“Home of the pedophile”. Spanish research denounces TikTok

A spanish foundation Damn.es, which fights disinformation, today released an investigation that denounces the social network TikTok as “the home of the pedophile”, for not preventing and even promoting sexual content with minors.

According to Damned.es, who said he sent the content of the investigation to the Spanish Public Ministry, “in 35 days of data collection and analysis” at TikTok, a foundation team “located more than 200 profiles that published more than 1,000 videos and images of child sexual abuse content” that add up to 48 million views.

It was exactly 1,182 contents of “explicit child sexual abuse and public in TikTok in 35 days”, which were not “hidden in a nook”, but whose disclosure and promotion “is based on the very tools” of the social network, said Damn.es.

“It’s TikTok’s own search engine and its recommended algorithms that lead to explicit material of child sexual abuse” and in the directs that make teenagers – and that allegedly the platform does not allow – “it’s common minors to be harassed”, with “the coins and gifts of the platform” to be used in a business that benefits TikTok himself, according to Damn.es.

The investigation identified 91 directs in 17 countries where users asked minors to have certain behaviors in exchange for TikTok money and prizes.

The Madita.es team also identified 780 accounts that use TikTok to capture buyers of child sexual abuse material.

According to the foundation, besides being evident “the failure of TikTok protection systems”, the platform also does not act “even when it is warned directly”.

Damn.es revealed that TikTok only removed 10% of the contents that the foundation denounced and blocked 26%.

Research has identified networks in Spain and other countries in Europe, Latin America and Asia.

This is Damn's third investigation. It is aimed at what claims to be the inaction of TikTok in the face of pedophilia content.