More than a dozen states in the US have sued TikTok, accusing the social media platform of helping to drive a mental health crisis among teenagers.
A bipartisan group of 14 attorneys general from across the country allege that the company uses addictive features to hook children to the app and that it has intentionally misled the public about the safety of prolonged use.
TikTok called the lawsuit "disappointing" and said it believed many of the claims were "inaccurate and misleading".
The platform is already battling a law passed by Congress in April that would ban it from the US, unless Chinese parent company Bytedance agreed to a sale. "TikTok knows that compulsive use of and other harmful effects of its platform are wreaking havoc on the mental health of millions of American children and teenagers," said the lawsuit filed in New York on Tuesday. "Despite such documented knowledge, TikTok continually misrepresents its platform as 'safe' [and] 'appropriate for children and teenagers'." New York Attorney General Letitia James said young people across the country had died or been injured doing TikTok "challenges" and many others were feeling "more sad, anxious and depressed because of TikTok's addictive features".