TikTok conducted experiments in which thousands of users, including children and teenagers, were reportedly given non-working versions of certain safety features. The allegations concern so-called “placebo experiments,” in which some users received a broken version of TikTok’s Algo Refresh feature. The tool is designed to reset a user’s recommendation algorithm and remove unwanted or potentially harmful content from their feed.
Users who were included in the experiments believed they had successfully activated the feature. However, their recommendation feeds did not actually change. Another group of users received a working version of the tool, allowing TikTok to compare the behavior of people whose feeds had been genuinely reset with those who believed they had been.
According to the lawsuit, TikTok repeatedly conducted such experiments in 2023, involving thousands of users. The company reportedly compared how long people stayed on the platform, how they interacted with content, and how the changes affected advertising revenue. The experiments reportedly raised concerns even inside TikTok.
One manager responsible for users’ digital well-being warned colleagues that the tests could mislead users. The placebo group completely contradicts that,” the employee wrote in an internal chat, according to the lawsuit. New York authorities also accuse TikTok of misleading users about how Algo Refresh actually works.
According to the lawsuit, the company presented the feature as a way to reset the recommendation algorithm, while the effects were allegedly only temporary. A TikTok representative told that the allegations misrepresent how Algo Refresh works. The company said that, like other technology companies, it regularly tests new products and features to evaluate user experience and understand how they perform in real-world conditions.
The released court materials also describe another series of TikTok experiments, previously reported by Bloomberg. In those tests, the company allegedly selected users at random and disabled certain safety features designed to restrict access to potentially harmful content. The most serious allegations involve teenagers.
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