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TikTok agreed Friday to pay Alabama at least $100 million and introduce time limits and other restrictions for teen users, avoiding a trial with a settlement modeled on Instagram owner Meta’s recent agreement with U.S. states.
The trial had been set to begin Monday in Alabama over claims that TikTok misled parents about tools meant to shield children from harmful content.
Attorney General Steve Marshall hailed the settlement as “a great day for Alabama parents.”
“Tonight, they can rest easier knowing real protections are in place to shield their children from the dangers of social media addiction,” he said.
Under the settlement, TikTok will pay Alabama $100 million and could pay up to $300 million in total if other states accept similar agreements.
Alabama’s lawsuit was the latest in a wave of litigation targeting social media companies across the United States over alleged harms their platforms cause young users.
In August, Meta agreed to pay $18 billion to settle a sweeping lawsuit brought by U.S. states accusing it of designing Instagram and Facebook to get children addicted.
TikTok’s settlement with Alabama mirrors safety provisions agreed by Meta, including a two-hour daily time limit for teens, restricted access from midnight to 6 a.m. and suspended notifications during school hours.
It will also strengthen age verification, ban beauty filters for teenagers and offer young users a non-personalized content feed.
The settlement also includes a conditional restriction that Meta agreed to: expanding the nighttime shutdown period to 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. if other platforms also commit to doing the same.
“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 company spokesperson told AFP.
“This builds on our commitment and core objective to continually enhance our robust safety tools to protect teens,” the spokesperson added.
More than a dozen other states, including California and New York, still have active lawsuits against TikTok.
The company has previously settled cases 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 damaging results.
In March, a jury in New Mexico ordered the Facebook and Instagram owner to pay $375 million after finding that 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 $6 million.
A trial would have exposed TikTok to public scrutiny over 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.”
Despite TikTok’s assurances that users in that mode should not see mature themes, accounts set up by state investigators were quickly served videos about suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, alcohol, and sex, according to the filing.
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