Two U.S. senators have given TikTok until September 1 to explain an experiment in which the platform intentionally disabled a safety feature for approximately 15 million American users, including minors.
Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) sent a letter to TikTok CEO Shou Chew and Adam Presser, CEO of the company's U.S. business, calling the decision "depraved." The letter demands answers to 13 questions, including the names of every employee who approved or knew about the experiment, why minors were included in the control group, and a full list of every algorithmic experiment in which TikTok disabled or delayed a safety feature in the United States.
According to a Bloomberg investigation, TikTok intentionally turned off an algorithmic safeguard for 10% of its U.S. user base, creating a control group to test whether the feature — designed to prevent users from being overwhelmed by harmful content — was reducing engagement. One person in that control group was 16-year-old Chase Nasca, whose algorithmic feed served him thousands of videos about sadness, suicide, and loneliness in the period before his death.
The experiment raises profound questions about the lengths to which social media companies will go to optimize engagement metrics, and whether platforms can be trusted to self-regulate when their own safety features become variables in A/B tests. It also intensifies the political pressure on TikTok, which already faces a potential forced sale or ban in the United States over national security concerns related to its Chinese parent company ByteDance.
TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
