Spanish investigation finds over 20,000 suspected paedophile profiles on TikTok
The foundation Maldita.es reports more than 1,000 child sexual abuse videos found in 35 days of tracking. The Ministry of Youth and Children demands urgent explanations from TikTok and raises the possibility of suspending the platform.
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**.**
It also documented 91 live broadcasts by minors in 17 countries, in which viewers ask them to perform actions, sometimes sexual, in exchange for money. Spain, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and Russia are the countries that appear most often.
Maldita.es argues that the profiles act as "genuine catalogues of child sexual abuse" and that TikTok earns income from the gifts users send during those live streams. "Abuse is not hidden away in a little corner and it is not hard to find," Clara Jiménez Cruz, co-founder and chief executive of the foundation says.
Five of the 50 reported videos were removed
'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.
With 35 posts that requested images of minors the outcome was similar: two were removed, two were blocked in Spain and 91% of the accounts were still active three days later. On the last day of tracking, 136 of the 231 profiles with explicit content, 59%, were still on the network. The oldest material found dates from June and was still available more than four months later.
'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.
Urgent meeting with TikTok representatives requested
The Ministry of Youth and Childhood, headed by Sira Rego, has sent a document to the Office of the Attorney General so that it can investigate the activity of paedophiles on TikTok documented by 'Maldita' and adopt the necessary measures to protect the minors affected.
It has also requested an urgent meeting with the representatives of TikTok in Spain so that they can explain how they moderate content and what they plan to do. Rego has raised the possibility of provisionally suspending the service in the country if the authorities conclude that the platform does not protect minors, a measure that some media describe as exceptional.
A general suspension would need a sufficient legal basis and would have to pass a proportionality test. According to legal sources quoted in the press, it would also require the involvement of a judge.
'Maldita' and the law firm Cremades & Calvo-Sotelo have in turn filed a complaint with the Prosecutor's Office for Cybercrime. The foundation questions whether TikTok is complying with the European Digital Services Act, which requires platforms to act "promptly" when they become aware of illegal content and obliges the largest ones to reduce risks for minors.
TikTok asks for the investigation data
TikTok has asked 'Maldita.es' to provide all the information from its investigation into the presence of child sexual abuse content on the platform. The organisation has identified more than a thousand videos of this kind and more than 20,000 profiles that could be linked to the distribution, exchange or sale of this material.
Sources at TikTok have told Spanish media that the lack of access to the full results of the investigation makes it harder to identify and remove this content. They also say that this situation complicates the preparation of reports to pass on to the State law-enforcement agencies, with which they say they continue to cooperate.
The company believes coordinated action is needed to tackle this problem.According to its sources, those who distribute this type of material constantly change their methods toavoid being detected, so it considers collaboration between the different organisations and authorities involved to be essential.
Meanwhile, the 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.
