TikTok gave thousands of users, including children and teenagers, non-functioning versions of a safety feature when they tried to reset their recommendations, according to newly unsealed allegations in New York’s lawsuit against the company.
The lawsuit says users in so-called placebo tests believed they had activated Algo Refresh, a feature intended to reset recommendations for people seeking to avoid unwanted or potentially harmful videos. Their feeds did not change, unlike those of users who received the working tool, the complaint alleges.
New York Attorney General Letitia James’s case says TikTok repeated the tests in 2023 with thousands of users. The company compared how long people stayed on the platform when the feature worked and when it did not, and assessed the effect on advertising revenue, according to the filing. A product manager in TikTok’s Digital Wellbeing team called the placebo tests problematic in an internal chat, saying they conflicted with the feature’s stated purpose of algorithm transparency and user control.
The allegations were included in an amended complaint filed under seal in late August and unsealed by a judge on October 7. James first sued TikTok in 2024. New York is among more than two dozen states accusing the company of designing its platform to addict children and misleading users about safety. TikTok has broadly denied New York’s claims in court filings.
A company spokesperson said TikTok regularly tests products and features to understand how they work in real-world use. The company has said that protecting young users is a priority. In September, it settled the first state case set for trial, agreeing to pay Alabama up to $300 million and change how the platform works for teenagers there.
The newly unsealed filing also describes a separate experiment, previously reported by Bloomberg, in which TikTok allegedly switched off some users’ safety settings that limited exposure to harmful material. Bloomberg reported that a New York teenager who took part in the test later died by suicide after being shown self-harm and suicide content. The complaint says internal reviews found that he had been shown a stream of such material.