They find a thousand videos of child sexual abuse on TikTok and accuse the social network of being “an unfiltered tool for a pedophile”

The Ministry of Youth and Children reported this Monday that the Spanish Government is considering paralyze the platform’s services in Spain, if it seems “opportune”.

This Ministry sent a letter to the State Attorney General’s Office before “the lack of effective mechanisms on the social network to prevent the dissemination of said material”.

Maldita.es is a Spanish non-profit foundation that works to protect the information integrity and accountability of platforms.

In its third investigation into TikTok’s alleged “inaction” regarding child sexual abuse material, denounces that his search engine is “an unfiltered tool for a pedophile” because, together with the recommendation algorithm, it allows these contents to be found, to such an extent that the researchers actually saw the rape of a baby live.

In total, researchers claim to have detected more than 20,000 profiles of potential pedophiles, of which more than 7,000 operate in Spanish. The research documents networks that reach Spain, Latin America, the rest of Europe and Southeast Asia,

Among the most aberrant content that the study found, they list 780 accounts that use the platform to attract buyers of child sexual abuse material; 91 live broadcasts of minors, in 17 countries, where users request actions, sometimes sexual, in exchange for money; and a community of over 2,000 members looking for “baby content.”

The Minister of Youth and Children, Sira Rego, requested an urgent meeting with the platform’s representatives in Spain “to learn about TikTok’s explanations, as well as the measures adopted and the immediate actions planned to guarantee the protection of children and adolescents on its platform.”

For the Ministry, the facts documented by Maldita.es “They are extremely serious and require an immediate response and coordinated by all the competent administrations, both at national and European level”.

It considers that they highlight serious deficiencies in the content detection and moderation mechanisms, as well as in the role of TikTok’s recommendation systems in its dissemination, and points out that it could constitute a violation of children’s rights by the platform itself.

The report, titled “TikTok, the home of the pedophile”, was prepared by an editorial team that navigated the platform thinking like a pedophile and trained the algorithm to recommend that content and “has entered live streams made by minors and has followed sellers of child sexual abuse material to Telegram and Zangi.”

“The result shows that the abuse is not hiding in a corner, but is supported by TikTok’s own tools. “It is TikTok’s own search engine and its recommendation algorithms that take you to explicit child sexual abuse material,” they noted.