Social media app TikTok will now have to pay millions of dollars to the state of Alabama.
This settlement comes after the state sued TikTok’s parent company, alleging harms to young users.
The lawsuit was set to go to trial this week before reaching a settlement last Friday.
Alabama will receive a minimum of $100 million. The amount could go up to $300 million if certain conditions are met.
The settlement also requires new safety features like a two-hour time limit for minors 13 to 17 years old.
“This is kind of a first step down a path where it appears that there’s going to be more changes implemented through the litigation process,” says Evans Bailey, attorney at Rushton Stakely in Alabama.
In the initial complaint, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall claimed the company designed its app to be addictive. The lawsuit also alleges the platform exposed children to serious mental harms.
“Some of this is very difficult to legislate,” Bailey said. “If you were to pass a law that put these restrictions on TikTok, it might very well be subject to a first amendment challenge.”
Another safety measure targets filters. If it adds a cosmetic procedure, it will be disabled for teens.
Here are all of the safety features:
- 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” that restricts children’s access from 12 a.m. 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 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 non-personalized feed for teen users
- Stronger, more user-friendly parental controls
“This is the first suit to settle out of what appears to be many,” Bailey said. “So you read the settlement document and it has that anticipation and benchmark for what will happen if there are other settlements.”
There’s a similar lawsuit unfolding in Florida, as Attorney General James Uthmeier also sued TikTok back in June. He says the platform violates state law.
“I think TikTok, as I understand it, is challenging the constitutionality of that statute,” said Florida Rep. Nathan Boyles. “So I would expect potentially a different set of outcomes here in Florida.”
Boyles is a parent of two children.
He says social media should be able to evolve and that parents should monitor their kids’ online activities.
He says some safety measures are beyond a parent’s control.
“I’m optimistic that the right people are in leadership to help, but make sure that we’re keeping our kids safe,” Boyles said.
Alabama had another recent victory, as last month, AG Marshall announced a multi-state settlement with Meta that is expected to bring $117 million to the state.
