TikTok to Pay $400M in Children's Privacy Case

TikTok and its parent company ByteDance have reached a $400 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice. The dispute concerned allegations that the company had violated federal laws protecting children's online privacy.

The lawsuit was filed back in 2024 under the Biden administration. The Justice Department argued that TikTok had violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA): the platform allowed millions of users under the age of 13 to use the service while collecting their personal data without the required parental consent.

Beyond the payment, the settlement calls for measures to protect young users: tighter age controls, additional restrictions, and expanded tools for parents to monitor their children's activity and data. Neither TikTok nor ByteDance, however, is required to admit wrongdoing. The deal was first reported by Axios.

Not the First Time

Notably, this is not the company's first clash with regulators over the very same issue. Back in 2019, its predecessor Musical.ly paid $5.7 million to settle similar COPPA claims and promised to prevent children under 13 from registering. Yet, according to the prosecution, TikTok never learned to identify and remove minors. The company continued to store and use their data, including for targeted advertising, even after its own employees raised the alarm. What's more, TikTok is alleged to have changed its registration rules in ways that made it only harder to determine a user's age.

New Safety Questions

The settlement came at a moment when scrutiny of the platform was already growing. Just days before the deal, Bloomberg reported that TikTok had deliberately switched off an algorithmic safety mechanism for roughly 10% of its American users as part of an experiment. That mechanism was meant to reduce the chance of someone being flooded with harmful or potentially dangerous content.

The news drew the ire of lawmakers. Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut — a rare example of bipartisan agreement — sent a letter to TikTok CEO Shou Chew and the head of the company's U.S. business, Adam Presser, with questions about the reasons behind the decision.

Source: TechCrunch