• by Colin Kirkland , over 1 hour ago

TikTok USDS Joint Venture -- the U.S.-based arm of ByteDance’s global social media platform -- is joining other major social apps in partnering with Lantern, a program designed to help tech companies flag child safety violations.

Run by the Tech Coalition, a global nonprofit alliance of over 60 tech companies determined to fight online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA), Lantern enables a multitude of platforms to share signals about accounts and behavior that go against their child safety policies.  

Since its launch in 2023, Lantern has amassed a network of members running highly populated digital spaces, including Google, X, Snap, Twitch, Anthropic, Meta, Discord, Microsoft, Apple, Roblox, Reddit, and more.

Through Lantern’s system, partners can share information that may help other companies identify OCSEA occurring on their own platforms.

“These signals can help companies identify new forms of abuse or provide additional context to better understand activity already under review,” according to Lantern’s website.

Throughout Lantern’s first two years, partnering companies shared over 2 million signals, resulting in over 350 thousand enforcement actions across accounts, URLs, and content.

Marc Leone, Lantern’s director, said in a statement that “Cross-platform collaboration is essential in identifying and disrupting child sexual exploitation and abuse,” adding that TikTok USDS’s participation should help further strengthen the program’s efforts.

TikTok’s collaboration with Lantern comes a month after the company agreed to pay $400 million over a federal government lawsuit alleging violations of child safety and privacy laws.