TikTok agrees to $100 million Alabama child safety settlement

TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, will pay Alabama $100 million and restrict children’s use of the app in the state, settling a lawsuit that accused the platform of being designed to addict young users. The deal came just before a jury trial was set to begin Monday and marks TikTok’s first settlement with a U.S. state.

The agreement includes a two-hour daily limit for children, along with overnight and school-hour restrictions, the BBC reported. The time limits and usage blocks are due to take effect immediately. TikTok has up to a year to implement other changes, including age-verification measures. The changes apply only in Alabama.

“We’re very pleased,” Katherine Robertson, chief counsel in the Alabama attorney general’s office, told the BBC. She said the state had been in mediation with TikTok before trial and that the agreement reflected its final offer. Robertson said the restrictions would require TikTok to change policies the state had identified as harmful to children.

The deal also calls for stronger parental controls and restrictions on some content, the BBC reported. TikTok must limit adults’ ability to discover children’s accounts, notify parents of “suspicious interactions” between teen users and adults, and ban cosmetic filters for children.

The $100 million payment is due within 45 days. The BBC reported that TikTok could have to pay up to $300 million if it fails to meet conditions of the settlement. Al Jazeera described the Alabama attorney general’s account differently, reporting that the state could receive up to $300 million if certain conditions are met.

Al Jazeera reported that Alabama’s lawsuit, filed last year by Attorney General Steve Marshall, accused TikTok’s algorithm of pushing increasingly violent content to young users and contributing to a teen mental health crisis. The state also alleged that TikTok misled consumers about protections against inappropriate content and about Chinese government access to U.S. user data. At least 27 other states and Washington, D.C., have brought similar claims, according to Al Jazeera.

“TikTok’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,” a TikTok USDS spokesperson told the BBC. The spokesperson said the agreement builds on the company’s safety tools for teens.

On the same day, a New Mexico jury found Facebook liable in a separate privacy case, Al Jazeera reported. The case involved claims that Facebook misled users about data harvested from about 87 million profiles through a third-party personality quiz. Jurors found that Facebook deceived the public about investigations into third parties that harvested user data and made deceptive statements about protecting New Mexicans’ data.

“We disagree with the verdict and will continue to defend ourselves against efforts to distort our record,” Meta spokesperson Alex Burgos said in a statement cited by Al Jazeera.