Alabama Trial Puts TikTok’s Teen Safety Practices Under Scrutiny

An Alabama jury is set to hear the state’s claims that TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance made the platform addictive to young users and misled consumers about its safety. The trial, beginning Monday in Montgomery state court, is expected to last two to three weeks and could offer rare insight into TikTok’s internal operations. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed the lawsuit last year, and at least 27 other states and Washington, D.C., have brought similar cases.

Alabama alleges that TikTok’s endless stream of videos and recommendation algorithm can push young users toward increasingly intense content involving violence and self-harm, contributing to teen mental health problems. The state also accuses TikTok of misleading users about its ability to restrict sexual and violent content for minors and about access to U.S. user data by the Chinese government. TikTok has maintained that teen safety is a key priority and has argued that federal law protects platforms from liability related to user-generated content.

The case comes amid thousands of lawsuits filed by young people, schools and local governments against TikTok and other major social media companies over alleged harm to teenagers. Previous TikTok cases selected for trial were settled, while the company has sought to keep certain evidence and court filings sealed or heavily redacted. The Alabama case could therefore become an important public examination of the platform’s age-verification practices, content recommendations and approach to teen safety.

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