TikTok ran an experiment on thousands of users who tried to turn on a safety feature on the platform, giving them non-functional versions of the tool, according to allegations in New York's lawsuit against the company unsealed on Wednesday.
In the so-called "ghost" or placebo experiments, TikTok selected thousands of users, including teens and children, who opted to use safety features like "Algo Refresh," a tool designed to reset recommendations for users seeking to escape unwanted or potentially harmful content. According to the lawsuit, those users believed they had activated the feature, but their feeds did not change, unlike users who got the fully working version.
