TikTok will pay Alabama at least $100 million and introduce a broad set of teen safety measures under a settlement reached shortly before the social media company was scheduled to face the state in court.
Alabama filed its lawsuit against TikTok in 2025, alleging that the platform was damaging the mental health and well-being of young people.
The state argued that TikTok’s “addictive properties,” including an algorithm that delivers highly personalized content based on users’ interests, posed risks to children. The lawsuit also alleged that TikTok knew about those risks.
Under the agreement, TikTok will make several changes for teenagers in Alabama. One of those changes will give teens the ability to choose a feed that is not personalized to their interests.
TikTok will also remove cosmetic procedure filters for teen users, impose a two-hour daily usage limit and block access between midnight and 6 a.m. Teens in Alabama will receive a “productive pause” prompt after 15 minutes of uninterrupted use, followed by additional reminders at 60 and 90 minutes.
Beyond the platform changes, TikTok will provide Alabama with $100 million in restitution and remediation. The money is expected to support youth mental health services and other programs. Alabama could receive as much as $183.8 million more if enough other states reach qualifying settlements with TikTok within a specified period.
The teen protections in the Alabama settlement are broadly similar to measures Meta agreed to this summer as part of an agreement resolving comparable claims brought by nearly every state, including Alabama. Meta had urged TikTok and YouTube, its other major competitor, to adopt similar standards, but TikTok had not publicly responded.
Katherine Robertson, chief counsel in the Alabama attorney general’s office and the Republican nominee to become the state’s next attorney general, recognized the similarities to the Meta agreement. Speaking to The Associated Press on Friday, she said: “There’s been a war on childhood coming from a million different directions.”
“We recognize that parents and youth are fighting a battle against a bunch of different platforms,” Robertson said. “They’re manipulating kids to get addicted to their product, essentially.”
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The agreement also calls for stronger, easier-to-use parental controls, more rigorous age-verification steps and enhanced content-moderation procedures. Teen accounts will be private by default.
A spokesperson for the TikTok USDS Joint Venture said in a statement Friday that TikTok’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. This builds on our commitment and core objective to continually enhance our robust safety tools to protect teens.”
Alabama would have become the first state to present its claims against TikTok to a jury. The trial had been scheduled to start Monday.
TikTok has resolved several similar lawsuits brought by individuals before they reached trial, including a high-profile social media addiction case in Los Angeles earlier this year. In that case, a jury found that YouTube and Meta designed their platforms to hook young users without adequately considering their well-being.
TikTok also agreed in August to pay $400 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice. The 2024 case accused the company of violating federal children’s privacy laws.
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Associated Press writer Kim Chandler contributed to this report from Montgomery, Ala.
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