TikTok Settles Alabama Teen-Safety Case for at Least $100 Million
TikTok has agreed to pay Alabama at least $100 million and to introduce a series of new safety features for teenagers in the state, settling a youth-safety lawsuit just before the case was scheduled to go to trial.
Alabama sued the social media company in 2025, alleging that the platform harmed young people’s mental well-being. The state argued that TikTok’s “addictive properties” — particularly an algorithm that serves highly specific content tailored to users’ interests — were harmful to children and that the company was aware of those harms.
The Alabama Attorney General’s Office said the state would receive a minimum of $100 million and could collect as much as $300 million if certain conditions are met.
Under the settlement, TikTok must make several platform-level changes for teen users in Alabama. Teens will be able to choose a non-personalized content feed. The platform will also block cosmetic procedure filters for teens, impose a two-hour daily time limit, and prohibit nighttime use between midnight and 6 a.m. Young users in Alabama will be prompted to take a “productive pause” after 15 minutes of continuous use, and again at 60 and 90 minutes.
“This is a great day for Alabama parents,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement. “Tonight, they can rest easier knowing real protections are in place to shield their children from the dangers of social media addiction. 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.”
In addition to the platform changes, TikTok will pay Alabama $100 million in restitution and remediation, which is likely to fund youth mental health services and other programs. If enough other states reach qualifying settlements with TikTok within a specific time frame, Alabama could receive up to an additional $183.8 million.
The changes in the Alabama agreement roughly mirror those Meta agreed to make this summer, when it settled similar claims filed by nearly every state, including Alabama. Meta had urged TikTok and its chief competitor, YouTube, to adopt similar standards, but TikTok had not publicly responded.
Katherine Robertson, chief counsel in the Alabama Attorney General’s Office and the Republican nominee to be the state’s next attorney general, acknowledged the similarities with the Meta agreement. “There’s been a war on childhood coming from a million different directions,” she told The Associated Press on Friday.
“We recognize that parents and youth are fighting a battle against a bunch of different platforms,” Robertson said. “They’re manipulating kids to get addicted to their product, essentially.”
The settlement also calls for more robust and user-friendly parental controls, stronger age verification measures, and stronger content moderation protocols. Teen accounts will be private by default.
A spokesperson for the TikTok USDS Joint Venture — the group of domestic investors tasked with operating the China-based platform in the U.S. — said Friday that 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. This builds on our commitment and core objective to continually enhance our robust safety tools to protect teens.”
Alabama would have been the first state to present its claims against TikTok to a jury. The trial had been scheduled to begin Monday. By settling, TikTok avoids a high-profile trial that could have aired internal documents and testimony, while Alabama secures immediate changes and funding without the uncertainty of a jury verdict.
TikTok has settled several similar lawsuits brought by individuals before trial, most notably in the landmark social media addiction trial in Los Angeles earlier this year. In that case, the jury found that YouTube and Meta designed their platforms to hook young users without concern for their well-being.
TikTok also reached a $400 million settlement with the Justice Department in August, ending a 2024 lawsuit that alleged the company violated federal children’s privacy laws.
The Alabama deal adds to growing legal and political pressure on social media companies over youth safety. If other states secure comparable agreements, the Alabama settlement could help set a de facto standard for teen protections — and give regulators a clearer template for enforcement beyond one state’s borders.