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I do not actively use the platform. I understand that there is massive growth potential for any

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creator. I understand that creators who leverage it properly are seeing monumental follower gains,

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and I understand that there is content there which can be seen as entertaining.

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But all things combined, TikTok is a platform that I despise.

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I've covered the application multiple times now. First, it was criticism of trends and challenges,

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where TikTok users would dress as victims of global tragedy, and inappropriately sing or

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dance on screen, pretending to be victims on the anniversary of 9-11, pretending to be victims of

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the Holocaust. These teenagers were displaying what I consider to be a horrifying lack of respect

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and common decency. But even worse, many of these users were also participating in challenges.

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Challenges are a flash in the pan of social media popularity, but in a short amount of time,

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they can deal a substantial amount of damage. Challenges on TikTok range from benign or

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relatively easy tasks to flat-out dangerous behavior. Snorting spray tan solution, for

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example, which allegedly increases melanin production. Eating entire scoops of dry protein

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or mixing powder, which can cause aspiration pneumonia. Drinking methylene blue, commonly

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used as fish tank cleaner, to recolor your tongue. And the list goes on. Challenges on TikTok range

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from innocent to potentially life-threatening, and anywhere in between. Putting pennies behind

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electrical sockets, which causes electrocution and fire. Holding your own breath until you pass out,

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and slapping school teachers or vandalizing school bathrooms. When I say that these challenges

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are now a constant part of our everyday lives, all of us, even when we don't know it, I'm being

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serious because the influence of TikTok that has bled over from personal behavior to societal

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impact is profound. On December 17th of 2021, in the aftermath of a national tragedy, TikTok gave

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rise to ambiguous but substantial threats of violence against schools, forcing a nationwide

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security response in the United States. Some parents were never aware. Some may have heard

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about it after the fact, but this social media app was playing a role in school cancellation now,

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forcing a police response to thousands of elementary schools. Ultimately, nothing happened,

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thank God. But the reality of what this app has become cannot be denied. However, for those

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already forming an opinion of the platform, it gets worse. The next example of coverage I looked

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into was medical. TikTok is a home to viral and popular trends, but what are those trends doing?

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For teenage girls, those trends are likely causing neurological disorders, as they are

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and subjected to viral content of facial and behavioral tics or manufactured quirky behavior,

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which they begin to subconsciously imitate. TikTok trends designed to be engaging and funny,

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like multi-million view fake videos of Tourette's tics, is causing actual health problems in

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underage users, but it gets worse. The entire application is formed around small snippets of

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content. One of my most popular videos ever was called TikTok is destroying a generation,

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and centered on medical research suggesting that TikTok lowers attention spans, decreases

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concentration and affects short-term memory. These factors combined, as well as the resulting

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depression and anxiety that are built when users cannot properly moderate their own attention span,

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also their susceptibility to advertising, which can be very damaging, or are subjected to things

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that they are unable to avoid or turn away from due to self-control issues, make TikTok a singular

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feedback loop of nearly all major negative factors involved with social media entirely.

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In essence, TikTok is a one-stop shop designed to facilitate rapid digestion of content for

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everything bad that has come from this aggressive social media revolution. That video, the previous

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one went viral. In the aftermath, I was engaging with a number of professors and lower grade

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teachers about which particular sources I had used and in what order, with an ultimate effect

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where the subject matter itself crossed over into classrooms. That level of response felt good. I

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was proud of it. I disliked TikTok. I formed that opinion based on a variety of medical and social

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factors. I sourced the information, and then it had some measure of impact as a result. But

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believe me when I say this, it gets exponentially worse from here.

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Surfshark for sponsoring the channel and being a long-standing partner. This is the part of the

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video where I need to outline methods and give disclaimers. Investigating this subject matter is

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kind of tricky. Merely possessing a recording of what I looked into is probably, under some

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circumstances, illegal. Having been made aware by a community request that TikTok Live might contain

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problematic underage content, I was faced with a difficult question of how exactly to investigate

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this. After a great deal of thought, I landed on this kind of solution. I would not engage with

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anything that I discovered, except to say precisely what I was doing. Investigating TikTok Live to

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see if there is inappropriate or directly paid for explicit content by minors. If I encountered

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a broadcast that I believed to be a legitimate example of underage explicit content, I would

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cease recording immediately, document what I had found with notes only, and move on. I would only

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record footage from streams where I was reasonably sure that those recordings were not over the line,

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and I would blur all, or nearly all, of the content that I recorded in the final video,

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since much of it would likely be near the line at best, should this kind of content be an issue.

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I was not prepared for what would happen next. Using a TikTok account I created some time ago

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for challenge and trending research purposes on prior videos, I began to browse the TikTok Live

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page. It's important to note here that TikTok Live does not function like YouTube or Twitch,

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for example, because you are not able to directly search keywords or categories. TikTok is, above

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all else, a primary feed of popular content where you selectively choose what to engage with,

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but that content feed is determined by an algorithm. This presents our first problem.

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The TikTok algorithm, as reported and investigated by the Wall Street Journal,

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utilizing dozens of custom bot scanning accounts, served a never-ending stream of drug content

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and sexual fetish material to users between the age of 13 and 15. The algorithm began to bombard

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these test accounts made as users with a self-expressed age of 13, 14, or 15, with non-stop

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depictions of whips, chains, or torture devices. They were funneling these children into what some

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users refer to as kink talk, which commonly contained sexual power dynamic fantasies and

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other very explicit behavior. Hundreds of videos containing adult material, whether it be substances,

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behavior, or both, were served in rapid succession to underage accounts by a central feed, which is

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governed by the algorithm. Now, it's important to understand how and why this occurs, and while the

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answer to that question might be incredibly complex, one of the easiest explanations is watch time.

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How long do you hover over a video letting it play? This one key metric can be used to

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determine, without ever needing to examine likes or followers, what content is more popular on

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TikTok. And for children ages 13 to 15, sexualized material can be an interest. Simply watching that

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portion of the feed for a few seconds longer, even if you never decide to like the video or

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follow the posting account, can tell the algorithm that you want to see more. And in a matter of

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minutes, you can be sucked down a rabbit hole of algorithmically driven adult content served to a

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minors account, which reinforces itself over and over and over again. TikTok live is a central feed

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where users are mostly subjected to whatever the platform wants them to see, until they have found

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specific streams that they like from particular broadcasters and followed those accounts. But

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what happens when the feedback loop starts? And what if the subject matter is even worse? At this

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point, I need to say something to everyone watching, especially parents. I can't show you

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all of what I found. I can't even show you most of what I found. Out of respect for the children

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involved, I need to heavily censor, redact, or remove portions of footage and other on-screen

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content. But what I found here is disturbing. Within minutes of browsing the feed, I was being

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shown users, primarily girls, who were certainly under 18 and could easily have been under the

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technical age requirement of 16 for TikTok live, which many users I found would openly admit.

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Some stated without hesitation or numerous times that they were 15, others 14, etc. And it became

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clear that should the algorithm decide to serve you that content, if you watch it longer, or if

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you like any of it, there was no shortage. From there, things got worse. I started to see

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questionable content popping up where girls, often appearing to be quite young, were holding signs or

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standing in front of the camera with a revealing outfit. Those signs would say things like

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Rose equals Say Daddy, or Ice Cream equals 360 Spin, or even Universe equals Cut Shirt. Or in one

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case, a woman who was definitely older than 18, she would cut off the wedding dress she was wearing

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for a certain chat sticker. The thing is, these pictures, or stickers, are not just pictures.

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They're money. In a way that seems nearly purpose-built for obfuscation, these little

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stickers and pictures like a rose are actually a way to donate money to these broadcasters,

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many of whom were openly admitting to being under 18 or even under 16 years old, as they did spins,

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bent over on camera, lifted their shirts, or engaged in other clearly suggestive content

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directly for money. Following the rules that I set out for myself through four separate sessions,

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I had to cut the recording and delete the footage over half a dozen times. Bombarded now with the

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content determined by the TikTok algorithm, I was being served a never-ending stream of girls on

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TikTok, many of them at very young ages, being paid by a chat room of viewers intending to see

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them in compromising positions. It's awkward, it's uncomfortable, and once you begin to see

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what's really happening, it makes you sick. But there's more. Attempting to go about this

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process ethically, I began to ask questions in the chat room. I would directly state that I was a

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journalist. I don't actually view myself to be an adequate journalist by any stretch, but that's

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an easier and more mainstream way of communicating the types of questions that I was intending to

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ask rather than I'm a gaming YouTuber, so yeah. I would directly state that I was a journalist

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investigating the TikTok platform to see if there are underage users being paid by older men for

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explicit content, and the results were very troubling. One of three specific things would

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happen when I asked this question, and I'm going to show heavily redacted background footage with

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audio of what occurred in two of those outcome possibilities. The first was that the broadcaster

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would ignore me or refuse to engage. That's what I expected, and I wasn't surprised in the

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slightest. The second was that the broadcaster would immediately suspend me from the chat,

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and repeatedly, even frantically, express that they were 18 years old or 19 years old or that

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I don't break terms of service, I promise, I promise, etc. Here's an example.

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Alright guys, I am 19. I think someone asked my comments. Guys, I'm 19.

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Yes guys, I'm 19.

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This response was also expected, to a degree, considering the fact that a random user was

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asking them about what would be borderline or highly illegal and disgusting behavior

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without any sort of preamble. They don't know who I am or what I actually want, and they simply

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respond by distancing themselves. However, the third outcome, which happened numerous times,

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was the most interesting and concerning. When asking the question of certain broadcasters,

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some of them would answer, yes, I have heard of that stuff. They would go on to describe that it

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didn't happen in their broadcast, but they did know about it. They had some friends who did it,

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etc, etc. But the strangest factor of all was that on more than one occasion, and only after they

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answered affirmatively to my questions, the broadcaster would be suspended or banned from

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the platform in real time. Here's an example of that. For context, this girl, I'm just going to

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call her Jane for privacy reasons, answered my question, as you'll hear, with yes, I do know

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about that. It doesn't happen here though, and was then suspended immediately afterward.

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I don't know what to say, man. Do you hear of older men using TikTok live? Yes, I do.

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But nobody's on here with that. And if they are, I dismiss it right away.

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I'm a journalist investing in a platform. That's what's up.

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I went on to have a roughly 10-minute off-platform interview with Jane about specifics of this, and

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this is where I started to become aware of coded language. To be clear, I cannot give a definitive

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reason why multiple broadcasters were suspended as soon as they answered my questions,

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acknowledging that the problem even exists. But it did not happen a single time to a broadcaster

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that blocked me or refused to answer. It only happened when they gave a statement, and it might

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be possible that the ban was simply for evading the 16-year-old age requirement. Jane had

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acknowledged in the very same broadcast that she was 15, and was coincidentally handed down

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at that particular moment, but I am extremely skeptical of what was going on here. Regardless,

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this is when I started to learn about coded language, and where it became increasingly

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difficult for me to keep investigating. It felt disgusting and wrong to even sit silently in these

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rooms, let alone continue to ask questions. Things started to make sense from then on as to what

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precisely was happening. Viewers are using coded language to have underage girls perform for them.

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That's really what it is. Fit check means let us see your stomach, or pull your shirt up. You

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forgot something, or get something from the back means walk away and show your ass. Outfit check

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was a common one, very common, where girls would back up to show their entire bodies.

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And the chat rooms were completely overrun with requests, and I don't just mean trolls here.

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They were overrun with paying viewers, requesting feet pictures, often referred to as feet check,

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or toe ring check, or anything like that. Or attempting to move off platform and discuss some

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sort of larger transaction through Cash App. Do you want to make $400 fast, or $500 fast, etc.

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Or buying them something from their Amazon wish list? I want to be extremely clear right now. Not

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all of the broadcasts that I found or that I'm using in the background right now were underage

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girls performing for money, but many of them were. Perhaps for some, they just looked younger than

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they were. But some of them openly acknowledged that they were 15, while taking donations in

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order to do squats and spins. These are children, using TikTok Live to display their bodies,

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even fully clothed, but doing splits and showing their feet or spreading their legs,

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for money from older men. And it is a breeding ground of inappropriate and sickening behaviour.

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To be clear, I undertook multiple sessions of investigation. After starting with an old account,

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I created a brand new, fresh, never-before-touched profile, and engaged with the same pattern of

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browsing. This new account fell into the same content black hole as before, in a very short

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span of time. And were I to undertake the process again, I have no doubt in my mind at all of similar

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or identical results. I have to be careful here, because certain claims I ran into over the course

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of my second session devolve into hearsay. It wasn't one of the specific girls that I talked

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to personally, but her friend who had been allegedly extorted after selling nude pictures

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to one of the viewers in her chat room. That type of situation, and I do believe that she was sincere

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as a personal opinion, is called sexortion. And when underage girls are performing for money on a

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live broadcast, fielding thousands of donations in some cases, and requests for other ways to send

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them money, for a favour is often what they would say in the chat room, it can absolutely occur on

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that platform. In a very short timeframe, I was finding more instances that made my skin crawl

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than those that didn't. Understanding that nearly every single teenage girl who uses the live

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broadcast feature of TikTok was being bombarded with requests, it starts to feel overwhelming.

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A 13-year-old girl who lies about her age is suddenly getting showered in gifts for showing

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her feet and twirling on camera. She gets more money when she dances provocatively, and an algorithm

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designed to serve content that people are interested in is showing her broadcast to more

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and more sick people all around the world every day, even every hour or minute. This kind of

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situation is so prevalent, okay, I was shocked by this. I encountered young boys who were using

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face filters pretending to be young girls in order to receive roses and other gifts which are

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redeemable for cash. Maybe some of them were pranking the audience, sure, but if there is such a

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high demand for this, such a large economy of transactions and behavior taking place,

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that children will use filters to appear more feminine and engage with it for profit,

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that is a serious problem. When doing follow-up research for this video, I learned something

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else. Moderators of TikTok are specifically being trained using real material depictions

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of child sexual abuse. Uncensored, explicit images of children are used in high volume

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for moderation training, and we need to ask a sincere question, why do they feel it necessary

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to do that? After my initial wave of research on the subject, I found an article on Forbes

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written by Alexandra S. Levine titled, How TikTok Live became a strip club filled with 15 year

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olds. This was an excellent piece of work and most importantly contained quotes from security,

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legal and law enforcement experts. I'll link it down below if anyone is interested. It was

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invaluable in my own creation of this video. As per TikTok's own enforcement report, they removed

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over 300 million videos in 2021 alone that violated their community guidelines, and the

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majority of these were not removed by automation. Combining the adult nudity and sexual activities

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category with the minor safety category, accounts for over 50% of all videos removed since 2020.

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Looking at the number of accounts removed that are suspected to be under the age of 13,

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15 million of them in one quarter. October to December of 2021, 15 million account deletions

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for suspicion of being under 13 years old in just three months. I am not going to make the

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claim that TikTok is failing to try and moderate their platform. If their internal reports are to

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be believed, they certainly make that effort. I believe I witnessed it in real time as I

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investigated all this when broadcasters acknowledged my questions and were immediately suspended.

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They even resorted to highly unethical tactics to educate their moderators on child sexual material

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as they do this. But with the volume that they process, the sheer number of children flooding

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into the platform and the undeniable economy that has arisen for sexual exploitation and

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transactional behavior, we must ask the question, is this platform doing more harm than it is good?

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An algorithm that has aggressively promoted adult behavior from substances to kinks and more,

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directing that content at children is now governing a live feed of broadcasters where

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underage girls are being showered in gifts to perform suggestive actions or poses, many of them

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with cash app, PayPal, Amazon wish lists or Venmo in their bio specifically for this purpose.

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While a massive community of groomers and most likely pedophiles watch intently, many of them

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actively trying to pull the girls into an off platform environment, whether for money or other

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incentives. The footage I found within mere hours of investigating this topic had to be cut several

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times in fear of crossing a profound moral, ethical, even legal boundary. And once you

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have witnessed these broadcasts, even in passing the machine learning of TikTok will continue to

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push them into your feet aggressively at every turn. Hear me when I say this, anyone in my

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audience who is a parent or even a free thinking teenager, carefully examine when and how you use

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this platform because shrouded behind the simplistic visual of just a rose or an emoji is a cash for

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favors underbelly of children performing paid actions for groomers and sick individuals.

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Set aside the dangerous challenges, the disrespectful trends, the medical concerns of

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imitation and neurological disorders or the rampant scamming and falsified content that

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plague this platform each and every day. Set all of that aside and look now at one simple reality,

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an algorithm that has been proven to serve wildly inappropriate, even dangerous content to children

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now governs an effective marketplace of underage exploitation. Is this application worth using?

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That's it. I reached a point in the production of this video, just to be completely honest with

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everyone where I couldn't take it anymore. If it feels like an abrupt end, that's why I had to

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shut down, stop looking, stop recording and stop asking questions and stop scripting. I saw what I

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saw and I know what it is. To a degree, you'll have to take my word for some of this, but I'm

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more than willing to stake everything I've worked for since the birth of this channel on my words

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today.