TikTok has agreed to pay Alabama a minimum of $100 million — with the potential for payments reaching up to $300 million — and to introduce a package of teen safety measures to settle a child-safety lawsuit brought by the state, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced on Friday. The settlement was reached days before a jury trial was scheduled to begin.
Under the terms of the agreement, the $100 million minimum payment is due within 45 days. Alabama could receive up to an additional $183.8 million if enough other states reach qualifying settlements with TikTok within a specified time frame, according to Attorney General Marshall's office. The safety provisions include two-hour daily time limits for teenage users, a block on platform access between midnight and 6am, restrictions during school hours, and blocks on notifications during the nighttime period. Teen accounts will be set to private by default, and the platform will offer stronger age verification measures, more robust parental controls, and an option for teens to select a non-personalised content feed.
Attorney General Marshall described the deal as a 'first-in-the-nation settlement' with a state in the broad litigation over social media's effect on teen wellbeing. 'This is a great day for Alabama parents,' Marshall said [Source: The Hill]. 'TikTok has agreed to give parents real control over what their kids see and how much time they spend on the app.' A spokesperson for the TikTok USDS Joint Venture said the platform'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' [Source: CBS News].
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.' TikTok's US operations were transferred this year to a venture led by American investors.
The settlement was modelled on Meta's recent agreement with US states. In August, Meta agreed to pay $18 billion to settle a sweeping lawsuit brought by US states accusing it of designing Instagram and Facebook to addict children — a deal that brought $117 million to Alabama alone. TikTok also reached a $400 million settlement with the US Department of Justice in August, ending a 2024 lawsuit alleging the company violated federal children's privacy laws. A Los Angeles jury separately 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.
Sources: Bloomberg, The Guardian, RTE, The Hill, CBS News, Associated Press, Alabama Attorney General's Office