By Rajwa Quasim
ByteDance owned TikTok is set to face its first trial in the U.S. over allegations that the company designed its platform in a way that addicted young users and contributed to their mental health problems.
The case was filed by Alabama and is scheduled to begin on Monday in a state court in Montgomery and is expected to last two to three weeks. The lawsuit was filed by state attorney general Steve Marshall last year. The state claims that TikTok’s endless stream of videos and recommendation algorithm encourages excessive use, particularly among teenagers.
The case could also provide a rare look into the company’s internal operations, which has been kept out of public by TikTok.
READ: TikTok agrees to $400 million settlement in major children’s privacy case (August 22, 2026)
The state also raised concerns on potential security concerns as the Chinese government could access data of U.S. users. The state is seeking financial penalties and other legal remedies. The lawsuit says that the company did not follow what it claimed as enough “safety measure,” which contributed to a wider youth mental health crisis and an increase in emergency room visits for self-harm in the state.
TikTok argued that teenage safety is a priority in the design and section 230 of the communications decency act protects online platforms from liability for content that users post.
The case filed in Alabama court is part of a wider legal battle in the U.S. over the effect of social media on young users. At least 27 other states and Washington D.C. have also filed lawsuit against TikTok, along with multiple school counties and parents.
In previous cases, TikTok has agreed to settle three lawsuits brought by young people who accuse social media companies of designing their platforms to be addictive and harming their mental health. The terms of the settlements are confidential and subject to the finalization of written settlement agreements with TikTok. This case was selected as bellwether among 3,000+ consolidated lawsuits in California court. Ruling of bellwether gives an idea of how the rest of the cases may conclude.
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A Kentucky school district secured roughly $27 million in settlements from social media platforms and other social media companies over similar claims, TikTok being part of it. But the settlements did not require the companies to admit liability and include no agreements to make changes to the social media platforms.
Breathitt is among roughly 1,200 school districts suing the social media companies over allegations that they caused a mental health crisis among students that resulted in increasing dropouts to deal with the mental health consequences.
The school district has been seeking over $60 million to cover the costs of counteracting social media’s impact on students
Earlier this month, a Texas court ruled that TikTok violated state consumer protection law by giving users an inaccurate impression of how its child-safety safeguards worked. Texas argued that TikTok told users it would remove content that violated its Community Guidelines. However, the company internally classified some content as “hard to find” rather than banning it and labeling it “do not allow.”
The trial is expected to be scheduled for next month.
