TikTok has agreed to pay $400 million to settle a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit filed in 2024 alleging the social video platform violated federal children's privacy laws.

Under the settlement announced Friday, TikTok will pay $300 million immediately, with the remaining $100 million due after an order vacates an earlier consent decree against its predecessor company, Musical.ly, the DOJ said. That decree grew out of a 2019 settlement in which the company paid $5.7 million over similar allegations that it collected personal information from children under 13 without parental consent.

"This settlement is a major victory for American children and parents," said U.S. Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. in a statement. "The Department's priority is ensuring that children are protected online and that companies entrusted with their personal information meet their legal obligations. This resolution secures a substantial recovery while reinforcing the protections that families expect and deserve."

The resolution follows sweeping changes at TikTok since the DOJ filed suit in 2024, most notably in the ownership structure of its U.S. arm. In January, the social video platform company signed agreements with major investors including Oracle, Silver Lake, and the Emirati investment firm MGX to form the new TikTok U.S. joint venture. The restructuring grew out of a 2024 U.S. law requiring ByteDance to divest the platform or face a nationwide ban.

Representatives for TikTok did not immediately respond to a message for comment Friday.

The lawsuit centered on allegations that TikTok and its China-based parent company ByteDance violated a federal law requiring kid-oriented apps and websites to obtain parental consent before collecting the personal information of children under 13. That law is enforced primarily by the Federal Trade Commission, which referred the case to the Justice Department, and its largest penalty to date was the $275 million Epic Games agreed to pay the FTC in 2022 over its Fortnite game — a figure TikTok's settlement would surpass. The complaint also alleged that the companies failed to honor requests from parents who wanted their children's accounts deleted, and chose not to delete accounts even when the firms knew they belonged to kids under 13.

The settlement comes as social media companies face an avalanche of lawsuits over children's safety and privacy, and a growing number of countries are banning young kids and teens from social media apps. Australia began enforcing a nationwide minimum age of 16 for social media platforms in December 2025. Instagram's parent company, Meta Platforms, is currently on trial in federal court in Oakland, California, over allegations that it violated the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), along with various state statutes.

Source: Fortune