Court filings detail TikTok child safety warnings

Depositions filed in federal court in March 2026 describe TikTok employees warning company leaders about child-safety risks, including minors appearing in sexualized livestreams and young users encountering suicide-related content. The testimony, described in court records, also recounts concerns about weaknesses in age restrictions and parental controls. Reagen Maher, a former senior safety and investigations executive at TikTok, testified that she spent months trying to persuade senior leaders to address risks involving minors and monetized sexual content. An internal chat excerpt read during her deposition recorded her saying she had been fighting for months with people who did not think the harms were severe enough. Maher said her findings had been escalated to V Pappas, then the company’s chief operating officer. An internal investigation, as recounted in employee testimony, found children aged 13 to 15 in 112,000 TikTok Live videos during January 2022. The number refers to videos involving young teenagers, not confirmed explicit videos. Testimony described concerns that adults could groom children and that livestreams could involve child-mistreatment material. TikTok...