TikTok allowing under-13s to keep accounts on the platform, investigation suggests

TikTok faces questions over safeguards for child users after a Guardian investigation found that moderators were being told to allow under13s to stay on the platform if they claimed their parents were overseeing their accounts.

- Hibaq Farah Dan Milmo

In one example seen by the Guardian, a user who declared themselves to be 12 in their account bio, under TikTok's minimum age of 13, was allowed to stay on the platform because their profile said the account was managed by their parents.

The internal communication sent in the autumn involved a quality analyst - someone who is responsible for any queries related to moderating video queues - who was asked by a moderator whether they should ban the user's account.

The advice from the TikTok quality analyst was that if the account bio said it was managed by parents then moderators could allow the account to stay on the platform. The message was sent into a group chat containing more than 70 moderators, who are responsible for looking at content mostly from Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

It has also been alleged that moderators have been told in meetings that if a parent is in the background of a video by a seemingly underage user, or if the bio says an account is managed by a parent, those accounts can stay on the platform.

Suspected cases of underage account holders are sent to an "underage" queue for further moderation.

Moderators have two options: to ban, which would mean the removal of the account, or to approve, allowing the account to stay on the platform.

A staff member at TikTok said they believed it was "incredibly easy to avoid getting banned for being underage. Once a kid learns that this works, they will tell their friends."

TikTok said it was false to claim that children under 13 were allowed on the platform if they stated in their bio that the account was managed by an adult.