TikTok Joins Technology Coalition to Protect Children Online

TikTok is proud to announce its membership in the Technology Coalition, an organization dedicated to protecting children from online sexual exploitation and abuse. As a platform, community safety is our top priority, and we place great importance on the safety of our teenage users.

Our membership in the Technology Coalition reflects our zero tolerance policy towards child sexual exploitation and acknowledges that addressing this global challenge requires a collective effort. By partnering with experts in the field, we aim to deepen our evidence-based approach to intervention and contribute our unique learnings from addressing child safety and exploitation.

In addition to joining the Technology Coalition, TikTok is also joining the board and a number of committees within the organization. These committees aim to advance protections for children online and offline, as well as drive greater transparency of evolving threats to child safety.

This membership builds on our existing partnerships with leading online safety organizations, such as the Family Online Safety Institute, ConnectSafely, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), WePROTECT Global Alliance, DQ Institute, and the Internet Watch Foundation. These partnerships ensure that our policies and features continue to promote a safe and welcoming environment for our community.

At TikTok, we are deeply committed to the safety of teens on our platform. We have a zero tolerance policy for content or behavior that perpetuates the abuse, harm, endangerment, or exploitation of minors. If we come across any such content, we take immediate action to remove it, terminate accounts, and report cases to the appropriate authorities.

To further support teen safety, we have implemented a number of safeguards. For users aged 13-15, their accounts are set to private by default. Direct messaging and live streaming are only available to users who are 16 and older.

We also believe in engaging parents and caregivers in digital safety conversations. That's why we offer tools like our Family Pairing features, which encourage discussions among parents, caregivers, and teens to determine the best browsing and privacy settings for their family. Through Family Pairing, parents and guardians can link their TikTok account to their teen's account and enable various content and privacy settings, including screen time management and search settings. Our Safety Center For Parents provides more information on the resources and controls available to families.

We understand that protecting our TikTok community is an ongoing effort. We are constantly learning, adapting, and strengthening our policies and practices to ensure the safety of our community. We are excited to continue building on these efforts through our partnership with the Technology Coalition.