‘To profit from misery’: Tiktok, how to make money from children who begged from children | Tiktok

Three small children gather in front of a camera, cross -legged and pit. “Please support me. We are very poor, L Lense says a child.

They appear in a mud brick hut that lives in extreme poverty in Afghanistan. However, live streams reach viewers in the UK and around the world – Tiktok Live.

They beg for hours, for virtual “gifts” that can be changed for money later. Gently applauds when they get one. In another living stream, a girl jumps and shouts: “Thank you, we love you!” After receiving a digital rose from a woman in the United States, he bought him from Tiktok for about 1p. When you win, it may be less than one third of a penny.

Tiktok says he forbids begging to the child and thinks he is exploiting other ways of begging, and says he has strict policies on vivid users.

But Observer The investigation found the practice common. Begging is actively encouraged with live streams, content with algorithm and tiktok snow, wages and commission up to 70%.

The UN Excessive Poverty and Human Rights Special Rapporteur Olivier de Schutter called the trend “a shocking development ve and accused Tiktok and its intermediaries of“ making profit from the misery of people ”. “Making people suffer is nothing more than digital predasyon.

In Save The Children, Digital Harn Specialist Jeffrey Demarco said, “Certified applications represent important abuse, and immediately should take action to ensure that the platforms no longer allow or benefit from such content.”

The analysis between January and April 2025 found evidence of live-premier and related behaviors in countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt and Kenya.

Most live streams begging families in home environments. However, some streams had the distinctive properties of the organized beggar.

Almost every day, an account that broadcasts regularly has different children. During a broadcast in February, seven young men begging for digital gifts. The next day, at the same point, different children appeared, sitting next to the same two adults. After being warned to the account Observer, Tiktok suspended within two hours. A previous report through in -app reporting tool has not resulted in any transaction.

Another statement with 5,300 followers took place in the wheelchair an old man. The account is carried out by a third party, but there is no information about their identities. The account statement says “poor people” and then crying facial emojis.

Beyond begging, live streams had humiliating and sometimes dangerous stunts in exchange for virtual gifts such as hitting themselves, staying awake for a long time, covering themselves in mud or sleeping on the camera. An Indonesian live stream showed two young girls lying on a tiled ground in a small, white -walled studio. On Friday, the same account was broadcasting a vivid flow of a man who sleeps in the same tile.

Another broadcast from Pakistan showed plastic buckets of three men sitting in the dark and party hats at the beginning. They seemed to be asleep on the camera, they woke up when they bought a gift to do a dance.

Tiktok Live, which was released in August 2020, is a part of the application that content crews can broadcast to the audience in real time. According to Tiktok, 100 million people revived in 2024 and sent comments or gifts to “billions of users ına that could interact with the creator in real time. Flows are promoted to Tiktok users through a special live broadcast and can reach millions of people.

Novita Anggrani, an Indonesian -based social inclusion expert at Charity Care International, said that many creators used Tiktok to “show their talents” or bağlı connecting with people ”. It is widely used by people who sing, dance, play video games, and cook. However, he said that he was increasingly badly used by those who see it as köy shortcut to make money, and that the “harmful” videos showing beggar and related behavior are “very quickly grew”. “This is a brand new way of exploitation,” he added.

He said that the streams were directed by poverty and weak digital literacy and whether people were forced to force them. He said that visible victims often refused to be exploited and that there was a “cooperation to make money”. However, he said that there was a “high risk of abuse ıyla by organized beggar networks that control access to earnings and organize the shooting of more than one family.

Marwa Fatafta from Access Now, Digital Rights Organization, said Tiktok Live encourages incentives and risky behaviors for increasing participation awards. “At the same time, Tiktok does not make enough effort to ensure that this unwanted result is to be addressed, Fat said Fatafta.

The authority warned against a blanket approach to control the beggar content that can punish people who need human support in “crisis or conflict areas, and is concerned that in some regions, the online beggar led to a repressive reaction from governments.

However, he said that he had to be done more to “struggle with organized beggars and exploitation ve and called Tiktok to“ hire the investigation teams ”. “At this point, organized beggar exploitation is not only a predictable risk, but an existing risk. So the platform needs to be interested in it,” he said.

This weekend, Tiktok said he took a definite action, including the removal of the marked accounts. Observer. He said that his policies forbade exploitative begging during live streams, including the begging of “exploiting children or vulnerable people”. “Tiktok is not allowed any live content with children who begged for a gift,” he said.

In cases where there is evidence of exploitative beg or child exploitation, he said that he had taken a “solid action ,, including closing live streams and giving permanent prohibitions. He said that he stopped more than 4 million live flows every month through “Proactive perception by special teams and technology”. People who are home to live streams must have 1,000 followers and should be older than 18 years of age, but children may appear with an adult.

This said the amount of commissions and wages has changed. Live pennants do not receive the total value of the gift, but “diamonds” are given according to the popularity and duration of the gifts and flows. After commissions and fees, it is usually left with about half of the original gift value, but sometimes it is as small as 30%. Tiktok did not deny the figures, but he said that approximately 30% of the gift income was “App Store fees and payment costs”. More than 100 digital gifts for the audience can buy a coin (approximately 1p) cost of a tiktok universe (44,999 coin or about 450 £ 450).

The company has previously faced criticism to take advantage of the exploitative content in Tiktok Live. live sexual abuse. In 2022, the BBC begging their families for money in Syrian refugee camps. Tiktok said that he was “deeply worried” and strengthened his global policies.

In 2023, Al Jazeera reported that orphans in Indonesia demanded donations through live streams showing sleeping children in the background. Tiktok said that he forbade begging in humiliating contexts, but the live flow of the orphanage did not violate the instructions.

Despite the risks of begging Tiktok, charities say that there are potential positive uses. Begging Tiktok helped those who were affected by war, poverty and illness to get help from foreigners. In one case, a family in the Philippines successfully made money for an operation to separate the conjoic twins. In 2023, a man became viral in Indonesia to dance chicken in Tiktok Live. He said to the local media, now the others in his village reported that he took part of the money produced and helped them buy food when the rice materials were low.

However, in many cases, it is not clear who profits. Catherine Turner, Director of the Defense of Klavlak Anti International, said that some children and adults encouraged survival, while third parties were threatened by third parties with “physical or psychological coercion” by controlling access to others’ earnings.

Tiktok requires the identity given by the state from live pennants who want to earn money from the awards, but it is often impossible to know if those who appear to the audience benefit from them. Accounts with live flows are usually anonymous. Although rights groups are obeyed against the real name policies on social media, they say that more strict age assurance processes and moderation systems are necessary.

Previously advised technology companies to detect exploitative cyber-beeging, researcher Maya Lahav at the Criminology Center in Oxford said that the moderate of live streams was a heavy and “big challenge”. There were ethical problems in removing or removing the content. “It is not the way other impressives do not always use their children for profit,” he said.

However, he said there were serious concerns about human rights violations, especially for consent of third parties, or prominent. “The essence of this, when is it exploited? This is the balance they need to print.”