Short-form streaming video was in the crosshairs Friday as angry Republicans called for a briefing with executives of TikTok, the Chinese-backed short-form video/image app over reports of its continued failure to address the sexual exploitation of children on its platform.
That came as, elsewhere, a man was sentenced to almost 50 years in prison for using Snapchat to solicit sexually explicit content from a minor.
On Capitol Hill, the Republican leadership of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, which oversees communications issues, "demanded" a briefing with the company, saying TikTok "has been incapable of rooting out the spate of TikTok accounts that are trading illegal child sexual content..."
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In a letter to Tik Tok CEO Shou Zi Chew, the Republican leaders of the full committee and subcommittees on communications, oversight and investigation and consumer protection said the company needed to respond, and in detail, to "reports that your company is serving as a platform for the sexual exploitation and predation of children," and to tell Congress what they were doing to change that.
They also cited the online platform's livestreams that they said "allow adult TikTok users to monetarily persuade children to perform sexually suggestive acts..."
The letter sites a former TikTok moderator who claimed that she daily saw "death and graphin, graphic pornography," including nude children."
The legislators wanted some answers by Dec. 21, including whether and how much revenue TikTok makes from livestreaming by minors, whether actual people are reviewing content and whether they are staffers or subcontractors, and why material flagged by users and Forbes magazine as sexually explicit got a "no violation" determination by TikTok, and much more.
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The letter was sent last week and came only a couple of days before the Department of Justice announced a California man had been sentenced to 47 years in prison for using Snapchat to produce videos and images of child sexual abuse.
In the case, the parent of an 11-year-old girl coerced into such conduct had to complain to the social media platform about inappropriate behavior her daughter had been engaging in over Snapchat.
The legislator's letter was dated Dec. 7. On Dec. 8, TikTok Head of Trust and Safety Cormac Keenan said that the platform was "making improvements to how we're organized internally to further promote a safe and secure platform for our community" and "to deliver on our shared mission to protect people from harm, promote platform integrity, and foster a place that brings people joy."
