TikTok and ByteDance have agreed to pay $400mn to settle a US Justice Department case alleging they let millions of under-13s use the platform and collected their data without parental consent. Ireland’s regulator fined the company €345mn over children’s accounts in 2023.
TikTok and ByteDance will pay $400mn to end the US government’s children’s privacy case. Three hundred million is due immediately, with the rest payable once a consent decree against TikTok’s predecessor Musical.ly is vacated.
Nobody has been found liable. The Justice Department’s own announcement states that the claims it resolved are allegations only and that there has been no determination of liability.
What was alleged is specific. The 2024 complaint said millions of children under 13 used the platform, that their information was kept and used for targeted advertising, and that registration flows were changed in ways that obscured age checks.
The reason the number is large is that it is the second time. Musical.ly paid $5.7mn in 2019 and undertook to stop children under 13 creating accounts, an undertaking the government says was not kept.
