Committee publication · Correspondence · 9 June 2026
Letter from Tiktok on Screen Time and Social Media, dated 02.06.26
From: Education Committee
Inquiry: Screen Time and Social Media
Summary
TikTok's letter to the Education Committee responds to parliamentary inquiry into children's social media use. The company outlines default safety features for under-18s, including notification curfews, automatic 60-minute screentime limits, and restricted messaging. TikTok addresses specific harms: grooming (99.6% of youth abuse content removed proactively), bullying (94.7% removed before user report), and misogyny (partnership with Women's Aid launched 2025).
Key findings
- TikTok accounts for 8% of children's total online time (15 minutes daily average), behind YouTube (48 min) and Snapchat (45 min), per Ofcom research
- All teens have automatic 60-minute screentime limits; new 'Sleep Hours' feature prevents app use after 10pm with full-screen takeover for under-18s
- For users under 16: direct messaging disabled, accounts private by default, content excluded from For You feed, comments restricted to accepted friends only
- Q4 2025: 99.6% of youth sexual abuse content removed proactively; 97.2% removed within 24 hours; 91.3% removed before receiving any views
- TikTok partnered with Women's Aid in 2025; 'Speak Up, Call Out' campaign and anti-misogyny search intervention redirect harmful content searches to educational resources
Tone
SupportiveTopics
Key actors
TikTok, Helen Hayes MP, Education Select Committee, Ali Law, Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children's Hospital, Women's Aid, Ofcom, NSPCC, Benedict Townsend
Notable line
“We believe the best way to tackle online harm is to prevent it from occurring in the first place.”
Key Quotes
“We believe the best way to tackle online harm is to prevent it from occurring in the first place. Consequently, we embed teen accounts with more than 50 preset safety, privacy, and security features and settings automatically turned on.”
“TikTok was third, accounting for 8% of time spent (15 minutes), followed by Roblox and WhatsApp.”
“99.6% of content was removed proactively, before reported to us by a user or law enforcement agency; • 97.2% was removed within 24 hours of upload, and; • 91.3% was removed before it had received a single view.”
“During feature testing, nearly 4 in 10 users prompted chose to withdraw and edit their comments.”
“All accounts for users under 18 are set to private by default. This has a number of benefits, including limiting who can follow the account, view or interact with their posts, and read their bio.”
Source · parliament.uk record ↗