The newspaper created bot accounts disguised as users between the ages 13 to 15 to gauge what kind of content children are being exposed to on the platform.
These bot accounts quickly found themselves being guided to hundreds of videos that feature adult content, including drug use and sexual roleplay.
The article states, “TikTok served one account registered as a 13-year-old at least 569 videos about drug use, references to cocaine and meth addiction, and promotional videos for online sales of drug products and paraphernalia. Hundreds of similar videos appeared in the feeds of the Journal’s other minor accounts.”
TikTok also showed the Journal’s teenage users more than 100 videos from accounts recommending paid pornography sites and sex shops. Thousands of others were from creators who labeled their content as for adults only.
Owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, TikTok is used by millions of users worldwide and has become a well-known video-sharing app used by children in the United States.
In 2020, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation placed TikTok on its annual Dirty Dozen List, which documents entities believed to be profiting from sexually exploitative content.