An Alabama jury is set to hear claims that TikTok and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, designed the platform to be addictive for young users and misled consumers about its safety. It is the first lawsuit against TikTok to reach trial in the broader wave of litigation examining social media’s effects on teenagers’ well-being.
The trial is scheduled to begin Monday in Montgomery state court and is expected to continue for two to three weeks. The proceedings could offer an uncommon look inside TikTok, which has settled earlier cases chosen for trial and fought to keep details about its operations from public view.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, filed the state’s lawsuit last year.
At least 27 other states, along with Washington, DC, have filed similar lawsuits.
TikTok has maintained that teen safety was a central consideration in designing its platform. The company has also argued that Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act protects online platforms from liability for user-generated content.
Representatives of the Alabama attorney general’s office and TikTok did not respond to requests for comment on the trial. TikTok’s US operations were transferred this year to an entity led by US investors that is 20% owned by ByteDance.
Alabama alleges that TikTok’s endless video feed makes it the most addictive social media platform and that its recommendation algorithm steers young users toward increasingly extreme material involving violence and self-harm. The state says the platform contributed to a teen mental health crisis and caused emergency room visits for self-harm in Alabama to “skyrocket.”
The lawsuit also accuses TikTok of falsely stating that it restricts young users’ access to sexual and violent content. According to the state, those claims helped the app secure safety ratings for teens in Google, Apple and Microsoft app stores. Alabama further alleges that TikTok misled users about the Chinese government’s access to data belonging to US users.
Alabama is seeking penalties and other forms of relief.
Redacted documents, sealed filings
TikTok’s settlements in key cases, along with its efforts to seal or extensively redact court records, have kept much of the evidence about the privately held company’s operations from the public.
Beyond the state lawsuits, TikTok is facing thousands of claims from individuals, school districts and municipalities alleging that the platform has harmed young users’ mental health.
Meta Platforms META.O, Snap Inc SNAP.N and Alphabet’s GOOGL.O YouTube are also defendants in many of those cases.
TikTok had previously settled every case selected for trial against it, including lawsuits brought by five young people and a Kentucky school district.
Alabama’s complaint says TikTok asks users to report their ages but allows them to bypass those questions by watching videos without creating an account. The state says TikTok can still collect information about those viewers’ viewing habits.
The lawsuit argues that without effective age restrictions, features such as “Kids Mode,” which is intended to curate content for younger users, are essentially useless.
The state also alleges that TikTok places children in so-called “filter bubbles,” repeatedly recommending more intense material on topics that hold their attention, including violent or otherwise harmful content.
Last month, Meta agreed to a sweeping $17.1 billion settlement with 47 states, Washington, DC, and US territories.
Meta did not admit wrongdoing. Under the agreement, the company agreed to change how teens access Instagram and Facebook, while $5 billion of the settlement was made conditional on TikTok, Snap and YouTube adopting those terms.
TikTok has not publicly commented on the deal.
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