TikTok settles with Alabama ahead of trial over teen mental health harms

By Diana Novak Jones

Sept 25 (Reuters) - Alabama said on Friday it had reached a settlement with TikTok and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, days before a scheduled trial over allegations that they made the platform addictive and misled consumers about its safety, marking TikTok's first settlement with a state as it battles similar claims nationwide.

Under the settlement, Alabama will receive a minimum of $100 million, due to the state within 45 days, with the potential to receive up to $300 million if certain conditions are met, the Alabama Attorney General's office said.

TikTok also agreed to make changes to its platform, including implementing a two-hour daily time limit, pauses after 15 minutes of use, and improved checks on users' ages.

Representatives for TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The trial, which had been scheduled to kick off Monday in Montgomery state court and was expected to last two to three weeks, was expected to provide a rare look inside TikTok, which has settled prior cases selected for trial and sought to keep details of its operations from public view.

Alabama’s lawsuit was filed last year by state Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican. At least 27 other states and Washington, D.C., have also sued.

TikTok has said it designed its platform with teen safety as a key priority and argued that Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act shields online platforms from liability over user-generated content.

Alabama had claimed TikTok's endless stream of videos makes it the most addictive social media platform and that its algorithm pushes young users toward increasingly intense content about violence and self-harm, contributing to a teen mental health crisis and causing the number of emergency room visits for self-harm in the state to "skyrocket."

The lawsuit accused TikTok of falsely claiming it limits access to sexual and violent content for young users in order to have its app rated safe for teens in app stores run by Google, Apple and Microsoft and of misleading users about the Chinese government's access to US users' data.

The state sought penalties and other relief.