TikTok’s algorithm not only allows children to access pornography and highly sexualized content – it actively pushes them toward it, according to a report released Friday.
Accounts created by researchers posing as 13-year-olds quickly received recommendations for sexually explicit search suggestions — despite having safety settings for minors switched on — according to Global Witness, a nonprofit that does investigative research.
Some of the search bar suggestions on those children’s accounts included terms like “hardcore pawn clips” and “very very rude skimpy outfits” – leading to content of women simulating masturbation, flashing their underwear or exposing their breasts, the report found.
At its most extreme, the search suggestions led to pornographic films of penetrative sex, according to Global Witness.
The group found that pornographic content had been edited into innocent videos to skirt around TikTok’s content moderation efforts.
“For one of the users, there was pornographic content just two clicks away after logging into the app – one click in the search bar and then one click on the suggested search,” Global Witness stated in its report.
“Our point isn’t just that TikTok shows pornographic content to minor[s]. It is that TikTok’s search algorithms actively push minors towards pornographic content.”
Global Witness said it immediately reported the sexual content and search suggestions to TikTok.
“As soon as we were made aware of these claims, we took immediate action to investigate them, remove content that violated our policies and launch improvements to our search suggestion feature,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement to The Post.
The spokesperson added that TikTok removes nine out of 10 videos that violate its community guidelines — including bans on nudity and sex — before they are ever viewed.
The new report comes after President Trump last week signed an executive order approving the transfer of TikTok’s US operations to a consortium of American-based investors.
Henry Peck, campaign strategy lead for digital threats at Global Witness, told The Post that his group’s findings came as “a huge shock.”
Global Witness typically doesn’t investigate children’s digital safety, instead focusing on how big tech impacts discussions around human rights, democracy and climate change.
But its researchers said they stumbled upon the explicit content suggestions while conducting other research in April.
They contacted TikTok, which responded that it had taken immediate action – but Global Witness said its researchers once again found sexual content recommendations when it repeated the same experiment in July and August.
Sexualized search recommendations continued to pop up on the fake children’s accounts, which were made in the UK on clean phones with no search history, Global Witness said.
The video app is especially popular among teens. About six in 10 of them say they use TikTok daily – including 16% who report being on the app almost constantly, according to Pew Research Center.
TikTok users themselves have been complaining about highly sexualized search suggestions, according to the new report.
Several users posted screenshots of troublesome search suggestions, with captions like “can someone explain to me what is up w my search recs pls,” the report said.
Others commented on those posts, writing “I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE,” “how tf do you get rid of it like I haven’t even searched for it” and “same what’s wrong with this app.”
“TikTok claims to have guardrails in place to make children and young people safe on its platform, yet we’ve discovered that moments after creating an account, they serve kids pornographic content,” Peck told The Post.
“Now it’s time for regulators to step in,” he added.
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