Maldita.es identified more than 26,000 TikTok profiles it described as belonging to potential child abusers, including more than 7,000 Spanish-language profiles, according to its investigation. The organisation said abuse material appeared on some profiles. Others sought buyers, while users requested sexual images from minors in comments. The total combines several categories of accounts and is not a count of individually verified criminal offenders.
The investigation found 1,183 explicit videos of child sexual abuse, which had accumulated approximately 48 million views. Maldita.es said it gathered evidence over 35 days, from 16 October through 6 November 2026, and would file a complaint with the Spanish Prosecutor’s Office’s computer-crime unit. The organisation argued that TikTok had not done enough to prevent the material from circulating.
The findings build on earlier coverage of TikTok. Maldita.es says the platform removed about 10% of the material it reported and blocked 26% of illegal material in Spain. Those percentages refer to different measures reported by the organisation. In a separate test, TikTok removed five of 50 videos that Maldita.es expressly reported.
Investigators also identified nearly 100 livestreams involving minors across 17 countries, despite TikTok’s rules prohibiting minors from going live. Maldita.es said viewers asked children to perform actions, some sexual in nature, in exchange for money. The investigation also examined TikTok’s comment sections and its search and recommendation systems. Maldita.es reported that keywords related to the material were not blocked in TikTok search, unlike on other platforms.
The organisation had investigated the issue twice before. Maldita.es said its latest findings raised serious questions about the effectiveness of TikTok’s child-protection measures and pointed to a potential breach of obligations under the Ley europea de Servicios Digitales (DSA). Separately, on 6 November, the European Commission announced a preliminary finding that TikTok’s “For You” recommendation feed breached the DSA over the potential “rabbit hole effect” and the risk of exposing users, particularly minors and other vulnerable people, to increasingly harmful content. That preliminary finding concerns the recommendation feed and is not a final infringement decision.
On 9 November, Spain’s Ministry of Youth and Childhood, led by Sira Rego, separately asked the Fiscalía General del Estado to investigate the activity and consider measures to protect potentially affected minors. Maldita.es and the law firm Cremades & Calvo-Sotelo also submitted a complaint to the Prosecutor’s Office’s computer-crime unit. The submissions sought prosecutorial action; they were not judicial findings against TikTok or named users. AFP reported that TikTok had not responded when contacted.
Pedro Sánchez called the findings a scandal and said they should be investigated in an interview broadcast by La Séptima. He said the government would act in proportion to the seriousness of the matter and could suspend a social network if necessary. Any suspension remained conditional on the investigation and the seriousness established; none was announced. Sánchez had previously advocated stronger controls, including a proposed ban on social-media access for under-16s and legal responsibility for platform executives.
The EU has also sought to restrict social media under the DSA. The report cited a proposed ban for children under 13 as a response to risks to their wellbeing and development.
