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U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal have demanded answers from TikTok concerning reports that the social media platform withheld a recommendation system safety measure from millions of users as part of an experiment. The senators, a Republican and a Democrat respectively, wrote to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and U.S. business chief Adam Presser seeking details about the experiment and the company's decision-making process.

The senators cited reports indicating that TikTok excluded approximately 10% of its U.S. users, around 15 million people at the time, from protections designed to reduce repeated exposure to potentially harmful content. Notably, the reported control group included minors. Their letter specifically highlighted the case of 16-year-old Chase Nasca, who was reportedly part of the experiment before his death by suicide in 2022. Internal materials cited by the senators suggest that TikTok's repetitive-content protections were deliberately not activated for his account, though the reporting does not establish a causal link between the experiment and his death.

Blackburn and Blumenthal have posed 13 sets of questions to TikTok. These inquiries focus on who approved the experiment, the rationale for including minors, and whether similar safety measures have been delayed or disabled in other U.S. experiments. TikTok has been given a deadline of September 1 to provide its responses.