TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, have reached a settlement with the state of Alabama requiring the social media platform to impose new limits on teenage users and enhance age-verification procedures. The agreement resolves claims that TikTok endangered children and misled consumers about its safety features.
The settlement, finalized just days before a scheduled trial in Montgomery state court, mandates that TikTok establish a two-hour daily time limit for users in Alabama aged under 18. Additionally, the platform must implement periodic pauses after 15 minutes of continuous use and enforce stricter age checks to better verify users’ ages.
Under the terms of the agreement, TikTok will pay Alabama a minimum of $100 million. The payout could increase up to $300 million if 40 other state attorneys general enter into similar settlements with the company within a specified timeframe, according to court documents.
A spokesperson for TikTok’s U.S. operations said the measures build upon the company’s ongoing commitment to enhance safety tools aimed at protecting teenage users.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, who filed the lawsuit last year, called the settlement a “great day for Alabama parents.” The trial, expected to last two to three weeks, was anticipated to provide new insights into TikTok’s internal operations and algorithms. The platform had previously settled other cases before trial and sought to keep details about its content moderation and data practices confidential.
Marshall’s lawsuit argued that TikTok’s endless video feed contributed to the platform’s addictive nature and alleged that the company’s algorithm pushed young users toward more violent and self-harm-related content, exacerbating a mental health crisis among teens. The complaint pointed to a reported surge in accident and emergency visits related to self-harm among Alabama youth as evidence of the platform’s harmful impact.
The lawsuit also accused TikTok of falsely advertising restrictions on sexual and violent content for younger users to secure app store ratings from providers like Google, Apple, and Microsoft. Additionally, it alleged that TikTok misled users about the extent of Chinese government access to data collected from U.S. users.
TikTok has maintained that teen safety is a central priority in its platform design and has invoked Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act as a defense against liability for user-generated content.
Beyond Alabama, at least 27 other states along with Washington, D.C., have filed similar lawsuits against TikTok, which is also facing thousands of individual and institutional lawsuits linked to the platform’s alleged impact on young users’ mental health. Major tech companies including Meta Platforms, Snap, and YouTube’s parent company Alphabet are defendants in many of these broader cases.
With the Alabama settlement, TikTok has now resolved all cases selected for trial against it, including previous claims brought by individuals and a Kentucky school district.