Spain calls for suspension of TikTok over child abuse videos

Spain's minority left-wing coalition government has called for a ban on social media platform TikTok.

Speaking at a press conference, Youth and Children Minister Sira Rego announced that the government had asked Spain's Data Protection Agency to "suspend TikTok's operations in Spain as an exceptional measure", CE Report quotes Anadolu Agency.

Referring to the discovery of more than 1,000 videos depicting child sexual abuse on the social media platform, Minister Rego said: "Temporarily suspending TikTok's operations is not within the government's powers. If it were up to us, we would have suspended it yesterday."

The Spanish minister said that officials had held talks with TikTok representatives and received a commitment from the company to "investigate and assess the situation".

"However, they offered neither a technical solution, nor a willingness to reach an agreement, nor supervision, nor any verification mechanism," she added.

Following the discovery of child sexual abuse videos on TikTok, the Ministry of Youth and Children had also asked prosecutors earlier this week to take action.

Meanwhile, Spanish media reported that more than 1,000 videos depicting child sexual abuse had been identified on TikTok, accumulating over 48 million views. Authorities also reportedly identified more than 20,000 potential paedophile accounts involved in sharing or selling such material, over 7,000 of which were operating in Spanish.

Photo: Instagram/tiktok