TikTok agrees to $100 million settlement in Alabama child safety lawsuit

TikTok will pay Alabama at least $100 million (€87m) and roll out new guardrails for teenagers, striking a deal that sidelines a child-safety trial that had been due to start next week in the southern US state.

“Under the settlement, Alabama will receive a minimum of $100 million, due to the state within 45 days, with the potential to receive up to $300 million if certain conditions are met,” the office of the Attorney General Steve Marshall said.

The case had been headed for a courtroom showdown beginning Monday, when jury selection was scheduled to get under way.

Instead, Mr Marshall said TikTok has agreed to impose two-hour daily time limits and block access for children from midnight to 6am, alongside a broader set of parental controls and safety features.

Alabama’s lawsuit is part of a wider wave of US litigation aimed at social media companies over alleged harms to young users and the ways platforms are built and marketed.

TikTok has previously resolved disputes on the eve of trial, including a Los Angeles lawsuit filed by a young woman and a case brought by a Kentucky school district.

Meta has taken a different tack in several matters, opting to fight in court with mixed outcomes.

In March, a jury in New Mexico ordered the Facebook and Instagram owner to pay $375m after concluding it had misled the public about how safe its platforms were for children.

That same month, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google’s YouTube negligent in a case brought by a 20-year-old woman who said she became addicted to social media as a child, awarding her $6 million.

In August, Meta agreed to pay $18 billion to settle a wide-ranging lawsuit brought by US states alleging Instagram and Facebook were designed to addict children.

Had Alabama’s case gone forward, it could have opened a window into TikTok’s internal approach to safety, with company documents and executive testimony potentially aired in open court.

Alabama first sued TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance in April 2025, arguing the app was built to keep young users engaged “just like a sophisticated gambling machine”.

The state later trimmed its claims to focus on Alabama’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act, centring on whether TikTok overstated the effectiveness of tools including “Restricted Mode” and “Kids Mode”.

In the complaint, Alabama said investigators created TikTok accounts that appeared to belong to 13, 14 and 15-year-olds in the state and then enabled Restricted Mode.

Despite TikTok’s representations that the setting should filter out mature themes, the filing said the accounts were quickly shown videos involving suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, alcohol and sex.

Alabama also accused TikTok of misrepresenting to app stores that the service was appropriate for children aged 12 and older and featured only mild or infrequent mature content.

TikTok, whose US operations were transferred this year to a venture led by American investors, has maintained the case should be put on hold and has argued it is protected by Section 230, the federal law that limits platform liability for user-posted content.

Asked about the settlement, a TikTok spokesperson said the company’s “priority has always been fostering a safe and positive space where people can be creative, discover what they love, and connect with their community.”

“This builds on our commitment and core objective to continually enhance our robust safety tools to protect teens,” the spokesperson added.