Senators Demand Answers From TikTok Over Disabled Safety Safeguard Experiment

Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal sent a letter to TikTok CEO Shou Chew and Adam Presser, CEO of TikTok’s U.S. business, demanding details about an experiment that withheld a safety feature from 15 million U.S. users. The senators described the decision to run the experiment as “depraved.” Their inquiry centers on why the safeguard was disabled and who inside the company knew about the experiment.

The safety feature was designed to prevent users from being overwhelmed by harmful content. According to the article, Bloomberg reported that TikTok intentionally disabled an algorithmic safeguard for 10% of U.S. users to create a control group and test whether the safeguard made the app less engaging. The scrutiny is heightened because minors were allegedly included in the control group.

The article says one person in the control group was 16-year-old Chase Nasca, whose algorithm fed him thousands of videos about sadness, suicide, and loneliness before he died by suicide. The report does not establish causation, but the senators’ questions focus on how a safety-related experiment could include minors. That makes the issue a broader test of transparency around social platforms’ algorithmic experiments.

The senators are demanding answers to 13 questions, including the names of every employee who knew about the experiment and why minors were allowed in the control group. They also want a list of every U.S. algorithmic experiment in which TikTok disabled or delayed a safety feature. TikTok has until September 1 to respond, and the company did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.