Social Media Update: TikTok and Alabama Reach Settlement on Teen Safety Claims
According to Diana Novak Jones of Insurance Journal, the state of Alabama officially reached a settlement with TikTok and ByteDance (parent company) just days prior to trial, requiring TikTok “to impose new usage limits and enhanced age-verification measures for users in the state, resolving claims that the platform endangered children and misled consumers about its safety.”
Here are some details from the lawsuit and subsequent settlement:
“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.”
“Alabama’s lawsuit claimed TikTok asks users to self-report their ages, but it also allows users to evade its questions about their age by viewing videos without creating an account, which still allows the company to collect data on their viewing habits. The lack of an effective age restriction makes things like ‘Kids Mode,’ which curates content for young users, entirely useless, according to the lawsuit.”
“The state also claimed the platform traps kids in so-called ‘filter bubbles,’ feeding them increasingly intense content on subjects that capture their attention, including violent or harmful material.”
Now, TikTok must “implement changes for teenagers in Alabama including a two-hour daily time limit, pauses after 15 minutes of use and stricter age checks.”
“TikTok will pay Alabama at least $100 million under the settlement, but the state’s payout could grow to $300 million if 40 other attorneys general sign on to similar agreements with the company within a specified timeframe, according to the settlement.”
This settlement is the first with a state, and there are at least 27 additional states and Washington, D.C. that have also brought similar lawsuits. Furthermore, as previously reported, “in addition to the states’ cases, TikTok faces thousands of lawsuits by individuals, school districts and municipalities over its alleged impact on young users’ mental health. Meta Platforms, Snap Inc and Alphabet’s YouTube are also defendants in many of these cases.”
We will be watching these cases closely.
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