Content warning: this investigation addresses sensitive topics related to the sexualization of minors and child pornography.
“Click here for exclusive videos,” invites one of the TikTok profiles with almost 40,000 followers that collects and reposts videos of real girls who appear to be minors, mostly dressed in school uniforms. To access this hidden content, users must pay a monthly subscription fee. In this case, they can choose between three different packages (basic, standard, or deluxe) with prices ranging from €3.49 to €115.99 per month. TikTok takes a share of these profits (it varies depending on the region and other characteristics, but in some cases it can be as high as 50%).
This is just one of the strategies used by these types of profiles to make money. Other accounts post sexualized content of minors generated with artificial intelligence (AI) and redirect users to external websites and platforms where they sell videos and images of child pornography also generated with this technology.
Exclusive content through TikTok's subscription system, which also generates revenue for the platform
TikTok's subscription system allows users to charge for exclusive content and additional features. The platform explains on its website that content published under this system “must comply with the Terms of Service and Community Guidelines,” which does not allow, among other things, “showing minors engaging in intimate kissing, sexually suggestive acts, or sexualized framing.”
In total, we have detected 13 profiles that publish videos of minors (either reposts from other real accounts or generated with AI) that use this subscription system with an average monthly cost of four euros. Some have a preview of the videos that users can access after paying for the subscription. The content can be guessed.
Although the rest do not have this preview, their profiles specify that their benefits include access to exclusive content and even the ability to request videos. In some cases, they also allow “exclusive interactions” through direct messages (live chats) or what they call “subscriber rooms,” which function as private chats for members only. “Hello! Welcome to my Space, a small private world exclusively for me and my subscribers,” announces one of these accounts with almost 35,000 followers when we access one of its private rooms.
Part of the profits that users earn with this subscription system are retained by the platform. TikTok explains on its website that it “shares” up to 50% of the net revenue earned through this method with the user “after the iOS or Google payment platform commission of 15-30%.” Profiles with fewer than 10,000 followers that achieve a minimum of one million views in a month can receive an additional 20% bonus. In the US and Canada, the user's share of revenue is 70%, and with the 20% profit bonus, it could rise to 90%.
“Tell me what you want to see”: How some profiles invite users to visit external platforms with sexual content
At Maldita.es, we contacted one of these accounts (which is no longer available at the time of publication of this article) through TikTok's direct messaging feature, pretending to be a man interested in the content they post. They invited us to visit an external page (still active) of “art with artificial intelligence.” In its terms and conditions, the website, which claims to belong to a Dutch company, warns that “certain digital artworks may contain adult themes.” In fact, one of the sections is called “NSFW Store,” an acronym for “not safe for work” used to warn of content considered inappropriate.
To access it, you have to enter a kind of password provided by the website itself. Inside, users find up to eleven “art collections” generated by artificial intelligence that show images of naked or semi-naked women and girls. Although the descriptions claim that they “represent adult characters (over 18 years of age),” some have the physical features of girls. The price of this content, which is sold in packs of 12 to 40 images, ranges from €4.95 to €6.95.
Another profile we contacted via direct messages on TikTok sent us a link to a website of “AI creations” that also sells images and videos featuring sexualized minors. The buyer receives these packs, which range from €49.99 to €149.99, in their email. “No matter where you are in the world, our digital creations are just a click away,” the website says.
Another profile with around 13,000 followers redirects to a PayPal account. When asked about its content, the response was: “Tell me what you want to see and it would be via PayPal directly.” It never responded again. Another profile linked to Telegram, a platform where they asked us what type of content we were looking for. Their user was deactivated before we could continue the conversation. In the comments on these posts, we detected messages promoting other Telegram accounts where child pornography is sold.
Sexualized content involving minors just a click away: some accounts include links to external platforms in their bios
These are not isolated cases. We have identified four other TikTok accounts (which post AI-generated videos of minors) that, without the need to engage in conversation with them, redirect users to websites with sexualized content involving minors created using AI. One of them, with more than 26,000 followers, has a link in its bio to a website supposedly located in Mexico where images and videos generated with artificial intelligence of a girl who appears to be a minor are posted.
In this case, the content is free, although donations are requested to fuel “the evolution of a digital character” and obtain “special content.” In the messages we exchanged with this account, they told us that they would ‘soon’ upload their TikTok videos to a Drive account and share the link “on the website so they can be downloaded.”
Another profile with fewer followers that posts videos of fake young women in underwear or bikinis sells AI-generated content for €3.88 per month through Patreon, a membership platform that allows users to receive financial support. Patreon has been singled out in a BBC investigation for being used to sell material that simulates real situations of child sexual abuse. The preview suggests that the content is similar to their TikTok posts.
A third profile links to a Linktree (a tool that allows multiple links to be linked) that redirects to a Japanese website with pornography and a blog promoting AI-generated videos and images, with descriptions such as “naked girl and teacher,” “oral sex,” and “anal sex”; and tags such as “baby face” and “Loli,” an abbreviation of “Lolicon,” a term used in Japan to refer to “people with a sexual preference for young girls who are often underage or adult women with a childlike appearance.” They can be accessed with a simple click from TikTok by paying a subscription fee of between $20 and $100.
The latter account publishes AI-generated content featuring infantilized Japanese women. Its bio includes a link to a Twitter (now X) account with barely twenty followers, which redirects to a website featuring erotic doujinshi (independent publications within the manga world). Its bio has a link to a YouTube channel that describes its publications as “artistic content that pursues the beauty of women.” These are videos generated with artificial intelligence in which, for example, a nurse appears kissing a hospitalized man while feeding him. Another link redirects to a Japanese website with adult content.
