TikTok agrees to $400 million settlement over child-privacy violations
TikTok and its parent ByteDance will pay $400 million to resolve a U.S. lawsuit accusing the platform of breaching child-privacy rules.
A federal lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice in 2024 claimed TikTok and ByteDance harvested large amounts of data from children younger than 13, breaching the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The settlement, one of the largest of its kind, obliges TikTok to pay $300 million now and an additional $100 million once the FTC’s 2019 consent decree is terminated. As part of the accord, the platform’s predecessor Musical.ly must also pay a $5.7 million penalty and implement parental-consent safeguards.
Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said protections for children have improved since the case began. The settlement follows earlier COPPA penalties against Google’s YouTube and Epic Games, and comes as Meta faces separate state lawsuits over similar violations. TikTok did not comment on the agreement.
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Why it matters
The settlement underscores growing regulatory scrutiny of how social apps handle minors' data.
How this story developed
- Aug 8 Federal Trial Targets Meta Over Alleged Child Harm and $1.4 Trillion Claim
- Aug 11 The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied Meta and TikTok’s appeal, allowing the lawsuits to proceed.
- Aug 13 Jury selection started in Oakland for the multistate trial.
- Aug 14 A Ninth Circuit court ruled that Section 230 does not shield Meta from the design‑related allegations.
- Aug 17 A jury of eight was empaneled in Oakland federal court to hear the case.
- Aug 18 Opening arguments will begin Tuesday in a federal case accusing Meta of harming children through its platforms.
- Aug 18 Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers denied Meta's motion to dismiss the case.
- Aug 18 Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers allowed whistleblower testimony and key internal documents at the start of the trial.
- Aug 19 Former Meta safety researcher Arturo Béjar testified that he raised safety concerns with Mark Zuckerberg more than one hundred times.
- Aug 20 An eight‑person advisory jury will deliver findings to Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
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