Senate sent its version of election rigging to the House of Representatives after making a ban on foreign nationals donating to campaigns in Ohio, thereby halting the event.

DeWine urged lawmakers to pass the combined measure through the special session, but Democrats pushed back, saying the proposal goes beyond banning foreigners from entering the state and adds requirements designed to make future campaigns within the state harder.

This comes after Ohio voters overwhelmingly approved three bills last yr, including a Republican-opposed constitutional amendment protecting access to abortion and a bill legalizing marijuana for adult use.

It can also be possible to contemplate a “clean” House bill that might simply adjust the voting deadline in Ohio.

Due to differing interpretations of the proclamation DeWine issued Thursday, the Ohio Senate has scheduled only a single day of session for Tuesday, while the Ohio House of Representatives plans to first hold two days of committee hearings before holding its vote on Thursday.

A Senate spokesman said it was possible that the upper house would meet on Tuesday after which take a break to await the outcomes of the House of Representatives.

Innovation over the past generation has led to amazing latest experiences at Disneyland and leading theme parks world wide. From ride systems to audio-animatronics to projection show effects, technological innovations have helped create experiences that feel more immersive and interesting than ever before.

But on a business and operational level, I'm much less excited concerning the innovations that theme park fans have brought. Can we please return to old-fashioned queuing?

Disney has announced that the Tiana's Bayou Adventure will use a virtual queue when the Splash Mountain substitute opens next month at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. Visitors who don't win a spot in Disney's virtual queue can attempt to get on the brand new ride by making a purchase order the Disney Genie Plus upgrade after which attempt to book a return flight time Disney's Lightning Lane queue.

Virtual queues are great when you're considered one of the lucky individuals who gets a spot there. But the way in which Disney has implemented virtual queues too often makes them a game of likelihood, like a lottery. At Walt Disney World, guests can attempt to get in line at 7 a.m. – before the park opens – using the resort's official app. Entry costs no money or time, so anyone who can reply to an alarm at that hour goes for it, crowding the virtual queue with more guests than can possibly take the ride that day.

That's not fair to essentially the most loyal fans, who could be willing to attend in an hour-long line for the chance to ride a highly anticipated latest attraction. If someone is willing to sacrifice six hours of their day on the park for a ride, why should they miss out because another fans who don't care got lucky with a virtual queue task?

Good old-fashioned physical queues remain the fairest and best method to allocate seats at high-demand attractions. Do you actually need to go for a ride? Arrive early and wait your turn.

Having worked in park operations, I can guarantee that no response team would need to cope with a queue longer than six hours. But the higher innovations to avoid are designing rides for prime hourly capability, extensive testing so the rides can run at full capability from day one, and diverse preview days for annual passholders to cut back people's demand , who’re more than likely to need to wait all day for a ride.

If parks have to generate revenue from upsells like Genie Plus, they need to set prices high enough in order that only a tiny fraction of park guests will buy in, making them a minimal detriment to standby queue wait times. (The higher price may offset the lower sales volume.) But Disney sells Genie Plus at the bottom price within the industry. This floods the Lightning Lanes, making the plan less favorable for individuals who buy and increasing wait times for individuals who don't.

Parks should change over time. You have to. But modern changes should improve – not diminish – the standard of the guest experience.