NC Supreme Court weighs whether state can pursue TikTok lawsuit

Millions of North Carolinians routinely download and use TikTok for entertainment, news and advertising. But its popularity in the state doesn’t mean that ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, should be tried here, attorneys for the social media giant argued Wednesday before the North Carolina Supreme Court.

The case stems from an October 2024 lawsuit (opens in a new tab) filed by then-Attorney General Josh Stein in which a bipartisan group of attorneys general sued ByteDance for designing the app to addict young kids with its features and deceiving parents that it had safety guidelines in place to protect kids. Attorney General Jeff Jackson is now pursuing the case against TikTok.

Wednesday’s hearing focused less on the allegations of harm and more on jurisdiction.

TikTok attorney Jon Hacker argued that North Carolina courts don’t have jurisdiction over TikTok and ByteDance in this matter because the product’s design features were not “purposefully directed” toward the state of North Carolina.

“TikTok did not design the challenged features in North Carolina or tailor them in any way for North Carolina users,” Hacker said. “TikTok likewise did not make the allegedly deceptive statements in the state of North Carolina, or target them specifically to anyone in North Carolina.”

Hacker told the high court that the claims made by North Carolina’s attorney general relate to its nationwide business model.

But a North Carolina business court has already disagreed with that argument. In an August 2025 ruling, Superior Court Judge Adam Conrad rejected a motion by TikTok to dismiss the case.

“Unlike a general web search, TikTok use is neither a one-and-done transaction nor a one-sided inquiry from a user,” wrote Conrad in that opinion. “ByteDance regularly sends communications into North Carolina (through push notifications to users’ phones, for example) and retrieves data from in-state users (including personal data that ByteDance monetizes via targeted third-party advertisements). What results is a two-way exchange of information across state borders on a massive scale.”

Hacker told the Supreme Cour the fact that an international platform is accessible to users in a given state isn’t enough to give that state jurisdiction over the platform. North Carolina should be suing in California where TikTok has headquarters and where the design or conduct allegedly occurred, Hacker told the justices.