TikTok to ban children from live-streaming

TikTok is raising its minimum age for livestreaming from 16 to 18 from next month.

A BBC News investigation found  many  accounts going live from Syrian refugee camps, with children begging for donations.

Some were receiving up to $1,000 (£900) an hour - but  once they  withdrew the cash, TikTok had  haunted  to 70%.

In future, only adults would be  ready to  "send virtual gifts or access monetisation features", TikTok said.

And, "in  the approaching  weeks",  it might  let users run adult-only livestreams.

It is unclear how TikTok will enforce these age restrictions, however.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and Google, which owns YouTube, have a minimum livestreaming age of 13 and already allow users to age-restrict content they upload.

Digital gifts

For five months, the BBC's Global Disinformation Unit, BBC Arabic and BBC Eye Investigations followed  quite  300 TikTok accounts livestreaming from north-west Syria.

TikTok's rules say  you want to  not directly solicit for gifts and must "prevent the harm, endangerment or exploitation" of minors on the platform.

When News BBC used the in-app system to report 30 accounts featuring children begging, TikTok said there had been no violation of its policies in any of the cases. After BBC News contacted TikTok directly for comment,  the corporate  banned all of the accounts.

TikTok said  this sort  of content was not allowed on its platform and its commission from digital gifts was significantly less than 70% but still has not confirmed the exact amount.