TikTok launches the Amber Alerts System: Notify the disappearance of minors in the feed

The Amber Alert is a disappeared minors notification system implemented in several countries since the nineties. Since then, these alerts have been distributed by media such as television, radio and posters on public roads.

These Amber alerts have reached the video platform that Bytedance develops, where they have been implemented in the FEED of Discovery ‘For you’, as Bytedance has advanced in a recently published press release, where he explained that this system “is another example of how platforms like Tiktok can play an active role to keep the communities informed”.

“Now, we are expanding these alerts to more than 170 million Americans,” said those responsible for the platform, clarifying that these alerts will appear in the feed ‘for you’ of those people who are in the area where these children have lost.

Together with an image of the minor in question at the time of his disappearance, another image generated with artificial intelligence (AI) will be shown, with the aspect that he should have today. Under both, that person’s identification data will be included, such as their name, their age, their sex, their height or their weight. Also, the color of her hair and her eyes, as well as the last date on which she has seen her alive.

This feature has been extended to users of the United States after going through a test phase in the state of Texas, where the alteras were visualized more than 20 million times and generated 2.5 million visits to the NCMEC website between August and December 2021.