Spain asks data regulator to suspend TikTok over child sexual abuse material

Spain's youth and children's minister on Tuesday asked the country's data protection agency to temporarily suspend TikTok in Spain after an investigation found widespread child sexual abuse material on the platform.

Speaking to reporters after meeting with TikTok representatives, Sira Rego described the requested suspension as an exceptional measure. She said she had also urged the company to suspend its services voluntarily.

“It is not up to the government to suspend TikTok as a precaution. If it were up to us, it would have been suspended yesterday,” she said.

Rego said TikTok had pledged to "study and evaluate" the situation but offered no technical fixes or commitments to an audit or new verification measures.

She described the findings of Maldita.es' investigation as "very serious, very concerning," saying they revealed “a structural problem at TikTok, which rewards ecosystems that share and reproduce sexual violence against children with considerable ease.”

"I myself had the opportunity to enter a series of words into the search bar that allow quick access to content depicting sexual violence against children," Rego said, referring to her meeting with the Maldita.es team.

Under EU data protection rules, Spain's data regulator can take temporary measures lasting up to three months if it considers urgent action necessary to protect people's rights and freedoms.

The request follows a 35-day investigation by Spanish nonprofit Maldita.es, published Monday, which said it documented 1,182 public posts containing child sexual abuse material that drew more than 48 million views. The investigation also identified more than 200 accounts sharing such content.

Maldita.es said some accounts used slightly altered images to advertise child sexual abuse material for sale, while others displayed explicit images publicly. Researchers also found photographs of children used to direct users to channels where such material was bought, sold or exchanged.

Of 50 videos the researchers reported, TikTok initially removed five and blocked another 13 in Spain, the nonprofit said.

Researchers also documented 91 instances of minors livestreaming in violation of TikTok's policies, with some viewers offering children money in exchange for fulfilling sexual requests.

Maldita.es said TikTok's virtual gift system allowed viewers to pay children during the broadcasts and alleged that the platform profited from those transactions.

Opposition leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo of the Popular Party said Maldita.es had also briefed him on the material found on TikTok.

"Every day, children are exposed to adults who ask them to do things no parent would want to imagine," Feijoo wrote on US social media platform X. "It's chilling, and we can't look the other way."