Investigation Reveals How TikTok Executives Ignored Internal Child-Safety Warnings
Court documents on some of the inner workings of TikTok paint a picture of a tech company repeatedly warned by its own staff about the dangers its platform posed to minors — and then ignoring many of those warnings.
According to an investigation from NPR, unsubmitted depositions from an ongoing multistate trial against TikTok, Meta, Google and Snap reveal that TikTok executives knew that underage users were circumventing its age restrictions. Internal documents also reportedly show that some minors were engaging in sexually exploitative acts using TikTok’s own platform features, including its Live video streaming tool.
The NPR report cites the deposition of Reagan Maher, who worked in safety at the company in the early 2020s, addressing the fallout from a damning 2022 Forbes story about child exploitation on the platform. Maher said she informed senior leaders at the company that kids aged 13 to 15 were accessing features meant for adults, such as monetized live video.
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A spokesperson for TikTok told CNET in an email that the information in the NPR report was “clearly cherry-picked at the behest of trial lawyers and used to inaccurately rewrite our history and mislead the public about our commitment to youth safety and how our platform works.”
TikTok also said that NPR ignored “numerous documents and resources” that would demonstrate how the story’s claims mischaracterize the platform’s features. The spokesperson stated that the company has spent significant amounts of money on safety and introduced over 50 default protections for young users, including Family Pairing tools for parents, and that it was steadfast in its “commitment to the well-being of our community.”
Child-safety reckoning on tech platforms
TikTok is one of a growing group of major tech platforms that have faced lawsuits, scrutiny from parents and financial penalties over how they regulate the safety of younger users. Others include the gaming platform Roblox, AI companies such as OpenAI, streaming video services like Google-owned YouTube and social media companies such as Meta.
Online dangers like predators, cyberbullying and inappropriate content aren’t the only risks for kids. Tech companies are also facing lawsuits for making their platforms addictive and harmful to young users. In August, Meta agreed to an $18 billion settlement over those issues in a landmark lawsuit brought on by multiple US states.
TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance — which still holds a stake in the company despite some government-mandated divestment to the US for its American operations — were sued in 2024 by the Department of Justice over violations of child privacy laws, resulting in a $400 million settlement. Last month, TikTok settled a $100 million lawsuit in Alabama and agreed to limit daily child usage in the state.
The NPR report shows not only that TikTok was made aware of these problems by its own staff. It also reveals that the company — among other alleged violations of the law — may have directly profited from the sexual exploitation of minors. Youth were reportedly rewarded with gifts online that could be converted to cash, with TikTok earning a cut of those profits.
Devastating, but predictable
Child-safety advocates told CNET that the NPR report exposes safety gaps in the way platforms such as TikTok were designed.
“These court documents are nothing short of devastating, but for those of us fighting child exploitation every day, they are tragically predictable,” said Michael Medoro, chief operating officer of Childhelp, which focuses specifically on online safety.
Medoro said that active monitoring, the elimination of safety loopholes and stronger age verification will require cooperation between tech leaders, advocates and law enforcement.
According to Shanna Marzilli, CEO of Plan USA, an advocacy group for girls that is part of Plan International, the TikTok documents confirm what young people, especially girls, have been saying for many years. “Online spaces are not safe for them,” she said.
Marzilli said that young people are clued into the idea that tech companies can’t protect them. In a research study conducted among US young people aged 10 to 19, only 14% of them trust social media companies to take sexual harassment and assault seriously.
“Voluntarily implemented parental controls and self-reported age limits are demonstrably ineffective when platforms leave these structural loopholes open,” Marzilli said.
Omar Gallaga has covered technology, digital culture and other topics for outlets including CNET, NPR, Wired, Texas Monthly, MSNBC, Consumer Reports, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic and the Austin American-Statesman, where he was a longtime tech reporter, editor and podcaster. He lives in the Texas Hill Country. See full bio
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