Alabama settles TikTok child safety lawsuit ahead of trial

Montgomery, United States. Alabama said Friday it had settled its lawsuit against TikTok and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, over claims that the platform endangered children and misled consumers about its safety. The agreement requires new usage limits and age-verification measures for users in the state.

Limits and payment

Under the settlement, TikTok will introduce a two-hour daily limit for teenagers in Alabama, pauses after 15 minutes of use and stricter age checks.

TikTok will pay Alabama at least $100 million. The state’s payment could rise to $300 million if 40 other attorneys general reach similar agreements with the company within a specified timeframe, according to the settlement.

“This builds on our commitment and core objective to continually enhance our robust safety tools to protect teens,” a spokesperson for TikTok’s US operations said in a statement.

Lawsuit and planned trial

The agreement is TikTok’s first settlement with a state in litigation over social media’s impact on teen well-being. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall sued the company last year; at least 27 other states and Washington, D.C., have filed similar lawsuits.

“This is a great day for Alabama parents,” Marshall said.

The trial had been scheduled to begin Monday in Montgomery state court and last two to three weeks. It was expected to offer a rare look inside TikTok, which had settled earlier cases selected for trial and sought to keep details of its operations from public view.

Alabama alleged that TikTok’s continuous stream of videos made it the most addictive social media platform and that its algorithm directed young users toward increasingly intense content about violence and self-harm. The state claimed this contributed to a teen mental health crisis and caused emergency room visits for self-harm in Alabama to “skyrocket.”

The lawsuit also accused TikTok of falsely claiming that it limits young users’ access to sexual and violent content to secure a rating as safe for teens in app stores run by Google, Apple and Microsoft. It further alleged that TikTok misled users about the Chinese government’s access to US users’ data.

TikTok has said teen safety was a key priority in the platform’s design. It also argued that Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act shields online platforms from liability over user-generated content.