Ofcom Targets TikTok Over Child Safety

UK regulator Ofcom has started an investigation to determine whether TikTok is meeting its obligations under the country’s Online Safety Act to protect children from harmful digital content. The probe will assess whether the ByteDance-owned platform has implemented effective age assurance systems to determine whether a user is underage and prevent children from encountering harmful material online.

Ofcom’s Age Assurance report, published today, suggested that some age inference models, including those used by TikTok, may have failed to correctly identify a significant proportion of children, potentially exposing them to harmful content. If compliance failures are identified, the watchdog could impose fines of up to £18 million or 10% of the company’s global revenue, whichever is greater. In serious cases, it can also order third parties, including payment providers, advertising services or internet service providers, to withdraw services or block access to the platform in the UK.

A TikTok spokesperson said that the platform strictly enforces age-appropriate experiences through expert-informed platform rules and advanced age inference technologies, in line with major industry peers, adding that they are confident they meet their Online Safety Act obligations and will work with Ofcom to demonstrate this. The probe follows initial findings published by Ofcom in May, which revealed TikTok was the service most frequently cited by children as a source of harmful content. More than half of underage users who recalled seeing harmful content identified TikTok as the source, ahead of YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook.

At the time, the regulator found personalised, algorithm-driven content feeds were a key route through which children encountered harmful material online. It added that TikTok was particularly concerning as it was one of the platforms that had not committed to any significant changes in response to its specific demands. Last month, the UK government laid out plans to impose a sweeping ban on social media access for under-16 users, alongside restrictions on gaming and live-streaming platforms.