A judge has ruled that a lawsuit against TikTok in Iowa can proceed.

Polk County District Court Judge Jeffrey Farrell ruled that the Attorney General’s Office can continue to argue that the social media platform violated the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act. The state alleges that TikTok’s misrepresentations, deception, false promises and unfair practices allowed it to receive a 12+ rating on Apple’s App Store — allowing 13- to 17-year-old Iowans to access content the Attorney General said was inappropriate for minors.

However, Farrell rejected a request from the Attorney General’s Office for a temporary injunction that would prevent TikTok from making certain statements about its app until the court proceedings were concluded.

“The court’s ruling is a major victory in our ongoing fight to protect Iowa children and parents from the Chinese Communist Party’s control of TikTok,” Bird, a Republican, said in a statement. “Parents deserve to know the truth about the seriousness and frequency of the dangerous videos TikTok recommends to children on the app.”

TikTok, which is owned by Chinese parent company ByteDance, said in court documents that the company takes a number of steps to moderate and remove inappropriate content posted on the social media app, including pornography and content that promotes or glorifies violence, abuse or self-harm, harassment and intimidation.

According to the company, it removed more than 176 million videos last year for violating its policies and guidelines. TikTok says more than 96% were removed before being reported, and 92% of videos flagged by users were removed within two hours of being reported.

Additionally, TikTok said it has introduced settings in its app to protect teens from adult content, and has also rolled out a family linking feature that allows parents to link their accounts with their teens’ to monitor and limit app usage and searches.

The app requires users to provide their date of birth when creating an account and applies settings that restrict content for people aged 13 to 17. People under 13 are directed to a platform that includes a restricted version of the app.

However, according to court documents, an investigator from the Consumer Protection Division of the Attorney General’s Office registered as a new TikTok user under a fake name with a date of birth of May 5, 2010, meaning the investigator appeared to be 13 at the time. From October 2 to October 11, 2023, the investigator conducted searches and compiled videos he found on TikTok-related topics, including profanity, crude humor, sexual content, nudity, alcohol, tobacco, drug use, suicide, depression, self-harm, eating disorders, and other mature topics.

A TikTok representative noted during the court hearing that the investigator had collected 204 clips but had watched 16,600 videos to find them. Jennifer Brandenburger, head of product policy, agreed that some of the videos violated TikTok’s community standards and should be removed, but disagreed that others were inappropriate.

For example, she indicated that videos of people discussing mental health struggles were appropriate to show people discussing “emotionally complex topics in a supportive way.” Some videos show women singing or lip-syncing songs with explicit lyrics. TikTok considers such videos “mild profanity,” even though the language is explicit, because the language is used in an artistic context and the songs themselves are widely available.

In seeking to dismiss the case, TikTok argued that the age ratings are created by the app store and the company simply provides information to receive the rating. It further argued that there is no fraud, false promises or misrepresentation because the app store questions are subjective and different people may evaluate the standards differently.

In his ruling, Judge Farrell said the Attorney General’s Office may not ultimately win the case, “but the court must consider the cause of action in light of the facts most favorable to the allegations.”

“Taken as a whole, the state has established a cognizable claim under the (Iowa Consumer Fraud Act),” he wrote.