TikTok and its parent company ByteDance have reached a $400 million settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to resolve allegations related to violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The case stems from a lawsuit filed by the department in 2024, when it accused the platform of allowing millions of children under 13 to use the service and collecting their personal information without the required parental consent.
The settlement does not include an admission by TikTok or ByteDance of wrongdoing. However, it establishes measures intended to strengthen protections for younger users, including stricter age-related verification or control tools, additional safeguards for children, and greater ability for parents to monitor their children’s activity and personal information on the platform.
A Renewed Case Since the Musical.ly Matter
The new settlement comes after years of federal scrutiny of the company’s handling of underage users. In 2019, the company agreed to pay $5.7 million to settle allegations that Musical.ly, which preceded TikTok, had violated COPPA. Under that agreement, the company pledged to take steps to prevent children under 13 from creating accounts.
However, the 2024 lawsuit alleged that TikTok continued to face difficulties identifying and removing underage users. The allegations also said that the platform retained and used information belonging to children, including data that could be used for targeted advertising, even after employees raised concerns about the large number of younger users.
The lawsuit also included an allegation that TikTok changed certain aspects of its registration policies in a way that made it more difficult to determine whether a user met the required age to join the service. These points remain allegations made in the case, not judicially established findings against the company.
What Changes in Practice?
The settlement means that protecting children will not be limited to blocking violating accounts after they are created; instead, TikTok will be required to strengthen controls related to age, data, and parental supervision. For parents, the announced measures focus on providing greater oversight of children’s activity and the information the platform retains about them. For regulators, the case underscores the continued focus on the ability of widely used platforms to detect underage users and prevent their data from being used without appropriate consent.
Broader Scrutiny of User Safety
The agreement came as TikTok faced additional questions about its user-safety policies. Days before the settlement, Bloomberg reported that the company had intentionally disabled, as part of an experiment, a preventive algorithmic measure for approximately 10% of users in the United States. The measure was designed to reduce the likelihood that users would be exposed to excessively harmful or distressing content.
The report drew criticism from U.S. lawmakers. Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut sent a letter to Shou Chew, TikTok’s chief executive, and Adam Presser, the chief executive of the company’s U.S. operations, seeking information about the decision.