NPR reported on October 20, 2026, that former TikTok safety employees Reagen Maher and Eric Han described internal warnings about minors’ exposure to sexual exploitation, age-restriction workarounds and recommendations that repeatedly surfaced harmful content. NPR said their depositions were filed in federal court in March 2026 but had not been submitted as evidence at trial.
The risks former employees described
An internal investigation was described in testimony as finding children ages 13 to 15 in 112,000 TikTok Live videos in January 2022. The figure counts videos, not individual children.
Maher’s testimony, as reported by NPR, described minors accessing an 18-plus TikTok experience by signing up through Google, Facebook or Instagram. The reporting also described false birth dates and unlinking Family Pairing, TikTok’s parental-control feature, as ways minors could work around age restrictions.
Han, TikTok’s former head of safety, described recommendation “rabbit holes” that repeatedly surfaced similar material, including content about suicide and body image. NPR also reported that a 2020 internal report circulated by Han discussed patterns involving suicidal thoughts and behavior.
TikTok’s response and published safety rules
After NPR published its report, TikTok spokesperson Nathaniel Brown disputed its characterization, saying the claims were cherry-picked and misrepresented the company’s history and commitment to youth safety.
TikTok’s Youth Safety and Well-Being policy, released August 25, 2026, and effective September 24, says the general minimum age for an account is 13, subject to local-law exceptions. The policy describes feature limits and more restrictive default privacy settings for younger users, content safeguards, and reporting youth sexual abuse and exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
