TikTok agrees to teen limits in US settlement

TikTok has agreed to pay Alabama at least $100 million and implement new safety measures for teen users in a settlement over child safety on the platform. The agreement, reached days before a scheduled trial, requires TikTok to impose a two-hour daily time limit, pauses after 15 minutes of use, and stricter age checks for users in Alabama.

The 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, as reported by The Jakarta Post and DW News. A spokesperson for TikTok's US operations stated that the agreement "builds on our commitment and core objective to continually enhance our robust safety tools to protect teens."

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall had sued TikTok last year, and at least 27 other states and Washington DC have brought similar lawsuits. TikTok also faces thousands of lawsuits by individuals, school districts, and municipalities over its impact on teen mental health, with Meta Platforms, Snap Inc, and Alphabet's YouTube also defendants in many of these cases, according to DW News and DW English.

Brief written by urgent.news from Punch, The Jakarta Post, Deutsche Welle Science, DW News, DW English (Top Stories) — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.