Its own staff repeatedly warned TikTok about the risks its platform posed to child safety, according to court records obtained by NPR. The publication reports that employees were frustrated that TikTok executives did not appropriately act on concerns they raised, including minors circumventing age-restricted content and appearing in “transactional sexual content” from which the company could benefit financially.
The previously unreported statements from TikTok staff were filed in federal court in March and are related to multidistrict litigation launched in 2022 that brings together hundreds of lawsuits alleging that TikTok, Meta, Snap and Google knew their social media platforms are harmful to children and failed to disclose those risks.
A statement from Reagen Maher, who held senior security and investigation positions between 2021 and 2024, described raising the prevalence of “transactional sexual content” to then-TikTok CEO V Pappas in relation to minors stripping naked on TikTok’s Live feature in exchange for “gifts” that can be converted into real currency. Forbes reported on the issue in 2022, and Maher said the company was already aware of concerns about sexual exploitation before the article was published.
“I’ve been fighting for months to fix this problem with people who didn’t think the damage was bad enough,” Maher said in an excerpt from an internal chat with a colleague. “Simply put, senior leaders are aware of this problem. There are some projects underway to fix some parts of it and, frankly, I hope [that] This article promotes other possible solutions.”
Another statement from TikTok’s former chief security officer, Eric Han, says he was concerned about “rabbits” of harmful algorithms in 2020, describing them as having a “real contagion effect” regarding “suicidal ideation and behavior” in an internal TikTok report. Despite noting that “the safety of minors is an urgent issue that we must address effectively,” Han said TikTok did not warn parents about the potential dangers of their children using the platform.
