This report looks at how TikTok, Twitch and Snap are protecting children from accessing potentially harmful videos.
UK-based video-sharing platforms (VSP) must put in place measures to protect children from encountering videos that may impair their physical, mental, or moral development. Our report last year found that all notified VSPs have some safety measures in place, but they could be stronger.
This year, we've taken a closer look at how VSPs protect children online. This report focuses on TikTok, Twitch and Snap – three of the most popular regulated video-sharing services for under-18s. What measures do they have to stop children encountering harm, and how do they enforce and test them?
Read the report
How video-sharing platforms protect children from encountering harmful videos (PDF, 1.0 MB)
On 14 December 2023, we opened an investigation into whether TikTok had failed to comply with its duties to provide information in response to a formal request for information, in such a manner as specified by Ofcom.
A Final Decision has now been reached. Details of the investigation outcome can also be found here.
As part of the investigation, and for the purposes of the protection of children report, TikTok provided an updated set of data, about the parental control systems it has in place. TikTok told us that in February 2024, the number of UK teen users (users recorded as being of between 13 and 17 years old on its system) with Family Pairing activated represented between 4-5% of TikTok’s total UK teen monthly active users.
TikTok provided a new set of data that relates to February 2024 as a result of the updated dataset having been sourced from a data source with different retention policies. Whilst our transparency report was prepared using data from the period between 1 April 2023 and 30 June 2023. The updated data provided by TikTok during the investigation refers to the period between 1 February 2024 and 29 February 2024.
As outlined in the report -
“Only platforms with the relevant connection to the UK are regulated under the UK VSP Regime. Many other VSPs – including YouTube and Instagram – do not fall under the UK regime because they are based elsewhere. So, our findings do not represent the entire VSP sector, nor do they indicate that TikTok, Twitch, and Snap are better or worse than the platforms not in scope of the UK VSP Regime. But our report does illustrate the approaches platforms have taken, and the challenges they’ve faced ahead of the broader online safety regime.” (see page 3).