TikTok requests access to investigation into child sexual abuse

O TikTok urged the Spanish Foundation today. es to share the investigation in which it identifies thousands of content of child sexual abuse, because “the refusal” prevents the platform from “locating and eliminating” the content.

Sources of the platform stressed that, because they do not have the information published by the Foundation, reporting to the Spanish authorities is hampered, which ensure that they continue to “support the competent authorities”.

Damn.es detected in TikTok over a thousand videos of child sexual abuse, which exceed 48 million views, and over 20,000 profiles of potential pedophiles who exchange or sell this type of material, of which more than 7,000 operate in Spanish.

The foundation also identified 780 accounts that use the platform to raise buyers of child sexual abuse material, 91 live broadcasts of minors in 17 countries, in which users request actions, sometimes of a sexual nature, in exchange for money, and a community with over 2,000 members looking for content with babies.

The Spanish foundation Damn.es, which fights disinformation, revealed that TikTok only removed 10% of the contents that the foundation denounced and blocked 26%.

“ Keeping TikTok as a safe space for our community is our top priority. Sexually explicit content involving minors [CSAM] is categorically prohibited, and we implement advanced detection technologies and compliance mechanisms to identify and eliminate this content from our platform in a blunt way,” the sources cited by the Spanish news agency EFE state.

The company considers “vital” that there is a “collective response”, as they explain the same sources, “the malicious agents are constantly improving their methods to circumvent detection”.

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.

For its part, the Ministry of Youth and Childhood asked the Public Prosecutor to “act” in the face of alleged cases of child sexual abuse on the platform and proposed to suspend TikTok’s services in Spain, if it is considered “opportune”.

Sources of the department headed by Sira Rego reported that the ministry sent a letter to the Public Prosecutor after the information published by the Damn. es and “the lack of effective mechanisms in the social network to prevent the dissemination of this type of material”.

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.