Iowa claims TikTok misleads parents about young users’ material.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird sued TikTok for hosting “sexual content, drugs, alcohol, intense profanity, self-harm messages, and other X-rated content,” making age-inappropriate videos widely available to children and teenagers.” TikTok represents to Iowa parents and Iowa children that inappropriate content on its platform, including drugs, nudity, alcohol, and profanity, is ‘infrequent,’” the complaint says, calling such representations “lies.”
The state explicitly objects to TikTok’s app store age classification. Apple states that App Store apps with a 12+ rating may include “infrequent mild language; frequent or intense cartoon, fantasy, or realistic violence; mild or infrequent mature or suggestive themes; and simulated gambling, which may not be suitable for children under 12.” 
During research on TikTok, the state found content such as provocative dancing in thong bikinis, jungle juice recipes, and advice on marijuana and psilocybin use for 13-year-olds. Thong bikinis may not scare all parents, but the lawsuit notes that the AG’s office found videos promoting self-harm, suicide, and eating disorders, which have drawn regulators’ scrutiny to social media apps in recent years.
The next Apple age rating up is 17+, which allows more “offensive language,” sexual material, nudity, alcohol, and narcotics. Social applications that display unending waves of narrow algorithmic user-generated material have long had difficulty evaluating age, but Iowa claims TikTok purposefully misrepresents itself to parents.
Iowa wants an injunction under the Consumer Fraud Act to stop TikTok from making “deceptive, misleading, false, and unfair statements and conduct” about the content parents expect given its community guidelines and age rating in Apple’s App Store, Google Play, and Microsoft’s software store.
The complaint also attacks TikTok’s age-restricted option for younger users for failing to filter adult content.
“Restricted Mode has never worked, as TikTok claims. Even 13-year-olds can see mature content (sexual content, nudity, mature and suggestive themes, profanity, and alcohol, tobacco, and drug content) on TikTok when Restricted Mode is on.
Restricted Mode, a TikTok parent safety tool, “limits exposure to content that may not be suitable for everyone, for example, because it contains mature or complex themes.”
The latest state-level lawsuit against social networking businesses is in Iowa. Last year, Montana’s governor planned to prohibit TikTok in 2024 due to its links to China, but a judge halted it. Following Indiana, Arkansas, and Utah, Iowa has sued the app over its content for minors.
