Ofcom Launches Investigation Into TikTok Child Safety Concerns

UK media regulator Ofcom has launched an investigation into TikTok over child safety measures, focusing on how the app identifies whether a user is a child and whether it has systems to stop children seeing harmful content, BBC reported. The probe comes a month after the UK government announced under-16s would be banned entirely from a range of platforms. Ofcom said it has serious doubts over TikTok’s use of so-called age inference, which estimates a user’s age from their behaviour on the platform. Kate Davies, Ofcom’s group director for strategy and research, said the regulator had found some age-check methods used by social media platforms were not working well enough. TikTok said it is confident it meets its Online Safety Act obligations and will work with Ofcom to demonstrate that, adding that it has invested billions in online safety since launching in the UK eight years ago.