TikTok lawsuit overview:
- Who: A Texas judge granted partial summary judgment against TikTok Inc., ByteDance Inc. and several related entities in a Texas consumer protection case.
- Why: The judge found TikTok misrepresented its content moderation practices and “restricted mode” feature to parents, violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
- Where: The TikTok lawsuit ruling was issued in Texas state court.
A Texas state court judge has ruled that TikTok violated state consumer protection law by misleading parents about how the platform moderates content seen by children, a significant setback for the company in an ongoing TikTok lawsuit.
Travis County District Judge Cory Liu granted partial summary judgment in favor of the State of Texas, finding that TikTok, ByteDance and several related entities twice violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
The Sept. 10 order resolves two of the state’s claims in the TikTok lawsuit, with other issues in the case still pending.
Texas filed the TikTok lawsuit at the beginning of 2025, accusing the company of falsely claiming its platform was safe for children despite knowing the app exposed them to explicit and graphic material involving drugs, nudity, alcohol and profanity, as reported by Law360.
The order found that although TikTok publicly promised to remove videos that violated its community guidelines, the company’s internal content moderation policies actually instructed that such content — including material with “positive representations of drug use and gambling” and depictions of minors “behaving in a sexually suggestive manner” — be allowed to remain on the platform, merely designated “hard to find” rather than “do not allow.”
TikTok’s content moderation failed to filter harmful content, judge finds
The order also addressed TikTok’s “restricted mode” feature, marketed as a tool to shield young users from content such as profanity, sexually suggestive material and drug references.
According to the order, TikTok employees internally recognized “for years” that restricted mode “was not functioning in the way it was marketed and exposed users to a high volume of content that should have been filtered out.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office called the ruling a “first-of-its-kind victory,” saying Texas is “the first state in the nation to hold TikTok liable for lying to parents about the safety of its platform,” Law360 reports.
This is a liability ruling, not a final verdict or settlement — the case remains ongoing, and the ruling addressed only two of the state’s claims.
In another recent case, TikTok has agreed to pay $400 million to resolve a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit alleging the social media platform illegally collected personal information from children under 13.
Do you think TikTok’s content moderation practices put children at risk? Let us know in the comments.
Texas is represented by John C. Hernandez, Madeline Fogel and Adam Holtz of the Office of the Attorney General of Texas’ Consumer Protection Division, Brian W. Barnes, Adam P. Laxalt, Megan M. Wold and DeLisa L. Ragsdale of Cooper & Kirk PLLC, and Anthony G. Buzbee and Christopher J. Leavitt of the Buzbee Law Firm.
The TikTok lawsuit is State of Texas v. TikTok Inc., et al., Case No. D-1-GN-25-003118, in the 250th Judicial District Court of Travis County, Texas.
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