{"id":5663,"date":"2026-08-20T19:40:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T19:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=5663"},"modified":"2026-08-20T19:40:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T19:40:07","slug":"senators-demand-answers-from-tiktok-about-depraved-experiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=5663","title":{"rendered":"Senators demand answers from TikTok About \u2018depraved\u2019 experiment"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The existence of the experiment, discussed in detail in a confidential 2023 company document, was\u00a0reported\u00a0by\u00a0<em>Bloomberg Businessweek<\/em>\u00a0this month. It prompted the letter sent Wednesday by Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal to TikTok Inc. Chief Executive Officer Shou Chew and Adam Presser, CEO of the company\u2019s US spinoff.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=5661\">Bessent becomes most interventionist Treasury chief in decades<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe write regarding disgusting new reports that TikTok knowingly withheld a critical safety measure for millions of American users \u2014 including children \u2014 in order to determine whether protecting users would impact its financial bottom-line,\u201d the four-page letter began. The\u00a0<em>Businessweek<\/em>\u00a0story\u2019s \u201cappalling\u201d revelations, the senators wrote, \u201craise serious questions about TikTok\u2019s repeated assurances to Congress, parents and the American public that it prioritizes the safety and well-being of young people over profit.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read More: TikTok Kept a Safety Feature From Millions. One Died by Suicide<\/p>\n<p>The TikTok document, handed over in litigation against the world\u2019s biggest social media companies and placed under a court-ordered seal, shows the company intentionally switched off an algorithmic safeguard from 10% of US users, turning them into a control group. The safeguard was designed to break up online echo chambers of harmful content. At the time, that control group would have been approximately 15 million people. One was\u00a016-year-old Chase Nasca, of Bayport, New York. His account, the document said, was fed thousands of videos about sadness, hopelessness, loneliness and suicide right up until he killed himself. Chase was randomly selected for the algorithm experiment on Jan. 25, 2022. Within a month, he was dead.<\/p>\n<p>The document explains why Chase\u2019s account received what it called an \u201conslaught\u201d of dark content: \u201cTikTok\u2019s filter bubble prevention strategies did not take effect on this user by design.\u201d And it states why the company turned off the safety setting for some: \u201cThe user impact decision was a delicate balance across safety and the ability to measure impact on DAU (daily active users) and core metrics.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>TikTok didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment about the letter. But in a statement for the\u00a0<em>Businessweek<\/em>\u00a0story, a TikTok spokesperson said the company was \u201cdeeply committed to the safety and well-being of users,\u201d especially teens. \u201cOur hearts break for any family that experienced a tragic loss,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cTo help protect our community, we continue to invest significantly in Trust &amp; Safety, including robust detection systems and dedicated enforcement teams that proactively remove content that violates our Community Guidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>In their letter, Blumenthal and Blackburn pointed out that Congress had raised concerns about TikTok\u2019s algorithm driving young users toward harmful content since October 2021 \u2014 before the company rolled out the experiment. The revelations, the senators wrote, \u201care made even more sinister because TikTok was on notice about the effects of its recommendation algorithms on children.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The senators demanded answers to 13 questions, including the names of every employee informed of the experiment; an explanation for why the company permitted minors to be included in the test; details on when executives learned about the experiment; and a \u201ccomplete, unredacted version\u201d of the document reported on by\u00a0<em>Businessweek<\/em>. They also asked for a list of every algorithmic experiment in the US where TikTok has \u201cwithheld, disabled, delayed, or reduced a safety feature,\u201d the number of users involved and how many were minors. The senators gave the company until Sept. 1 to respond.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=5659\">Another Democratic primary, another shocking DSA upset as Angie Nixon adds to moderates\u2019 heartburn over seemingly unstoppable wave<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe fact that they did this knowingly and that they used their users as an experiment is something that just seems inconceivable,\u201d Blackburn said in an interview after the\u00a0<em>Businessweek<\/em>\u00a0story was published but before the letter was sent. \u201cIt shows you how when our children are on these social media platforms \u2014 they are the products.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>To Blackburn, the experiment is a clear example of a company prioritizing \u201cmaking money and capturing eyeballs\u201d over safety. \u201cLook at the fact that this was a happy, 16-year-old boy with no mental health issues and then, over this short window of time, the impact of feeding video after video after video and post after post after post about depression and suicide and what it did to this child. It is frightening \u2014 and this is something that these platforms need to be held to account for.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Florida Republican Representative Gus Bilirakis echoed Blackburn\u2019s concerns in a written statement, saying the report was deeply troubling and demonstrated the \u201cdevastating consequences that can occur when engagement metrics and corporate profits are prioritized over the safety and well-being of our children.\u201d During a hearing in March 2023, weeks after the confidential document was created, Bilirakis had questioned TikTok CEO Chew about Chase Nasca and said, \u201cYour technology is literally leading to death.\u201d Chew responded saying the company takes these issues \u201cvery seriously\u201d and provides mental health resources to users who search for suicide content.<\/p>\n<p>Bilirakis and Blackburn both said American families have waited too long for protections for children online and called for child safety bills to be fast-tracked. Blackburn pushed for the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a Senate bill she co-authored with Blumenthal to force tech platforms to prioritize child safety above profits. The bill died in the House in 2024 but was reintroduced this legislative session. Bilirakis championed the Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act, which includes most of the Senate bill, as well as laws for AI chatbots and video games. It passed in the House in June.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The House bill stripped a so-called duty-of-care provision from the Senate\u2019s version, which would force tech companies to exercise reasonable care to prevent mental health harms to minors, including anxiety, depression and compulsive usage of the social media products. This provision was removed over First Amendment concerns.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On Aug. 5, the day after the\u00a0<em>Businessweek<\/em>\u00a0story was published, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation voted to advance the original, revived KOSA, with the duty-of-care provision. That provision, Blackburn said in the interview, would help to prevent future experiments like this because social media platforms would be required to prioritize safety in their products\u2019 design, especially for teens.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=5657\">The AI industry is getting better at spotting dangerous behavior. It is less clear that labs know how to stop it.<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The company withheld an algorithmic safeguard from roughly 15 million users, including minors, according to a confidential internal document.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[474],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tiktok"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Senators demand answers from TikTok About \u2018depraved\u2019 experiment - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=5663\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Senators demand answers from TikTok About \u2018depraved\u2019 experiment - 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