EXHIBIT 4

Case: 1:19-cv-07915 Document #: 52-4 Filed: 09/09/20 Page 1 of 8 PageID #:2226 Case: 1:20-cv-04699 Document #: 59-6 Filed: 09/09/20 Page 1 of 8 PageID #:1354
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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

EASTERN DIVISION

T.K., THROUGH HER MOTHER, SHERRI

LESHORE, AND A.S., THROUGH HER

MOTHER, LAURA LOPEZ,

individually and on behalf of

all others similarly situated,

Plaintiffs,

-vsBYTEDANCE TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.,

MUSICAL.LY, INC., MUSICAL.LY THE

CAYMAN ISLANDS CORPORATION, AND

TIKTOK, INC.,

Defendants.

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No. 19 CV 7915

Chicago, Illinois

August 4, 2020

11:00 o'clock a.m.

TRANSCRIPT OF TELEPHONIC PROCEEDINGS - Motion

BEFORE THE HONORABLE JOHN R. BLAKEY

APPEARANCES:

For the Plaintiffs: MASON LIETZ & KLINGER LLP

BY: MR. GARY M. KLINGER

227 West Monroe Street

Suite 2100

Chicago, Illinois 60606

For the Plaintiffs: MASON LIETZ & KLINGER LLP

BY: MR. DAVID K. LIETZ

MR. GARY E. MASON

5101 Wisconsin Avenue NW

Suite 305

Washington, DC 20016

LAURA LACIEN, CSR, RMR, FCRR, CRR

OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER

219 South Dearborn Street

Room 1212

Chicago, Illinois 60604

(312) 408-5032

Case: 1:19-cv-07915 Document #: 52-4 Filed: 09/09/20 Page 2 of 8 PageID #:2227 Case: 1:20-cv-04699 Document #: 59-6 Filed: 09/09/20 Page 2 of 8 PageID #:1355
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plaintiffs that the child advocacy groups support this

settlement is not -- is inaccurate at best.

So, again, when looking at the strength of the

claims versus what's been offered, there's just -- there's a

complete disconnect, your Honor. The strength of the claims

are strong. They're worth far in excess of $1.1 million and

the $1.1 million settlement fund is totally disattached from

the actual worth and strength of the claims.

The next factor that the Court, I believe, should

look at in its analysis is whether or not class counsel and

the class representatives have adequately represented the

class. And here we have a settlement that principally served

to induce the defendant to -- we have a case that principally

served to induce the defendant to pay money to class counsel

to make them go away. And, in fact, the plaintiffs indicated

that that's what they think all settlements are is just an

amount of money to make plaintiffs go away. Well, the

Seventh Circuit has expressly said that that is not the case

in In re Subway.

And beyond that, your Honor, the fees that the

class counsel are seeking here of $363,000 are completely

unsupported. They want to do a percentage of the funds fee

but here it's unclear what work they did to earn that fee and

at minimum Objector believes that the calculus should be a

lodestar or at least a lodestar cross-check.

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When looking at where the substantive allegations

of this complaint came from, which is important because it

indicates the investigation that went into these claims, the

plaintiffs in this case wholly copied them from a previously

filed complaint in the FTC matter and we set forth those --

the copied allegations in our initial objection. So when the

plaintiffs come forth and say they should get $363,000 plus

expenses, which is a third of the small settlement already,

the fact is, is that the investigation that went into this

case was done by government attorneys; not done by

plaintiffs' counsel.

Moreover, in terms of the inadequate

representation, the release in this case, your Honor, is

extremely broad. They seek to release any claims that arise

out of or related to -- for all time anything related to the

civil actions which are the claims in this case or the

subject matter of the complaint and we set forth in our

objection and in our response numerous claims that are

subject to the release. And this has already become a

problem because as we said in our objection, your Honor, one

of the claims that is subject to the release indisputably are

claims under the Biometric Information Privacy Act, an act

which wholly deals with personal information and taking

personal information, namely biometric data, without people's

consent; and we raised in our objection that this was subject

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to the release.

And the reason that I highlight this is because the

defendants and the plaintiffs have spent some time saying

that these claims under the Biometric Information Privacy

Act, referred to as BIPA, were not part of the release. And

this is important, your Honor, because the defendants and the

plaintiffs at once are trying to have your Honor uphold the

settlement and at the same time they're trying to disregard

parts of the settlement that they don't like making it

impossible for people to know what their rights are even

under the settlement.

Your Honor, in your order on December 19th, 2019,

your preliminary approval order, you entered a preliminary

injunction that barred any settlement class members from

bringing any new alleged class actions or asserting any

released claims in any other action. Shortly after you did

that, a bunch of class actions were filed in the Northern

District of Illinois. They've all been consolidated in front

of Judge Lee in matter 20 CV 2810, E.R. v. TikTok.

Each of those complaints initially tried to abide

by your preliminary injunction and they defined the class in

those cases, which were all cases -- privacy cases against

TikTok based on BIPA. They limited the class to Illinois

residents ages 14 to 17. That's important because the class

here was children under 13. So those plaintiffs knew at the

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time or at least thought they knew that the release in this

case included the BIPA claims and that your Honor's

injunction barred anyone from bringing those claims.

We filed our objection on May 11th, 2020, where we

raised the issue of the broad release. On June 5th, 2020,

both the plaintiffs -- well, the plaintiffs in their

opposition explicitly stated that no, the BIPA claims are not

released even despite the broad language in those claims.

Exactly one week later, the plaintiffs in those cases in the

Northern District of Illinois filed a consolidated complaint

and they changed the class definition to all children under

18.

Now why is this important? Well, it's important,

your Honor, because it's unclear to members of the settlement

class, including the Objector, whether or not -- what their

rights are even under the settlement and what other claims

they could be bringing or could not be bringing. The

plaintiffs fault the Objector for not filing his own

complaint but doing so would be in direct violation of your

Honor's order unless the plaintiffs and defendants say that

it wouldn't be. And there's just no -- right now, there's no

certainty as to what the -- what your Honor's order is and

the plaintiffs and defendants are seemingly just trying to

play games by trying to salvage the settlement where they can

and move forward with other litigation where they can all in

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hopes of having the settlement go forward but not really even

looking at their own language that they put forward. So it's

problematic and it demonstrates that the -- that the

plaintiffs and the plaintiffs' counsel are not adequately

representing the class, which again provides grave problems

for the settlement and is a reason that the settlement should

not be approved.

Finally, your Honor, there's an issue of the

defective notice program in this case which we set forth at

length in our brief. There was no direct notice provided to

the class members and it's unclear and no one has explained

why the defendant simply couldn't have direct messaged

through their app to members of TikTok that this settlement

had happened and that they could enforce their rights.

Further, the fact is that the way TikTok works,

it's able to identify people through facial recognition and

show them videos and other materials that seemingly based on

data that we've seen show people and videos just like the

people watching them that they know who is watching these

videos and they have the technology to identify children that

they believe or believe to be are under 13 and no effort was

made.

But even if we put that technology aside, the fact

is that the targeting in this case was completely wrong.

They -- they targeted parents of children under 18 where the

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parents use music apps, use social media, or use video apps

and there's no explanation as to why the belief was that

someone who has a child under 13 who uses TikTok themselves

are heavy app users, be it TikTok or any other app, and why

traditional methods of notification weren't used. And the

fact that there's such a small response, 1.5 percent, is

indicative of the fact that either this settlement was too

small for people to care or the fact that people didn't get

notice.

Further, the notice program failed to update class

members of the changes in the schedule through the COVID

orders as has been an issue in this case. What were the

actual dates when objections were due, what were the actual

dates of this hearing. That information was not being

updated on the site even though your Honor's order in

December specifically required the parties to update the

notice on the website. That's at Paragraph 14 of Docket 13.

The notice had the wrong effective date of when

people's claims -- the effective date of people's claims. It

cut off the effective date on May 6th even though the

effective date has not run even as of this hearing, your

Honor.

And finally as we raised, the original schedule set

forth in the notice program improperly required the

objections to be put forth before the motion for approved --

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