Police experts warn that children as young as five livestream explicit content on TikTok to earn funds for popular video games like Fortnite and Roblox.
Disturbing Trends Uncovered by Specialists
The UK Online CSEA Covert Intelligence Team (OCCIT) highlights how predators use TikTok’s virtual gifting system to pay children for such acts. These gifts convert into real cash, encouraging behaviors like performing handstands in skirts.
Specialists express alarm over the platform allowing self-generated child sexual abuse material and self-harm content to be created and monetized. The OCCIT report states that TikTok “doesn’t just enable online sexual abuse. It currently promotes it.”
Predators, often operating in large groups exceeding 10,000 members, target children linked to gaming platforms such as Fortnite and Roblox. They exchange in-game currency for content that escalates to the most explicit sexual acts during livestreams. Offenders record and redistribute these videos.
Serious Risks to Young Victims
This activity exposes children to blackmail, extortion, and extreme abuse. OCCIT has identified hundreds of UK-based TikTok accounts focused on sexualizing children, marking the app as a preferred platform for locating victims.
Parliamentary Scrutiny Intensifies
The findings come ahead of a House of Lords committee session examining a potential ban on social media for under-16s, following Australia’s model. Baroness Kidron received the OCCIT document and shared it with peers.
She described the evidence on TikTok livestreaming as deeply disturbing: “Last Monday, while the Commons was voting against the ban, I got evidence from the police about live streaming on TikTok which makes for such poor reading that my parliamentary assistant said he felt rather sick and asked if he could go home.”
Baroness Kidron called the situation “unacceptable” and criticized both the government and opposition: “Honestly, shame on the Government for implementing a three-line whip to stop risk-assessing things for child sexual abuse material and shame on the opposition for not voting for it.”
TikTok’s Response
TikTok emphasizes that child sexual abuse material is strictly prohibited. A spokesperson states: “We invest significantly in combating exploitation and staying ahead of bad actors through proactive detection technology and specialist teams, and we take deliberate design decisions that make our platform hostile to predators.”
The company notes active collaboration with law enforcement, including the National Crime Agency’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.
