We had a very productive meeting with TikTok on June 12th regarding our requests for them to increase safety and security for their users. Here’s some of what we heard from them:
• They affirmed that safeguarding minors is of major importance to them
• They have a large Trust and Safety Team which reviews reported content
• They work with family and child-safety organization to improve their app
including the National Centre on Missing and Exploited Children 2X/month
• They have a dedicated Law Enforcement Response Team if they encounter material that needs to be reported to police
We also thanked them for the changes they have made, specifically:
• The Family Pairing mode, which makes it easier for parents to help children manage their experience with TikTok
• They have disabled Direct Messaging for users under 16. This is to counteract possible predatory or exploitative comments.
We continue to ask them to:
• Default the accounts of minors to private, so they and their parents/guardians can choose the settings that are best for them.
• To add a “sexual exploitation” reporting category
Continue to add resources to their content review and moderation efforts, both human and machine based.
• To change the rating to 17+ in the app stores (often 12+ is based on laws around data collection, not the content in the app)
Please send us your stories of finding disturbing content on Tik Tok; help us continue to urge TikTok to improve the safety of their app.
Have you sent TikTok an email or tweet about their need to improve their app safety yet? If not, you can do so here.