TikTok Addiction Settlement Provides $100M Payout and Restrictions on Teen Use

Agreement forces TikTok to implement a broad set of protections for minors, including new limits on screen time, nighttime access, personalized content, age verification and the ways young users can interact with other accounts.

Alabama has reached a settlement with TikTok requiring the company to pay $100 million for consumer restitution and remediation, while also imposing new restrictions aimed at protecting children and teens who use the social media platform.

The stipulated final judgment and consent decree (PDF) was entered on September 25 in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, Alabama, resolving claims brought by the state against TikTok Inc., TikTok LLC, TikTok U.S. Data Security Inc., TikTok Pte. Ltd., TikTok Ltd., ByteDance Inc. and ByteDance Ltd.

Social Media Addiction Risks

Companies like TikTok, Meta, Google and others face thousands of social media addiction lawsuits alleging the platforms were intentionally designed with features that encourage children and teenagers to become compulsive users.

Many of these lawsuits claim social media companies collect large amounts of information about young users and rely on sophisticated algorithms to deliver personalized content intended to sustain engagement. Families point to features such as infinite scrolling, autoplay and frequent notifications, which they say encourage children to repeatedly return to the platforms and spend increasing amounts of time online.

According to the claims, prolonged social media use has contributed to a range of mental health and behavioral problems among children and teens, including depression, anxiety, eating disorders, poor academic performance, suicidal thoughts and self-harm.

Similar allegations have also been raised by school districts, state governments and local municipalities, which claim widespread social media addiction among young people has increased demands on schools, mental health resources and other public services.

Those concerns have also led to large-scale enforcement actions by state officials. Earlier this year, Meta reached a proposed $17 billion settlement with a bipartisan group of 51 attorneys general over allegations that Facebook and Instagram used features that promoted compulsive behavior among children and teens while the company downplayed or misrepresented the potential risks.

TikTok Settlement Agreement

Under the settlement, TikTok must initially provide $116.2 million for consumer restitution and remediation. The agreement also establishes a contingent pool of up to $183.8 million that could become payable if additional state attorneys general enter qualifying agreements with the company.

Combined, the initial and contingent payments could reach $300 million, although the additional funds depend on the terms of future agreements with other states.

The settlement also requires TikTok to make substantial changes to how teen accounts operate. Teen users will be subject to a default two-hour daily screen-time limit that resets at midnight, while parents using the platform’s supervision system can set their own limits and review usage.

TikTok must also introduce “productive pauses” after 60 and 90 minutes of cumulative daily use, followed by additional notices for every 15 minutes of continuous use.

The agreement imposes a default Night Access Mode from midnight to 6 a.m. and requires most teen push notifications to be disabled between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., as well as during designated school hours. Parents may modify certain restrictions and schedule additional periods when their teens cannot access the platform.

TikTok must also adopt new age-assurance measures. Within six months, the company must maintain or implement methods for detecting suspected users under 13 and placing identified accounts into its enforcement process. Within one year, TikTok must develop, train and begin testing a prototype model designed to predict whether users are under 13.

For users ages 13 through 17, TikTok must establish an age-estimation system and provide an appeals process for users incorrectly classified as minors. The company must also take steps to prevent users from circumventing age checks, including limiting repeated verification attempts.

Parents will receive additional controls allowing them to review screen time, restrict searches for certain videos, hashtags, users and sounds, and exclude specified keywords or hashtags from supported feeds. TikTok must also maintain protections intended to limit potentially harmful interactions between teens and adults, including private teen accounts by default, discoverability restrictions and reporting and blocking tools.

Within nine months, teen users must also be given the option to make a non-personalized feed their default home feed. New teen users must be prompted to choose between personalized and non-personalized feeds rather than having TikTok make that selection for them.

Social Media Addiction Lawsuits

TikTok settlements like the one made with the state of Alabama are being reached at the same time as social media companies nationwide are being hit with substantial jury verdicts in a series of addiction lawsuits.

In March, a California jury awarded $6 million to a woman who claimed she developed anxiety and depression after becoming addicted to social media as a minor. Days earlier, a New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay the state $375 million over claims involving teen social media addiction and related mental health problems.

Although these early settlements and verdicts will not determine the outcome of other pending cases, they may help attorneys evaluate how juries will respond to allegations, assess potential damages and determine whether broader settlements can be reached.

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