By Rajwa Quasim
A Texas court ruled Thursday that TikTok violated state consumer protection law by giving users an inaccurate impression of how its child-safety safeguards worked.
The lawsuit dates to January 2025, when Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton accused the social media giant of marketing its app as a safe space for minors while failing to follow through on those promises.
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.” Judge Cory Liu agreed that this violated Texas consumer protection law.
The judge also found that TikTok’s “Restricted Mode” did not work as the company had promised. The feature allowed minors to view some content that TikTok said it would block or filter.
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Paxton’s office said the proceedings will proceed to trial, where potential financial penalties and other measures will be determined. The trial is expected to be scheduled for next month.
Paxton welcomed Thursday’s ruling, saying it makes Texas the first state to hold TikTok accountable for undermining minor safety.
The ruling comes as thousands of families, school districts and other plaintiffs have accused social media companies of using features such as personalized recommendations, endless scrolling and notifications to encourage excessive use.
TikTok previously agreed to settle three separate U.S. lawsuits brought by young users who claimed the app was intentionally designed to be addictive and harmed their mental health. The terms of those settlements have not been made public.
In August, Meta agreed to pay as much as $18 billion to resolve a similar lawsuit in the U.S. while introducing tighter restrictions on teenagers’ use of Facebook and Instagram.
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California has roughly 3,300 consolidated lawsuits against social media companies including Meta, TikTok and Snapchat. The cases have been centralized as multidistrict litigation, bringing together thousands of similar lawsuits to promote consistency and avoid duplicative work, such as evidence collection. The litigation is being heard in California before Judge Gonzalez Rogers.
Previously, a New Mexico court ordered Meta to pay $567 million to a fund aimed at addressing mental health harms among teenagers who use its platforms. The company said it would appeal the ruling.
Another teenage plaintiff dropped a case against Meta in July without going to trial, while other defendants reached settlements.
The companies have often invoked Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 to defend against lawsuits alleging they failed to warn users about the addictive nature of their services. The law generally protects online platforms from liability for content posted by users.