WEBVTT - TikTok Part 4: Are The Kids All Right? 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:02.599 The thing that's funny about TikTok is that it even 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:06.040 makes it twenty two year old feel old. Here's Ameliana Via. 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:10.039 When I first downloaded the app, I posted a video 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:14.160 of me like dancing in the club, like set some music. Um, 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:16.759 and then I get a comment like five minutes after 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:19.480 I posted. In the comment it's like yes, like teach 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:21.239 me your skills or something. And I go to the 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:23.479 page and it's like a little girl like she looks 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:28.200 like eleven years old. Um. Yeah, And I was like, okay, 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:30.920 so this is really like a kid's app. Like people 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:34.120 aren't lying when they say that, and looking at an 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:37.520 eleven year old dancing in her bedroom on TikTok felt wrong. 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:40.199 I mean I didn't feel creepy. It felt creepy like 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:41.879 looking at their stuff because I feel like I'm not 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:44.199 the audience for it, and it's a little weird that 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:48.120 it's so public. Amiliano isn't the only young person to 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:51.200 tell me that he felt protective of kids on the app. Yeah. 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:54.720 I would not recommend like a young child a me 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.720 app unless they have like parents supervision. That's Katie Pheeney. 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:02.040 We heard from her in a previous episode. She's eighteen 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:05.160 years old and spends about four hours a day on TikTok. 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:08.840 But her message to the kids play outside more. I 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.920 feel like when I was ten years old or nine 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:14.640 years old, I was playing outside, and I feel like 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:19.560 now like these kids are cursing and they're doing super 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:23.720 like sexy dances, and I just I can't watch it. 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:27.680 I'm like, oh no, please, don't do that. Go right 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:31.399 a bike. And there's some corners of the app that 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.680 a number of teens say are worth worrying about. Here's 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:37.960 nineteen year old Mila Dilatore. There was a lot of 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:42.400 weird stuff about like eating disorders. There was there was 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:45.120 a bunch of really stupid, like disgusting trends on TikTok 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:48.840 of like really underage kids. It's just like, it's such 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:53.000 a scary thing, I think for kids, like fourteen year 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:55.800 olds to be on TikTok because there's such disgusting stuff 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:58.080 on there. So it's not just a bunch of old 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:01.200 people that are concerned about TikTok. Even the kids are 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:04.200 asking are the kids all right? Because for all the 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:08.560 funny memes, dance routines and silly lip sinking videos, there's 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.240 a dark side to TikTok, and it starts with a 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:13.720 young children that have been on the app from its 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:17.959 very start. You're listening to Foundering. I'm your host, Shelley 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:22.359 Banjo a word of morning. This episode contains some very 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:27.200 sad and disturbing information, including stories about the sexual exploitation 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:30.000 of miners. And I did want to mention that I 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.600 pressed TikTok at least five times to interview someone in 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:37.760 charge of child safety. The company declined to make anyone available, 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:40.359 but they did give us a number of comments, which 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:44.880 will include throughout this episode, starting with the statement TikTok 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:48.680 is deeply committed to the safety of miners. So up 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.680 until now, we've been telling you the story of TikTok's 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:56.120 explosive growth and how it took Silicon Valley and Hollywood 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:00.560 by surprise. TikTok was able to achieve this success by 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:04.200 taking a number of shortcuts. One of them was letting kids, 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:08.640 even kids under thirteen, roam free on their app. That 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:12.520 led to a firestorm among parents, police departments, and lawmakers 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:16.160 that hurt TikTok's reputation just as it was hitting it 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:19.000 big in the US. We'll tell you more after a 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:36.160 quick Break. TikTok's problems with young children actually began years 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:39.880 before TikTok even existed. It goes all the way back 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:43.600 to when TikTok was still called Musically. When the Musically 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:47.560 app first started getting popular, investors called it the world's 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:53.200 youngest social network because it's audience included kids in elementary school. 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.560 At the time, Disney songs were popular in the apps 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:01.320 music library, and unlike Instagram and YouTube, Musically didn't prompt 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:05.920 users to disclose their ages. Here's Josh Constein speaking with 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:10.680 Musically's founder, Alex jew at a conference in Josh was 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:13.160 a journalist at tech Crunch. So I'm a little bit 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:16.599 terrified because some of the kids that I see on 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:20.560 this app seem extremely young. I mean it's not just 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:23.440 under thirteen or not just thirteen year olds, which are 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.640 actually allowed on most services like Facebook and Instagram, but 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:30.599 kids that look like they're eleven nine, seven years old. 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:33.720 And these are kids with millions of followers, and some 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:37.880 of them are acting quite provocatively. Most social media companies 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:41.039 draw the line at thirteen years old to avoid running 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:44.160 a foul of a federal law called Kappa that's the 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:48.960 children's online Privacy Protection Act KAPPA limits how much information 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.359 apps can collect from kids under thirteen. It's one of 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:55.960 the only federal laws in the US that protects kids online. 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.039 It's meant to keep them away from sexual predators and 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.560 others who might have suppoitt them. Does musically abide by 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:06.640 the Child Online Privacy Protection Room? Absolutely? How do you 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:09.080 guys abide by that? Because you don't. You don't ask 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:13.080 users for their age, right, So that's actually uh compliant 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:16.280 with the regulation, that's not that's feigning ignorance though. Right 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:20.000 Alex is on stage and meaning he intentionally didn't ask 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:23.159 kids to enter their ages before signing up, and he 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.640 defended that decision, right. But we we could do something 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:31.200 similar to snapchat right collecting the age the year of births. 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:35.839 But those kids there were anyway say they over certain, right, 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:40.520 So that doesn't really change the conversation for us. The 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:43.839 most important thing is we have to make sure the 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:47.040 environment is a safety We put a lot of resource 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.520 and technology in place to make sure everything is safety. 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:53.760 And going back to to your previous point, a lot 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:58.479 of users, especially top users, the under certain but they 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:02.800 are being monitored by parents. So we do have wit 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:06.800 chat communication we sell parents own daily basis, So Alex 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:10.719 had many parents download wha Chat. It's a Chinese messaging app, 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:14.680 kind of similar to What's App or Facebook Messenger. That way, 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.320 Alex and his team in Shanghai could keep in touch 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:21.080 with the parents by essentially texting back and forth. But 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:23.719 as the app hit more than a hundred million registered 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:27.240 users in the US, people started asking how they could 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:30.560 possibly get permission from all of these parents. But I 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:32.600 still don't understand though. If it's if these kids are 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:37.800 under thirteen and you're providing their you know, contact information, photographs, 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:41.600 real names, user names, all things that are prohibited by 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:44.719 the Online Protection Act for Children. How I don't understand 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.920 how that's not a violation. But the parents give the permission. 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:50.200 It is being momented by the parents. That's a point. 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:52.840 But there can't be that all these kids, I mean, 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:55.040 so many parents don't even know what this app is. 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:57.440 But if you go, how do all there's You're telling 0:06:57.440 --> 0:06:59.719 me that every kid that's under thirteen on your platform, 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:04.440 how their parents permission? I can't guarantee, as far as 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:07.880 I know, is being wanted by the parents. I understand 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:09.680 that you guys have have faigned that you don't know 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.240 the ages of users before, or that their parents are 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.120 always involved. Honestly, looking at this content, I think that 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:16.800 this is something that you guys should really be looking 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:20.440 deeper into. I was surprised by how hard Josh Constein 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:25.560 is questioning Alex here. Tech conferences usually showcase a founder's success, 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:30.040 not this. It's also just strange to hear Alex caught 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:33.560 so completely on his back foot from the get go. 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:36.160 Alex seemed to know just how he wanted his app 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:38.920 to look and feel. He had a vision for how 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:42.680 to handle creators and how to work with the music industry. 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:45.640 So why was he so careless about the young users 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:49.880 on his platform. The way he handled this problem seems sloppy, 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:52.520 and this would come back to bite him. I remember 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:56.680 the founder of Musically had actually been interviewed at the 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:00.400 conference with an industry conference where he was asked in 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:03.400 detail about their cop of compliance and he said, oh, yeah, 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:05.160 we have a lot of kids under thirteen. But then 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:06.960 everybody said no, but we don't have a problem their 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:09.960 parents know, and he was really given a hard time 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:13.520 and it was really I mean, it just was pretty blatant. 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:18.720 So most companies don't do things like that. That's Angela Campbell, 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:22.239 an attorney who has spent decades working on child privacy issues. 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:24.800 She was among a group of lawyers who failed to 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:28.040 complain against TikTok to the Federal Trade Commission. So in 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:31.400 twenty nineteen, about a year after Byte Dance bought Musically 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.480 and folded it into TikTok, it came out that TikTok 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.640 had become the subject of a federal investigation. I mean, 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.240 there were just so many little kids on the app 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:44.800 back then. It was unbelievable. Um such a clear cop 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.160 of violation. They had lots of kids songs they had, 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:51.440 you know, like baby Shark was one of the things 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:54.559 you could lip sync too. So even though they said 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:57.040 they were only intended for over thirty, it was clear 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.560 that that wasn't the case. They were directed their children, 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:03.400 and also that they knew that they had kids on there. 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:07.280 The cop of violations were apparently so clear that the 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:12.600 federal government stepped in. In February nineteen, the FTC alleged 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:16.240 the app was collecting personal information from kids without their 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:20.760 parents consent. The U. S Government slapped TikTok's Chinese parent company, 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:24.360 Bye Dance, with a five point seven million dollar fine. 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:27.680 At the time, it was the largest ever child privacy 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:32.520 settlement in US history. TikTok's unchecked growth appeared to be 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:35.640 at risk. They agreed to make a number of changes, 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:39.679 including deleting the profiles of kids under thirteen, and they 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:43.320 put out a statement today the FTC announced a settlement 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:47.520 agreement related to Musically. It's our priority to create a 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:51.640 safe and welcoming experience for all of our users. I 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:55.560 remember thinking that the statement was so backward looking. It 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.880 focused on Musically, which at that point had been defunct 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:01.599 for almost a year, and it seemed to lay the 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:06.520 blame squarely on Musically's founder, Alex jew The company was 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:10.200 framing the FTC fine as a problem with its previous self, 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:14.800 an ugly issue TikTok left behind when it stopped being Musically, 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:19.200 but things didn't work out that way. We'll be right back. 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:28.320 Don Hawkins runs a group called the National Center on 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:32.200 Sexual Exploitation. She says a few things surprise her anymore 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:35.280 when it comes to kids on social media. Until one 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.280 of our family members got on TikTok. He's eight years old. 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:41.720 His second grade teacher um suggested that all of the 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:45.320 students get on TikTok as a way to kind of 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.160 bond and stay close. They could they could make funny 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:52.600 videos together, et cetera. UM obviously see a lot wrong 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:54.719 with that. Kids are not suppose of you on these 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:58.520 platforms until they're thirteen or older. UM and eight year 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.880 old especially, there's a lot out of problematic content on 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:05.120 there um for their little brains to handle. Don says 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:07.280 his eight year old parents agree to let their son 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:10.920 on TikTok because they thought TikTok was safe and because 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:13.280 his teacher thought it would be a fun thing to try. 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:16.080 I found out he hit was on it and took 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:19.200 a look at his account, and I found that thirty 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:23.240 two men had written him private messages, and some of 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:26.880 the messages contained links to disturbing images. But Dawn says 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:28.680 they were too subtle for an eight year old to 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:32.160 understand how and why they were wrong. So often it 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:37.160 was just like, hey, you're so cute, how are you? 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:39.280 Will you send me these videos? Some of them sent 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:43.839 images of their um, of their penises and asked them 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:46.520 for pictures of his. A couple of them did say 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.600 it's a challenge. Others just said, hey, you should do this, 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:53.120 and wear this and and he just did it. Yeah, 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:57.199 he just did it. And then things got even more disturbing, 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:00.960 and some of the men asked him, I think that 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:03.880 they were men, asked him to create some videos in 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:08.520 his underwear and gave him exact videos to copy and 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:12.800 dance moves to copies, which he did and um. And 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:15.560 we then found that some of them had recorded his 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:19.760 videos and then reposted them. And this was perhaps the 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:23.600 worst part. The videos were being shared widely, and so 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:28.920 his videos had, you know, like under twenty views and um, 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.320 but the videos that they reposted of him had tens 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:36.240 of thousands and um. And you know, he's in his 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:41.080 underwear dancing in a very sexually like suggestive way. Um. 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:45.120 Not realizing what it means, John broke the news to 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:48.320 her young relative about what happened with his videos, like 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:52.280 his whole body language changed, and he said, he's so embarrassed, 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:54.360 and he didn't know that it could be sent out there. 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:56.920 He posted it on his own channel, How how is 0:12:56.960 --> 0:12:59.839 it possible that it could be on someone else's. He 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.719 didn't give permission. And the rest of that day he 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:06.240 kept coming to me asking how could they copy it? 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:08.960 Why would they do that to him that was just 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:11.800 for him and his friends. His little eight year old 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:15.080 self is so traumatized that it's it's out there, and 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.520 what does that mean? Are his friends at school are 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.079 going to see it? And and so forth. I spoke 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:22.400 to don about nine months after the videos went up. 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:26.160 Her family was still trying to get them removed. He's 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:28.880 working with some police now. I think the police are 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:31.360 asking for those videos to come down. And did he 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:35.080 delete TikTok or is he still on it? You know what, 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:38.360 These kids love it and it is so fun, right, 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:42.800 so once he's experienced it, he it's really hard to 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:46.400 take it away. So um it isn't fully deleted, but 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:48.960 he's only allowed to be on it when a parent 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:52.840 or an adult is sitting with him. It's pretty telling 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.040 that after something like this happened, this eight year old 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:59.199 is still on TikTok. But that just speaks to how 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:03.600 addictive app is. TikTok started asking users for their date 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:06.600 of birth in twenty nineteen, and the spokesperson told me 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.000 they'll delete the accounts of kids that they find are 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:12.360 lying about their age. But Bloomberg has reported that the 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:16.160 FTC and the Department of Justice are looking into allegations 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:19.760 that TikTok hasn't followed through with these promises. When the 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:23.240 story came out, TikTok gave us a statement, we take 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.160 the issue of safety seriously for all our users, and 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:30.400 we continue to further strengthen our safeguards. TikTok has become 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:34.280 so ubiquitous now among teens that what happens on TikTok 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:38.280 leaks into life offline. I spoke to a school police 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:41.320 officer about this. I see it on TikTok, I see 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:44.280 it in real life, and that's all across the world 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.000 that that's happening. All kinds of challenges that go on 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:51.480 that are awful. The duets are awful, right, some of 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:53.440 the duets. You know, somebody has half a screen, the 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:56.160 other person has half a screen, and the duets just 0:14:56.240 --> 0:15:01.240 makes our some awful uh sexualization of young kids, and 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.800 and they're recording it for TikTok. That's Officer David Gomez. 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:08.280 He's a school cop in Idaho. When he started nearly 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:10.920 a decade ago, he thought he'd be spending most of 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:14.680 his time breaking up fights, stopping school shootings, or keeping 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:18.320 drugs out of bathrooms. But on the job, he noticed 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:21.080 that kids social lives had moved beyond the hallways and 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:25.200 parking lots, onto their phones and onto platforms like TikTok. 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:27.760 I'll ask kids at my own school, Hey, how many 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:29.960 people do you think who are juniors have sent out 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:31.920 their nude photos? And you know the answer I get 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.880 more and more is coomans. I think everybody has sent 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:37.840 out their nude photo by eleventh grade, right, and by 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:41.120 eighth grade it's about fifty. And that is a question 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:43.480 I absolutely get a lot. Hey, is everybody's doing it? 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:44.920 Why is it a big deal that I do it? 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.760 While it seems that sending a sexy photo is kind 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:50.800 of a write of passage for teenagers these days, it's 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.240 a big deal to Officer Gomez because that naked photo 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.480 could be used as blackmail, as a tool for predators 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:00.400 to extore young children. He told me about a recent 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:02.800 case he handled with one of his students. One of 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:05.880 them again that started on TikTok, was a twenty four 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:09.920 year old in Pennsylvania who was collecting girls to send 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:12.680 him weekly naked pictures of themselves. One of the girls 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:15.480 was a thirteen year old student at his school. Once 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:17.280 he got their underwear picture and say, hey, look, if 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:19.640 unless you want all your friends, your school, your grandparents 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.040 send me. Now, you're gonna send me a video every 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:24.920 week by this time, or else I'm gonna blast this 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:27.800 to everybody. Officer Gomez says she sent the man in 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:30.760 Pennsylvania photos of herself because she felt she had no 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:34.320 choice and was too scared to ask for help. Gomez 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.280 has seen this a lot. They feel shamed, they feel embarrassed, 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:39.600 you know, they feel out of control, they feel brainwashed. 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:43.120 All those things are the same things that adult predators 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:45.280 are using on young girls who are too much easier 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:48.720 to control than an adult woman would be. Officer Gomez 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:51.440 says he was able to get Pennsylvania State troopers to 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:54.440 go to the guy's house and warn him to stop. Luckily, 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:57.440 in this case, the guy stopped contacting the thirteen year old, 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.320 but Gomez warns that her naked photos are all out 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:03.320 there and other predators could buy them one day and 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.440 try to extort her again. And do you think TikTok 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.200 in particular has become a bigger problem in recent heres? 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:14.280 Absolutely right, it has become the biggest problem above Snapchat. 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.320 Now this was news to me when I first met 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:21.000 Officer Gomez it was and I was working on a 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:24.879 magazine story about TikTok. Back then. He told me that 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:29.000 Snapchat was his main concern because of its disappearing messages. 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:33.280 But in the past two years, from Officer Gomez's perspective, 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:37.840 TikTok has overtaken Snapchat as the most dangerous app for kids. 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:41.719 Oh really, why why above Snapchat? Because parents think that 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:45.800 TikTok has some redeeming values of them making videos, and 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:48.520 I would agree that it does have some redeeming values 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:53.520 yea videos, lip syncing, singing, dancing around, oxide activity, Okay, 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:57.120 I see that stuff. But parents are just not understanding 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:02.080 how many predators are on TikTok. Parents underestimate TikTok because 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:05.040 they don't see what their children see. Alex, do you you 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:09.920 explain this back in people will have very personalized experience, 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:14.040 see very very different contents basically on the age, based 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:19.480 on the preference, So the parents experience will be completely different. 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:25.080 With experience. Personalization means that a parent can't exactly monitor 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:28.119 their child's feet and it means that they're not clued 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.400 in into some of the big issues on TikTok. One 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:35.280 of those problems is bullying. And it happens often, all 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.840 the time, all the time, and it's definitely with like 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:42.760 people who aren't conventionally pretty or even like just looks 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:46.240 slightly different than like the average beauty standard. That's Liz, 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.080 an eighteen year old from Florida. She didn't want us 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.959 to use her last name. Lizays TikTok is worse than 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:55.200 other social media apps. She uses them, always coming onto 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:57.360 my life teams just like calling me names like oh, 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:01.040 you're so ugly, you're so fat, you cow, and I'm like, okay, cool, thanks, 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:04.920 thank you, thank you for the input. Bullying happens on 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:07.960 our social media sites, but it can be more damaging 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:11.120 when we're talking about the really young users on TikTok. 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:14.680 And because TikTok is still so new compared to other companies, 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:17.720 there are fewer people working on many of these safety issues. 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:20.480 I spoke to a girl in the UK named Talia 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:24.880 about this. She's thirteen and had a horrible experience on TikTok. 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:27.920 I lost all my friends that I thought or baby 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:31.920 enough for a long time and the best time because 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:36.720 I felt alone a lot, so I felt like kind 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:40.320 of trapped. That makes sense. It all began when Talia 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.760 started getting a flurry of messages from her classmates. So 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:47.520 I was doing online work and suddenly my phone got 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:50.440 message saying did you do this to this girl? And 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.920 I went, no, of course not, and then I got 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:57.080 um six messages from the same kept going keept going, 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:00.320 and I realized that I was her mom because the 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:03.280 things I was getting said to me. And then Talier 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:05.800 just came up to me and she said something's happened 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:08.240 on TikTok and I was like, what do you mean. 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:10.600 She she starts to explain it, and I'll just give 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:14.280 me your phone. That's Talia's mom, Shelley deal. She says, 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:17.359 someone online was pretending to be Talia. They set up 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:20.760 an account with Talia's face and Talia's name with the 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:23.800 sole purpose of trolling a popular girl at their middle school. 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:27.680 It's what many tiktoker's call a hate account. So this 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:31.200 person pretending to be Talia was calling this other girl 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:35.000 really mean things, calling her a pig, fat, and ugly, 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:38.760 and all of Talia's friends were confused why was Talia 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:41.639 doing this? So then all of their classmates started to 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:44.400 hit back at the real Talia, asking how she could 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:46.760 have done such a thing. I had no proof they 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:50.280 weren't me. I can't really do much because I thought 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:52.720 I was really good friends to people, so people that 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:56.119 messaging me, they just seemed so angry at me for 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:59.080 something that I didn't do. Um. They were just saying 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:01.840 that she's jealous, that she's a bit, she's a slag, 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:06.560 just awful things. Talia's mom tried reaching out to TikTok. 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:10.000 When she couldn't reach anyone, she reported the issues to 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:12.800 the school, who sent her to the police, but the 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:15.800 police said that TikTok refused to turn over any information. 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:19.520 I'd already reported it to TikTok and said someone is 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:24.840 pretending to be my daughter and didn't hear anything back. Um. 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:26.879 But I was just shocked. And then the more the 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:29.280 TikTok's were coming in, I just felt sick. I just 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:31.439 felt physically sick. This was happening to her and we 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:34.159 just didn't know who it was and why, and we 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:36.879 couldn't stop it because I just thought I could report 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:39.520 it to TikTok, they'd be taken down and that would 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:40.760 be in for it. But they were It was a 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:43.879 long time before they took it down. She said. The 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:47.280 police officers told her this was a particularly bad case 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:50.840 of online abuse, but they didn't have the resources to 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:54.520 go after TikTok, even though cyber bullying is illegal in 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:58.199 the UK. On TikTok, you can't speak to anyone. They 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:03.400 don't reply. There's no response. I've given them chrome reference number. UM. 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:05.320 I said, it's serious. The police are dealing with it. 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:08.880 This is a brilliant You don't even get a response, 0:22:08.960 --> 0:22:11.639 they just ignore you. A few months after I spoke 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:14.560 to Talia and her mom, TikTok finally did something about 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:18.120 the incident because Talia's story appeared in the Daily Mail, 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:21.960 and then TikTok banned the hate account for violating its guidelines. 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:27.120 A TikTok spokesperson said, bullying and harassment are strictly against 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:30.840 our community guidelines, and content of that sort is removed. 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:33.919 But the hate accounts stayed up for eight months and 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:37.239 this incident changed Talia's life to the point where her 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:41.119 mom decided Talia should move schools. Obviously, Yeah, we've had 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:45.600 times where she's just been sobbing and really down. You know, 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:48.120 she's lost even her best friends that she's had since 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:52.240 primary school. All turns against her. UM and it was 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:55.080 actually her that said I could never go back to 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:58.639 that school. I was surprised to find out that Talia 0:22:58.760 --> 0:23:02.520