Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
- Utah's lawsuit against TikTok will proceed after a judge denied dismissal.
- The lawsuit accuses TikTok of enabling the sexual exploitation of minors.
- TikTok argued for dismissal, citing jurisdiction and federal protections, but was rejected.
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah's lawsuit alleging social media giant TikTok has allowed for the sexual exploitation of minors will continue after a judge denied TikTok's request to dismiss the case.
Utah 3rd District Judge Coral Sanchez denied the motion Thursday, allowing the case, which was filed by the Utah Department of Commerce's Division of Consumer Protection last June, to continue. The complaint alleges that TikTok knowingly "operates in part like a virtual strip club" and allows young users to be sexually exploited in exchange for virtual gifts.
It's the second lawsuit by the state against TikTok that is being allowed to advance; a different judge denied a similar motion in an earlier case last fall.
"Protecting Utah children from exploitation and the harms that TikTok knowingly inflicts upon them is one of the highest priorities as attorney general," said Attorney General Derek Brown, who inherited the case from his predecessor, Sean Reyes. "I am grateful for the court's decision that allows Utah's lawsuit against TikTok to move forward, helping us protect young people from sexual exploitation."
Margaret Woolley Busse, executive director of the Department of Commerce, said she is "thrilled" with the decision, calling it "a crucial step forward in our battle against TikTok's egregious practices that target and harm our kids."
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In legal filings, the company — which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance — argued that the case should be dismissed because the state courts do not have jurisdiction. The company says federal law protects it as the publisher of third-party content and that Utah's consumer protection laws do not apply because TikTok provides its services to users for free.
The arguments are similar to those made in the earlier case, which were similarly rejected by the judge.
"TikTok's presence in Utah is not that of a passive website that does little more than make information available to those viewers who are interested," Sanchez said. "Rather, TikTok purposefully directs its commercial activity toward residents of Utah and financially benefits from that activity. By doing so, TikTok has purposefully availed itself of the benefit of conducting business in Utah and should have anticipated being called into any Utah court to answer to claims made against it."
Sanchez also found that Utah's case seeks "to hold TikTok liable for its own conduct," meaning that online protections for publishers don't apply. She also said TikTok's practices of offering free access to its platform "in exchange for a user's attention and personal data" amounts to a transaction, even if users don't directly exchange money with the company.
The case will now continue to trial on the allegations Utah has made.
