Court documents about some of the inner workings of TikTok paint a picture of a tech company that is repeatedly warned by its own employees about the dangers of its platform to minors — and then ignores many of those warnings.
According to an investigation by NPR, unfiled depositions from an ongoing multistate lawsuit against TikTok, Meta, Google and Snap show that TikTok executives knew that underage users were bypassing its age restrictions. Internal documents also show that some minors have engaged in sexually exploitative acts using TikTok’s own platform features, including its live video streaming tool.
The NPR report quoted the The deposition of Reagan Maher, who worked in security at the company in the early 2020s, addressed the fallout from a damning 2022 Forbes story about child exploitation on the platform. Maher said she informed senior leaders at the company that children ages 13 to 15 could access adult features, such as monetized live video.
A spokesperson for TikTok told CNET in an email that the information in the NPR report was “clearly cherry-picked at the request of trial lawyers and used to inaccurately rewrite our history and mislead the public about our commitment to youth safety and how our platform works.”
TikTok also said that NPR ignored “numerous documents and resources” that show how the story’s claims mischaracterize the platform’s features. The spokesperson said the company has spent significant amounts of money on security and introduced over 50 standard protections for young users, including Family Pairing tools for parents, and that it has been steadfast in its “commitment to the well-being of our community.”
Child safety bill on tech platforms
TikTok is one of a growing group of major tech platforms that have faced lawsuits, parental scrutiny and financial penalties as they regulate the safety of younger users. Others include the gaming platform Roblox, AI companies like OpenAI, streaming video services like Google-owned YouTube and social media companies like Meta.
Online dangers such as predators, cyberbullying and inappropriate content are not the only risks for children. Tech companies are also facing lawsuits for making their platforms addictive and harmful to young users. In August, Meta agreed to an $18 billion settlement over these issues in a landmark lawsuit brought by several US states.
TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance — which still holds a stake in the company despite several government-mandated sales to the United States of its American operations — were sued by the Justice Department in 2024 for violating children’s privacy laws, resulting in a $400 million settlement. Last month, TikTok settled a $100 million lawsuit in Alabama and agreed to limit daily use by children in the state.
The NPR report not only shows that TikTok was made aware of these problems by its own staff. It also shows that the company – among other alleged violations of the law – would have directly benefited from the sexual exploitation of minors. The youth were reportedly rewarded with gifts online that could be converted into cash, with TikTok earning a cut of those profits.
Devastating, but predictable
Child safety advocates told CNET that the NPR report highlighted security gaps in the way platforms like TikTok were designed.
“These court documents are nothing short of devastating, but for those of us who fight against child exploitation every day, they are tragically predictable,” said Michael Medoro, Chief Operating Officer of Childhelp, which focuses specifically on online safety.
Medoro said active surveillance, eliminating security loopholes and stronger age verification require collaboration between tech leaders, advocates and law enforcement.
According to Shanna Marzilli, CEO of Plan USA, an advocacy group for girls that is part of Plan International, the TikTok documents confirm what young people, especially girls, have been saying for years. “Online places are not safe for them,” she said.
Marzilli said young people have bought into the idea that tech companies can’t protect them. In a research study among US youth aged 10 to 19, only 14% of them trust social media companies to take sexual harassment and assault seriously.
“Voluntarily implemented parental controls and self-reporting age limits are demonstrably ineffective when platforms leave these structural loopholes open,” said Marzilli.