TikTok settles lawsuit with Alabama for at least $100 million, will implement safety features

The TikTok lawsuit was the latest in a wave of US litigation against social media companies over alleged harm to young users. (Reuters pic)WASHINGTON: TikTok on Friday agreed to pay Alabama at least US$100 million and enact limits for teen users, avoiding a trial set to begin next week in the southern US state over claims related to child safety on the platform."Under the settlement, Alabama will receive a minimum oSuref US$100 million, due to the state within 45 days, with the potential to receive up to US$300 million if certain conditions are met," the office of the attorney general Steve Marshall said.The trial had been set to begin on Monday with jury selection.According to Marshall, TikTok has agreed to enact two-hour daily time limits and restrict access for children from midnight to 6am, among a host of other parental and other safety features.Alabama's suit was the latest in a wave of litigation targeting social media companies across the United States over the harm their apps allegedly cause young users.TikTok had also previously settled cases against it that were headed for trial, including a Los Angeles lawsuit brought by a young woman and a suit from a Kentucky school district.Meta, by contrast, has taken its chances in court - with bruising results.In March, a jury in New Mexico ordered the Facebook and Instagram owner to pay US$375 million after finding it had misled the public about the safety of its platforms for children.That same month, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google's YouTube negligent in the case of a 20-year-old woman who said she became hooked on social media as a child, awarding her US$6 million.In August, Meta agreed to pay US$18 billion to settle a sweeping lawsuit brought by US states accusing it of designing Instagram and Facebook to addict children.Going to trial would have exposed TikTok to unprecedented public scrutiny of how it handles safety internally, with company documents and executive testimony potentially aired in open court.Alabama originally sued TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance in April 2025, alleging the app was engineered to hook young users "just like a sophisticated gambling machine."The state later narrowed its case to claims under Alabama's Deceptive Trade Practices Act, focusing on whether TikTok misrepresented the effectiveness of features such as "Restricted Mode" and "Kids Mode."In … TikTok has agreed to pay Alabama at least $100 million and implement safety features for teens as part of a settlement that resolved an impending trial

TikTok will pay the state of Alabama at least $100 million and must implement a slew of safety features for teens in the state as part of a settlement agreement reached just before the case was set to go to trial. Alabama sued the social media company in 2025 claiming that the platform had negative effects on the mental well-being of youths. The lawsuit argued that TikTok’s “addictive properties” — namely its algorithm that curates highly specific content catered to users’ interests — were harmful to children and that the company knew of those harms.

Through the settlement, TikTok will make several platform-level changes for teen users in Alabama, including the option for teens to select a non-personalized content feed. The platform will also bar cosmetic procedure filters for teens, implement a two-hour daily time limit and ban nighttime use from midnight to 6 a.m. Young users in Alabama will also be prompted to take a “productive pause” after 15 minutes of continuous use, and again at 60 and 90 minutes.

In addition to the platform changes, TikTok will pay Alabama $100 million in restitution and remediation, which will likely go toward funding youth mental health services and other programs. If enough other states reach qualifying settlements with TikTok within a specific time frame, Alabama could receive up to an additional $183.8 million. The platform-level changes outlined in the settlement agreement are roughly similar to changes Meta agreed to make when it reached a settlement this summer to resolve similar claims that were filed by nearly every state, including Alabama.

Meta had called on TikTok and its other chief competitor, YouTube, to join it in adopting similar standards, but TikTok had not publicly responded. Katherine Robertson, chief counsel in the Alabama Attorney General’s office and the Republican nominee to be the state’s next attorney general, acknowledged the similarities with the Meta agreement and told The Associated Press on Friday: “There’s been a war on childhood coming from a million different directions.” “We recognize that parents and youth are fighting a battle against a bunch of different platforms,” Robertson said. “They’re manipulating kids to get addicted to their product, essentially.” The settlement also outlines more robust and user-friendly parental controls, stronger age verification measures TikTok must take, and stro…