Two US senators have given TikTok a deadline of September 1 to answer questions regarding an experiment that withheld a safety feature from 15 million US users. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) sent a letter to TikTok CEO Shou Chew and Adam Presser, CEO of the company’s US business, describing the experiment as “depraved.”
Bloomberg reported that TikTok intentionally disabled an algorithmic safeguard for 10% of US users to create a control group for the experiment. This safeguard was designed to prevent users from being overwhelmed by harmful content. TikTok reportedly conducted the experiment to determine if the safeguard made the app less engaging.
One individual in the control group was 16-year-old Chase Nasca, whose algorithm reportedly fed him thousands of videos about sadness, suicide, and loneliness before he died by suicide. The senators are seeking answers to 13 questions, including the names of employees aware of the experiment and why minors were included in the control group. They also requested a list of all US algorithmic experiments where a safety feature was disabled or delayed.