Lawyers get technology now, right? As Nextpoint discusses, TikTok’s big redaction flub shows some lawyers are still missing the boat.
As discussed in their post here written by Elizabeth Guthrie, TikTok’s confidential internal communications were revealed during a lawsuit brought by 14 state attorneys general over child safety concerns. Kentucky, one of the states leading the investigation, had blacked out privileged information in court filings. However, the redacted material could still be accessed by simply copying and pasting the blacked-out sections. Kentucky Public Radio discovered this flaw, exposing information on “some 30 pages of documents” that were never intended to see the light of day.
To paraphrase Britney Spears: “oops, they did it again!”. And by “they”, I mean lawyers. 😐
What did those redactions disclose? TikTok officials admitted internally that their safety features, such as time-limit reminders, weren’t truly designed to reduce screen time. Instead, their main goal was to improve public trust. One internal document detailed how the app was designed to hook users – showing that just 260 videos, which could be viewed in about 35 minutes, were enough to form a habit. These communications also highlighted the company’s deliberate efforts to promote “attractive” users and demote others, creating a carefully curated feed that prioritized beauty standards.
Now you know why I’m not on TikTok! 😀
As NPR reported, after Kentucky Public Radio published excerpts of the redacted material, a state judge sealed the entire complaint following a request from the attorney general’s office “to ensure that any settlement documents and related information, confidential commercial and trade secret information, and other protected information was not improperly disseminated,” according to an emergency motion to seal the complaint filed by Kentucky officials.
But the damage was already done by that point. TikTok’s big redaction flub wasn’t their fault, but it certainly will not help their cause – at least in the court of public opinion. It will be interesting to see how that plays out between TikTok and the state of Kentucky, and how it will affect court proceedings.
Redaction flubs like this have been happening for years and it’s amazing to me that they keep happening. Especially when an eDiscovery platform like Nextpoint makes it impossible for redactions to be discovered. Conducting redactions in Nextpoint ensures that those redactions are burned into the document when produced – and removed from text and metadata as well – so that there is no way for a party to discover what’s being redacted.
It’s that simple, yet we still see lawyers at even large law firms, major corporations and government entities fail to use the tools that will eliminate issues like this. For more about the big redaction flub and how Nextpoint can eliminate that possibility, check out Elizabeth’s article here.
So, what do you think? How do you avoid eDiscovery mistakes like TikTok’s big redaction flub? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.
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