BRIDGEPORT, W.Va (WDTV) – West Virginia’s attorney general is suing TikTok. He says the popular app puts kids at risk.Attorney General JB McCuskey filed a lawsuit in Kanawha County Circuit Court, claiming TikTok broke several West Virginia consumer protection laws with the way it designed and runs its app.According to the lawsuit, TikTok encourages kids to keep using the app. It also uses recommendation systems to choose what young users see, and it doesn’t tell parents and caregivers about safety gaps.The attorney general’s Consumer Protection Division tested the app with two accounts. One belonged to an adult. The other belonged to a 13-year-old girl. The office says the feeds looked very different. The child’s account repeatedly got sexually suggestive content, they claim. The adult’s account mostly got videos about home improvement and local restaurants.The lawsuit also says TikTok makes children easy to find and contact, which could put them in touch with predators. The state says a child’s public information can help a predator pretend to be a peer or a friend of a peer. That person can build trust with the child before a parent knows anything is happening.The complaint points to a West Virginia University study on how TikTok can affect the mental health of West Virginia children. Researchers found that teens who used TikTok more often showed more signs of depression. Some teens also felt worse about themselves when they compared their own lives to the picture-perfect versions of their friends’ lives online.The lawsuit says that’s especially concerning in West Virginia. In 2017, the state had the highest estimated rate in the nation of children affected by opioid use. National research links difficult childhood experiences, including substance use at home, to ongoing sadness or hopelessness and suicide risk among teens.“TikTok knowingly designed its app to keep young teens engaged for as long as possible while failing to put appropriate safeguards in place for underage users. West Virginia parents should not have to compete with an algorithm built to keep their kids scrolling, while targeting them with sexualized content. TikTok left critical safety vulnerabilities unaddressed and put growth of the app ahead of children’s safety. I am filing this lawsuit to hold them accountable and to demand protections for West Virginia kids,” Attorney General McCuskey said.He also said parents still have a role to play.“Parents have a responsibility to monitor what their kids are doing online, absolutely. But they are cut off at the knees when companies like TikTok do nothing to close safety loopholes and conceal risks of their platform from parents,” Attorney General McCuskey said.The attorney general’s office is asking the court to make TikTok pay restitution, give up money it earned unfairly, and pay civil penalties, attorneys’ fees and costs. It also wants a judge to order TikTok to put effective child predator detection measures and protections in place, and to design a safer product going forward.This is the latest legal action McCuskey has taken against a tech company over youth safety. Earlier this month, his office sued OpenAI over what it calls a dangerous design.West Virginia was also one of several states in a historic settlement with Meta. That led to significant safety changes for teen accounts on Instagram and Facebook. Earlier this year, the state reached a settlement with Roblox. It included safety changes to the platform and funding for safety education for West Virginia parents, teachers and children.Read the lawsuit filing here.Editor’s note: The video for this story will be added once it airs. Please check back for the updated video.Copyright 2026 WDTV. All rights reserved.
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