Court documents are shedding new light on reported child safety issues at TikTok. According to depositions detailed by NPR, multiple employees repeatedly flagged serious flaws in the company's handling of child safety, including child exploitation, but said they were "frustrated" with TikTok's response. The records are drawn from ongoing lawsuits the company faces over its handling of child safety. TikTok is the target of hundreds of such lawsuits, though it has settled some cases, including those claiming the app was designed to be addictive.
According to statements made by company employees, TikTok executives were notified that teens were regularly appearing in live streams on the app, raising concerns about potential grooming and exploitation. After Forbes published an article in 2022 about teens stripping in TikTok Live videos, in which viewers could pay for in-app "gifts," a safety employee said the company knew about such content. Employees also warned that the company was making "significant revenue" from live video content involving children, even though TikTok's rules barred minors from appearing in them.
Other employees flagged shortcomings in the company's parental controls and age-based safety features. A "loophole" allowed minors to bypass age checks if they signed up with a Facebook, Instagram or Google account, and a "hidden link" let teens remove themselves from the "family pairing" feature. TikTok didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, and the company didn't provide an on-the-record statement to NPR.
NPR also cites a report written by Eric Han, TikTok's former head of safety, about risks posed by algorithmic "rabbit holes" that repeatedly recommend harmful content, such as posts related to suicide. The report, which seemingly dates back to 2020, said there was a "real contagion effect" with such content. TikTok has also faced scrutiny over a 2021 feature meant to help users avoid "repetitive patterns" of content, which the company reportedly withheld from millions of users in an apparent test. A teen who was part of that experiment died by suicide after seeing repeated content about self-harm, according to documents surfaced in a lawsuit brought by New York's attorney general.
Source: Engadget · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing