Alabama Trial Puts TikTok’s Teen Safety Claims Before a U.S. Jury for the First Time
By Diana Novak Jones
Sept 25 (Reuters) - An Alabama jury will hear the state’s claims that TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance made the platform addictive to young users and misled consumers about its safety, in the first case against the company to reach trial in the widening litigation over social media’s impact on teen wellbeing.
The trial is scheduled to begin Monday in Montgomery state court and is expected to last two to three weeks. It could offer a rare look inside TikTok, which has settled prior cases selected for trial and has fought to keep details of its operations out of public view.
Alabama’s lawsuit was filed last year by state Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican. At least 27 other states and Washington, D.C., have also sued.
TikTok has said it designed its platform with teen safety as a key priority and argued that Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act shields online platforms from liability over user-generated content.
Representatives for the Alabama attorney general’s office and TikTok did not respond to requests for comment about the trial. TikTok’s U.S. operations were transferred this year to an entity led by U.S. investors and 20% owned by ByteDance.
Alabama claims TikTok’s endless stream of videos makes it the most addictive social media platform and that its algorithm pushes young users toward increasingly intense content about violence and self-harm, contributing to a teen mental health crisis and causing emergency room visits for self-harm in the state to 'skyrocket.'
The lawsuit accuses TikTok of falsely claiming it limits access to sexual and violent content for young users so its app would be rated safe for teens in app stores run by Google, Apple and Microsoft. It also accuses the company of misleading users about the Chinese government’s access to U.S. users’ data.
The state seeks penalties and other relief.
REDACTED DOCUMENTS, SEALED FILINGS
TikTok’s decision to settle key cases and its efforts to seal or heavily redact court records have kept much of the evidence about the privately held company’s operations out of public view.
Beyond the state cases, TikTok faces thousands of lawsuits by individuals, school districts and municipalities over its alleged impact on young users’ mental health. Meta Platforms, Snap Inc. and Alphabet’s YouTube are also defendants in many of those cases.
TikTok had settled all cases selected for trial against it, including claims by five young people and a Kentucky school district.
Alabama’s lawsuit claims TikTok asks users to self-report their ages, but it also allows users to evade its age questions by viewing videos without creating an account, which still lets the company collect data on their viewing habits. The lack of an effective age restriction makes features such as 'Kids Mode,' which curates content for young users, entirely useless, according to the lawsuit.
The state also claims the platform traps kids in so-called 'filter bubbles,' feeding them increasingly intense content on subjects that capture their attention, including violent or harmful material.
The trial comes amid a broader reckoning over how social media companies design products used by minors and what responsibility they bear when those products are alleged to cause harm. Its outcome could shape settlement talks, regulatory pressure and future cases against TikTok and its peers.
Last month, Meta reached a sweeping $17.1 billion settlement with 47 states, Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories. Meta, which did not admit wrongdoing, agreed to make changes to teens’ access to Instagram and Facebook as part of the deal and conditioned $5 billion of the payout on TikTok, Snap and YouTube’s adoption of those terms. TikTok has not said anything publicly about the deal.
(Reporting by Diana Novak Jones; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Cynthia Osterman)