Management pressure on social media platforms is increasing sharply as many countries and regions tighten the requirements for child protection in the online environment.
After Australia issued a ban on children under 16 years old using social networks, Europe also accelerated measures to force technology businesses to raise their responsibility. In that context, TikTok announced that it would deploy a new age detection system in the European Union (EU).
According to information from Reuters, this system aims to identify accounts that are likely to belong to users under 13 years old, which is the minimum age to register for TikTok according to current policy.
Instead of requiring personal papers from the beginning, TikTok's technology analyzes and synthesizes many factors such as profile information, posted videos and behavioral signs during the use of the platform to estimate user age.
A noteworthy point is that accounts "flaged" by the system will not be automatically banned. TikTok said that each case will be transferred to a team of censors for manual evaluation before making a final decision.
This approach is said to be aimed at reducing the risk of errors and limiting the mislocking of valid user accounts.
TikTok also affirmed that the new age detection system is specifically designed to meet legal requirements in Europe. After a year of testing in the UK, the company plans to deploy it simultaneously throughout the EU in the coming weeks.
This move takes place in the context that European regulators are promoting social networking platforms to prove their ability to protect children more effectively, especially ensuring users meet the minimum age.
Currently, the European Parliament is also considering the possibility of issuing a social media ban on children under 15 years old, similar to the model that Australia has applied.
This forces technology companies to take a step forward, avoiding the risk of facing tougher management measures.
However, online age verification is still a difficult problem. The Mashable media platform once reflected that some platforms, such as Roblox, have many loopholes when users easily overcome verification procedures in simple ways.
With TikTok, the method of analyzing behavior and content may be more effective, but it also poses a risk of misdetection, causing some users over 13 years old to be flagged or even lose their accounts.
How accurately the new system works and the level of user community acceptance will be clear when TikTok is widely deployed in Europe in the near future.
