TikTok USDS Joint Venture has joined Lantern, a cross-platform child safety program that allows participating technology companies to securely share signals linked to harmful behavior and content. The U.S. TikTok business is also committing $2 million to help the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children modernize its CyberTipline.
The company joined Lantern about eight months after TikTok USDS Joint Venture was established as a separate U.S. entity. Its participation adds TikTok USDS to a group that includes Google, X, Snap, Twitch, Anthropic, Meta, Discord, Microsoft, Apple, Roblox and Reddit.
Lantern Shares Child Safety Signals Across Platforms
The Tech Coalition launched Lantern in 2023 to help companies identify people and activity linked to child sexual exploitation and abuse across different services. Participating companies can share indicators of potentially violating accounts, content and behavior so other platforms can investigate related activity.
Through the end of 2025, companies participating in Lantern had shared more than 2 million signals. Marc Leone, Lantern’s director, said TikTok USDS’s participation would strengthen coordinated enforcement across technology platforms.
TikTok USDS already reports child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, and other threats involving children to NCMEC’s CyberTipline when it becomes aware of them, as required for U.S.-based companies. The company is now adding financial support for an effort to update the system.
TikTok Puts $2 Million Toward CyberTipline Upgrade
TikTok USDS is contributing $2 million toward NCMEC’s three-year, $10 million CyberTipline modernization project. AWS, Microsoft and Palantir are also contributing resources to the project.
The modernization is intended to add advanced search, automation and analysis tools that can identify potential harm sooner and process reports more quickly. TikTok said the upgrades are expected to cut manual processing times in half and help send actionable reports to law enforcement faster when a child’s safety may be at risk.
The TechCrunch report follows TikTok USDS’s transition into a separately operated U.S. business earlier this year. Lantern’s addition gives the company another mechanism for sharing child safety information with other services when potentially harmful activity extends beyond TikTok.
Featured image credits: Wikimedia Commons
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