TikTok has agreed to a settlement that includes a minimum payment of $100 million to the State of Alabama in a lawsuit alleging the social media platform harmed the mental health of Alabama children.
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.
In addition to the payment, TikTok must implement a host of safety features designed to protect children using its platform. The agreement resolves Alabama’s claims that TikTok designed its platform with addictive features, knowingly exposed young users to serious mental harms and intentionally misled the public about the safety of its platform, among other things.
“This is 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,” Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a release announcing the settlement. “TikTok has agreed to give parents real control over what their kids see and how much time they spend on the app. We’ve said from day one that our number one goal was to stand up for Alabamians when they are being harmed, and today, we did exactly that.”
The settlement came late Friday, just days before the trial was set to begin in a Montgomery courtroom.
The settlement requires TikTok to implement a series of safety features, including:
- A two-hour daily time limit, with parental controls that allow parents to further limit the amount of time their children spend on TikTok.
- “Productive pauses” that interrupt teen users after 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes to limit endless scrolling.
- “Nighttime access” restrictions that limit children’s access from midnight to 6 a.m., plus restrictions on messaging and push notifications overnight and during school hours.
- Robust age-assurance measures to more effectively verify the age of young users.
- Stronger content moderation provisions, including limits on the discoverability of teen accounts by adults and parental notification of suspicious interactions between teen users and adults.
- A blanket prohibition on the use of cosmetic filters by teen users.
- A default nonpersonalized feed for teen users.
- Stronger, more user-friendly parental controls.
The settlement is the latest victory in what has been a priority for Marshall’s office. Last month, Marshall announced a multistate settlement with Meta that resolved similar claims and will bring $117 million to Alabama. He previously announced a settlement with Roblox that requires stronger protections for children on the online gaming platform and secured $12 million in funding for school resource officers. Marshall also recently announced an investigation into OpenAI seeking accountability and a better understanding of the vulnerabilities that allegedly permitted its AI model to hack another American AI company unprompted.
