Judge grants Texas partial summary judgment on two practices
AUSTIN, Texas — A Texas state judge ruled Thursday that TikTok violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by misleading users and parents about how it handled content that violated its guidelines and about the protection offered by Restricted Mode.
Judge Cory Liu of the 250th Judicial District Court in Travis County granted the state's motion for partial summary judgment in Cause No. D-1-GN-25-003118. The September 10 order establishes liability on the two challenged practices without resolving the relief or penalties TikTok may ultimately face.
Reuters reported the ruling at 7:12 p.m. Pacific Thursday. TikTok did not immediately respond to its request for comment outside regular business hours. That absence is not an admission, and the company can still contest the requested remedies and use whatever post-judgment or appellate procedures are available.
The first finding concerns promises to remove prohibited content
Texas argued that TikTok publicly said it would remove videos falling within prohibited categories—including certain depictions involving drugs, nudity, alcohol, injuries and profanity—while internally allowing some guideline-violating material to remain available under a lower-visibility category described as hard to find.
The court agreed that the mismatch violated Texas consumer-protection law. The ruling is about TikTok's representations and practices; it does not establish that every video in a listed category reached a minor or that every content-moderation decision violated the law.
The distinction matters. A platform can reduce distribution without removing a post, but it cannot market a removal promise and quietly substitute a different practice without risking a deceptive-trade-practices claim.
Restricted Mode did not perform as TikTok marketed it
The second finding concerns Restricted Mode, a setting marketed to limit exposure to mature or inappropriate material. The court agreed with Texas that the feature did not work as advertised and left minors exposed to a high volume of material the setting was supposed to filter.
That finding does not mean the court declared every TikTok account unsafe or ordered the application removed from phones. It establishes that the state's evidence was sufficient to decide the deceptive-marketing issue without a trial.
Parents should not treat a platform setting as a guarantee that all unsuitable material will be blocked. Device-level controls, direct supervision and age-appropriate discussions can reduce risk, but no single technical setting makes an open social platform completely predictable.
Penalties and relief have not been decided
The two-page order does not impose a monetary penalty, shut down TikTok or ban Texans from using the service. The Texas attorney general says the case will proceed to a trial on relief and penalties that is expected to be set next month.
Attorney General Ken Paxton called the decision the first in the nation to hold TikTok liable for harming children. That broader characterization belongs to the attorney general. The narrower confirmed legal result is that a Texas court found two deceptive child-safety representations violated the state's consumer-protection statute.
The order also does not calculate how many minors encountered particular material, award damages to individual families or decide every allegation Texas has made against TikTok and its ByteDance affiliates. Those limits should remain clear as the case moves into its remedy phase.
The Texas ruling is separate from California's new laws
California enacted a separate child-online-safety package earlier Thursday. One measure restricts covered platforms from giving addictive feeds and autoplay to users under 16, while another establishes risk reviews and independent audits for companion chatbots.
Those California statutes are not the legal basis for the Texas judgment, and their key requirements begin in 2027. The developments nevertheless show states using different tools—consumer-protection lawsuits in Texas and prospective platform-design rules in California—to scrutinize how technology companies serve younger users.
California readers should not infer that Thursday's Texas order creates an immediate California ban, penalty or new parental-control requirement. Its direct legal force comes from a Texas trial court applying Texas law in a case brought by the Texas attorney general.
What is confirmed—and what is not
Confirmed: Judge Liu granted Texas partial summary judgment; the order finds consumer-law violations involving content-removal representations and Restricted Mode; and relief and penalties remain for later proceedings.
Not established: a final penalty amount, a TikTok shutdown or ban, individual damages for every family, or a finding that every minor user saw prohibited content. TikTok had not provided an immediate public response in the reviewed reporting.
The featured image is an authentic June 2024 photograph by Coolcaesar of the office building at 5800 Bristol Parkway in Culver City, California, which housed TikTok's headquarters at the time. Wikimedia Commons publishes it under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. It does not show Judge Liu, the Texas court, minors, Restricted Mode, content moderation or evidence in the case, and its use does not imply the photographer's endorsement.
Sources and further reading
250th District Court: September 10 partial-summary-judgment order ↗
Texas Attorney General: announcement and procedural next steps ↗
Reuters: Texas judge rules TikTok misled users about child-safety feature ↗
Wikimedia Commons: authentic TikTok headquarters photograph and CC BY 4.0 license ↗