A TikTok The safeguarding environment that millions of parents rely on is failing to prevent children from seeing explicit videos showing rape and torture, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The app’s ‘restricted mode’ is intended to filter out harmful material, but loopholes allow companies to make money by bombarding underage users with disturbing AI-generated clips.
The videos exploit loopholes in TikTok’s rules, which ban “realistic violence” and “sexually suggestive content” but allow animated images to slip through.
One start-up company, director AIhas produced video creation tools that allow users to create more than 15,000 sinister clips, each algorithmically designed to be addictive.
A video on one of the 50 accounts, which has been viewed more than 120 million times, shows a cartoon doctor gouging out a patient’s face with a drill during surgery to turn him into a patient. Kim Kardashian look alike.
Another shows a tattooed burglar exacting revenge on a wealthy woman who once mocked his poverty and ransacked her mansion.
There are images of his muscular hand clamping around her wrist as she lets out a blood-curdling scream.
He is then seen laughing manically as he walks away with the zipper of his shorts open and carrying a bag full of stolen money and gold bullion, leaving her battered, bruised and crying.
A TikTok safety setting trusted by millions of parents is failing to prevent children from seeing graphic videos depicting rape and torture, The Mail on Sunday can reveal
The videos exploit loopholes in TikTok’s rules, which ban “realistic violence” and “sexually suggestive content” but allow animated images to slip through
Last night, Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott said after seeing the footage: ‘We would never tolerate children being exposed to this content offline, so the same must apply online.
“Social media companies should not have access to our children until they can prove their platforms are safe. Labor needs to stop dragging its feet and get kids off social media.’
For our research, we created a TikTok account in ‘restricted mode’, with the age set to 14 years old, and watched hours of content about children’s television programs.
We restrict profanity, firearms and weapons, sexually suggestive content, drugs, violent or threatening images, and mature or complex content.
Despite this, the account’s main feed was bombarded with a significant amount of content within each of these categories.
The company behind the videos is run by former Snapchat director Ben Chiang. Mr Chiang – a married father of one – has openly called the production “AI slop”. Earlier this year, he boasted on LinkedIn that the videos have been viewed more than 10 billion times.
Those who want to continue watching will have to pay for access through the company’s companion app, Reel AI, which is rated on Google Play as suitable for ages seven and up.
It offers up to ten free episodes of each miniseries, before charging viewers per episode. One purchased episode shows a mother placing her baby in a bathtub and using a hairdryer to electrocute him.
Online safety expert and psychotherapist Dr Catherine Knibbs said: ‘This is about creating wealth at the expense of children.
“You have to be a genuinely detached person not to see the damage this carefully curated content can cause.”
One video shows a tattooed burglar exacting revenge on a wealthy woman who once mocked his poverty and ransacked her mansion
Mr Chiang co-founded Director AI last year with two former colleagues. When asked who owned the TikTok accounts that created the videos, Mr Chiang, who sits on the board of a youth homelessness charity, told the MoS: ‘It is incorrect to characterize Director AI itself as producing and publishing all videos created with our tools.
“Director AI provides AI video production tools that creators use to create content. Those creators make their own editorial decisions and choose where to publish their work, including on third-party platforms like TikTok. They may choose to promote Reel AI, but we do not own their accounts and do not pay them specifically to promote the app.”
Mr Chiang added: ‘Some content created with our tools may contain fictional, adult themes, but TikTok and other platforms will determine eligibility and filter within their restricted mode based on their own systems and policies.’
After contacting the MoS, the age rating for Reel AI has been changed ahead of the next app update.
A TikTok spokesperson highlighted the platform’s community guidelines ban content that promotes or glorifies violence and sexual abuse or exploitation.
They said that all videos violating the norms have been removed. After contacting the MoSTikTok has removed the videos mentioned in this report, but all accounts they created are still active and continue to display other similarly inappropriate material.
A spokesperson for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said broadcast regulator Ofcom has the government’s “full support” in ensuring tech companies comply with the Online Safety Act.
“These companies have a legal duty to remove illegal content and protect children from harmful material,” they said.
Meta has buried the risks to child safety
Instagram owner Meta has failed to make public damning internal findings that expose ‘serious issues’ putting children at risk on the service, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
A December 2022 report – buried in court documents provided as part of a deposition by Sir Nick Clegg in the case brought by 29 US states against Meta – contained “risky findings” about child safety.
It showed that Instagram had approximately 1.4 million accounts itself on one sampled day flagged as potential risks to child safety were recommended to teenagers.
On the other hand, 924,000 potential “offenders” were shown the story of at least one disconnected teen.
These were unverified adult accounts that had received at least one child sexual exploitation violation in the last 90 days, or had been flagged by Meta’s automated system as potentially at risk for inappropriate interactions with children.
Sir Nick, Meta’s president of global affairs at the time, said he had forwarded the audit of Instagram’s youth safeguards to Meta’s legal team but did not know what action had been taken.
