TikTok Agrees to $100 Million Alabama Child-Safety Settlement

TikTok and parent company ByteDance reached a $100 million settlement with Alabama, resolving the state’s lawsuit alleging that the platform was engineered to promote compulsive use among minors while misrepresenting its safety controls. Alabama alleged that TikTok’s recommendation algorithm led young users toward increasingly harmful material, including content involving self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, drugs, violence, and sexual exploitation; the state also alleged weak age controls enabled collection of underage users’ data.

The agreement requires TikTok to make child-safety changes within 45 days, including disabling personalized “For You” feeds for children, implementing daily-use limits and overnight curfews, and strengthening age-verification controls. TikTok could face up to $300 million in additional penalties for noncompliance. The settlement ends what had been expected to be Alabama’s first trial against the company over youth harm, while broader state and federal scrutiny of TikTok’s child safety and privacy practices continues.