North Carolina's Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday morning in a closely watched lawsuit accusing TikTok of designing its app to be addictive to children while misleading parents about the risks. The hearing, scheduled to begin between 10:30 and 11 a.m., centers on whether the state can even bring the case in North Carolina courts, let alone whether TikTok knew its platform was unsafe for kids.
A Bipartisan Case Years in the Making
North Carolina filed the bipartisan lawsuit against TikTok in 2024, according to WRAL. At the time, then-Attorney General Josh Stein led the effort, joined by attorneys general from 11 other states and Washington, D.C., accusing TikTok of harming children and teens and asserting that the company had known its platform was not safe for young users. Stein has since been elected governor, and current Attorney General Jeff Jackson took over prosecution of the case in 2025, filing briefs defending the state's authority to hold TikTok accountable under its consumer protection law, as reported by the Carolina Journal.
North Carolina and the other states allege that TikTok's content algorithm was designed to be highly addictive to young children, that the company deceived parents and the public about its safety features, and that it misrepresented the app as safe for kids overall, per the same WRAL account. Pennsylvania, one of the states involved in related litigation, has separately alleged that TikTok lied about how often adult material appeared in feeds to help the app retain its 13-plus age rating in app stores, and sued the company over allegations tied to endless scrolling and harm to children's mental health. The North Carolina lawsuit seeks unspecified financial penalties along with a court order barring TikTok from continuing what the state calls unfair or deceptive practices.
The Jurisdiction Fight at the Heart of the Case
The legal battle now before the state's highest court isn't about the underlying harm allegations directly — it's about whether North Carolina courts have any authority to hear the case at all. TikTok and its parent company ByteDance asked the North Carolina Supreme Court to reverse the Business Court's denial of their motion to dismiss, arguing that the state lacks personal jurisdiction over them. In filings this past May, TikTok warned the justices that the state's “market exploitation” jurisdictional theory would improperly expose any out-of-state business or e-commerce seller with an online presence to lawsuits in all 50 states, according to the Carolina Journal.
North Carolina has countered that it has jurisdiction over claims involving potential harm to millions of North Carolinians, per WRAL's report. That argument builds on a ruling from North Carolina Special Superior Court Judge Adam Conrad, who found in August 2025 that Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act does not shield social media companies from state claims alleging harmful product design features like infinite scroll and autoplay. Conrad concluded that collecting user data and sending push notifications to people within the state constitutes purposeful market exploitation, according to Courthouse News Service. Conrad also denied TikTok's motion to dismiss the case and ruled that the state's complaint, along with an evidentiary video central to the dispute, should remain unsealed.
North Carolina isn't alone in pressing this jurisdictional theory. In November 2025, the Nevada Supreme Court rejected similar personal jurisdiction and Section 230 immunity arguments from TikTok, ruling that the app's local user data collection and platform design supported state court jurisdiction under Nevada's consumer protection laws, according to Wilson Elser. Nevada's attorney general had filed a similar consumer protection lawsuit against TikTok in 2024, alleging intentional platform addiction.
Unsealed Video Central to the Dispute
A key piece of evidence in North Carolina's case is a compilation of unsealed internal meeting clips showing TikTok trust and safety staff acknowledging that the platform's engagement goals directly conflicted with youth mental health, and that search algorithms could surface eating disorder content to young users, according to CBS News. In the footage, TikTok employee Brett Peters discussed the company's goal of keeping people on the app longer, reportedly saying TikTok wanted users to never leave the app. Nicholas Chng, who worked at TikTok on risk detection before leaving in 2024, said the platform's design encouraged some unhealthy content, and other current and former employees have raised internal concerns about the app's algorithm harming users' mental health, per WRAL.
Attorney General Jackson has said the video supports the state's allegations that TikTok knew about and covered up safety risks. A TikTok spokesperson called the video misleading, saying it distorted an open internal conversation the company was having about making the platform safer. The company has pointed to steps it has since taken, including adding default privacy settings, disabling late-night notifications, rolling out youth safety and parental-control features, and introducing a guided meditation feature intended to reduce teen scrolling.
Meta's $17 Billion Settlement Looms Over the Case
The hearing comes just weeks after Meta agreed to a $17 billion multistate settlement to resolve lawsuits alleging it engineered Facebook and Instagram to addict minors — the largest Big Tech consumer protection settlement in U.S. history, according to the District of Columbia's Office of the Attorney General. Meta promised sweeping mandatory child safety upgrades across its platforms as part of the deal.
North Carolina is set to receive up to $646 million from that settlement over the next 10 years, money Attorney General Jackson has recommended directing toward youth mental health programs, after-school care, and school crisis helplines, per the North Carolina Department of Justice. The Meta agreement landed just weeks before the state Supreme Court heard arguments in the TikTok case, giving North Carolina officials a fresh precedent to point to as they argue the state has both the legal authority and the financial stakes to keep pursuing platforms over alleged harm to kids.
State Lawmakers Push Parallel Restrictions
Litigation isn't the only front in North Carolina's effort to rein in social media's reach into children's lives. The General Assembly advanced House Bill 301 in June, a measure that would ban children under 14 from creating accounts on addictive social media platforms and require parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds, targeting platforms that rely on infinite scrolling, autoplay, or notifications that can't be switched off, according to the Carolina Journal.
Meanwhile, state survey data offers a mixed picture of youth mental health trends. Results from the 2025 North Carolina Youth Risk Behavior Survey, presented in August, showed that 30% of high school students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness — down from a pandemic peak of 43% in 2021 but still elevated, according to WUNC. The same survey found high schoolers reporting slightly reduced social media usage compared to 2023.
TikTok's fight in North Carolina also unfolds against a broader national backdrop of legal pressure on the company. In January 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld federal legislation in TikTok v. Garland, rejecting First Amendment challenges to a law requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok or face a nationwide operational ban, following Congress's passage of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act in 2024. For now, TikTok and ByteDance are fighting to stop the North Carolina case from proceeding in state court at all, with Wednesday's arguments before the justices marking the next step in that effort.
