Alabama teenagers will soon face a sharply limited version of TikTok after Attorney General Steve Marshall secured a $100 million settlement that forces the company to strip key features from accounts used by minors. The deal landed just days before the state’s lawsuit was set for trial and gives parents new levers over time, content, and contact on the app.
Fox Business reported that Marshall’s office cast the agreement as a first of its kind push to overhaul how young users experience the platform. Within 45 days, TikTok must disable the personalized “For You” feed for children, impose two hour daily caps, set overnight curfews, and install mandatory “productive pauses” after 15 minutes of continuous use, then again at 60 and 90 minutes. Cosmetic filters for children are banned. Age checks get tougher. New rules also limit contact between teen accounts and adult accounts.
If TikTok fails to comply, the settlement carries a further $300 million penalty. That structure turns a civil case into a product redesign with real money on the line for Alabama families who say the app kept kids scrolling while downplaying risk.
Marshall filed the lawsuit in April 2025. The complaint said TikTok intentionally designed the product to keep children on the app, misled parents about safety tools, and exposed minors to harmful material. It pointed to the recommendation system pushing self harm, eating disorders, suicide, drugs, and sexually explicit content while overstating tools such as Restricted Mode and age verification.
Marshall framed the outcome in plain terms for parents.
"TikTok has agreed to give parents real control over what their kids see and how much time they spend on the app."
He tied the win to a simple public duty.
"We've said from day one that our number one goal was to stand up for Alabamians when they are being harmed, and today, we did exactly that."
The settlement avoids a full trial while locking in product changes that Alabama could not force overnight through ordinary injunction practice alone. State lawyers still must watch implementation. Investigators will need to determine whether the company truly shuts off the “For You” experience for minors, enforces the two hour ceiling, and blocks adult teen messaging as written.
While Alabama closed its case with cash and code changes, Florida is pressing a separate lawsuit that treats underage access as an ongoing statutory violation. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has accused TikTok of breaking the state’s child social media rules and putting minors at risk through weak gates and addictive design.
Just The News reported that Florida is suing under the Online Protections for Minors Act and the Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. The complaint claims the app’s 13+ rating masks easy paths to sexual content, nudity, drugs, profanity, and self harm material. It also says Restricted Mode and Family Pairing are weak and easy to bypass. The filing states TikTok is “actively deceiving Florida parents about the risks of allowing their teens to access this platform.” Uthmeier said evidence shows many kids stay on the app “for upwards of six, seven, eight or more hours a day.”
Fox News coverage of the Florida case added procedural bite. Fox News reported the suit was filed in St. Lucie County and alleges TikTok violated Florida H.B. 3 by letting children under 14 create accounts. The complaint seeks platform changes and penalties that can reach $50,000 per violation and joins action already taken by more than 25 other states. Uthmeier put the charge this way: "TikTok’s success hinges on its ability to addict children and teenagers to the platform." He added that the company "knowingly deceives parents and allows children to be exposed to harmful and inappropriate content in direct violation of Florida law." TikTok said it is evaluating the complaint, defending its minor safety record, and suspending under 14 accounts.
Breitbart reported the Florida filing arrived in St. Lucie County circuit court under the 2024 law that bars most social media for users under 14 and requires parental consent for ages 14 and 15. That statute targets addictive design features such as infinite scrolling on platforms where at least 10 percent of users under 16 average more than two hours a day. Uthmeier said undercover work found kids on TikTok up to eight hours daily and described exposure to pornographic and self harm content. He declared, "Time is up for TikTok," and called it "one of the most egregious social media applications when it comes to the dangers that are there at the fingertips of kids."
Alabama’s $100 million pact does not stand alone. In August, TikTok reached a $400 million settlement with the Justice Department over allegations that it violated children’s privacy laws and failed to protect young users. That federal money tracked the same core fight over data, age, and design that state attorneys general now litigate in open court and at the bargaining table.
TikTok has also faced years of bipartisan scrutiny in Washington. Earlier this year the company avoided a nationwide U.S. ban after Chinese parent ByteDance Ltd. agreed to divest control of American operations, as described in the reporting. Fox News Digital sought comment from TikTok on the Alabama outcome. No reply was quoted in that coverage.
The practical effect for Alabama minors is a different product. No personalized “For You” page. Hard daily time limits. Overnight curfews. Forced breaks that interrupt long sessions. No cosmetic filters aimed at children. Stronger age verification. Tighter walls between teens and adults. Parents gain tools Marshall said they lacked when the case began.
Those terms matter because the lawsuit said the old tools did not work as advertised. Restricted Mode and age gates were described as overstated. The feed, the company was told in court papers, kept feeding harmful themes while the clock ran. The settlement answers that claim with product mandates rather than another round of voluntary “safety” labels.
Compliance will be the next fight. State monitors will need to confirm whether the 45 day clock produces working code, not press releases. They will need to test whether two hour limits hold, whether pauses actually stop continuous play, and whether adult teen interaction limits block the contacts the agreement targets. Noncompliance triggers the extra $300 million hit, which gives Alabama leverage after the cameras leave.
Alabama chose a cash and redesign settlement timed to the brink of trial. Florida chose a live enforcement case under a 2024 minors law, with per violation penalties and a demand that under 14 accounts stay off the platform. Both tracks treat addictive design and parental deception as legal problems, not lifestyle debates.
For conservative readers who have watched platforms shrug at state child safety rules, the Alabama terms show a state AG can still extract concrete product changes. The Florida suit shows another AG willing to test statutory bans and consent rules in county court. Together they keep pressure on an app that has drawn state and federal claims over privacy, harmful feeds, and underage use.
Authorities have not publicly released a full docket number or trial calendar date for the Alabama case beyond the April 2025 filing and the note that settlement came just days before trial. They have not published a line by line technical checklist for every code change. Investigators still must determine how TikTok will prove age at scale and how it will police the new adult teen barriers once the 45 day window closes.
Parents in Alabama will soon see whether the promised controls appear inside the app they already know. Parents in Florida will watch whether a county court case can force underage accounts offline and punish deceptive safety claims. Either way, the company faces a thicker stack of state demands than the old voluntary settings ever imposed.
When states force real limits on how an app reaches kids, the law stops being a suggestion and starts being a boundary parents can finally use.
