cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/12410858
An investigation by the foundation Maldita.es has detected more than 20,000 profiles of potential paedophiles on TikTok, more than 7,000 of them in Spanish, and over 1,000 child sexual abuse videos that together add up to around 48 million views. The tracking lasted 35 days, between 11 September and 15 October.
On Monday, after the results became known, the Ministry of Youth and Childhood asked the Prosecutor’s Office to take action and left open the possibility of suspending the platform in Spain.
The report, entitled “TikTok: the paedophile’s home”, is the third investigation by Maldita.es into child sexual abuse on the platform. The team analysed profiles, comments and live broadcasts, and created its own accounts to see how the algorithm responded.
It identified 231 profiles that posted 1,183 explicit items of content, 780 accounts that use the network to attract buyers and more than 10,000 that ask for exchanges of sexual images in the comments. When all the categories set out in the report are added together, the foundation says, it has found some 26,000 accounts of potential paedophiles.
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‘Maldita’ reported a sample of 50 videos with explicit material to the platform, which had amassed 8.9 million views. TikTok removed five of them, that’s 10%, and blocked another 13 only for users in Spain.
Seventy-two hours later, 40% of the accounts that had posted them were still active. The most viewed video in the sample, with more than four million plays, was restricted in Spain, but its account remained open with more than 3,000 followers.
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‘Maldita’ says that it contacted TikTok before publishing and did not receive a reply. There was no public response from the platform at the time this article was written. In May, another investigation by the foundation stated that TikTok had agreed with ‘Maldita’ in 99% of its complaints, but had kept the accounts active.
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Meanwhile, the [Spanish] Ministry of Youth and Childhood has sent the Office of the Attorney General a request to investigate the possible cases of child sexual abuse detected on TikTok. The department has also raised the possibility of shutting down the platform’s services in Spain if circumstances make it necessary.
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