TikTok launches in-app Amber Alerts

TikTok is bringing nationwide Amber Alerts to users’ For You Pages, in partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). The alerts, which provide vital information on missing children, are expected to reach more than 170 million Americans across the platform, according to the company.

Once issued, users’ video feeds will be interrupted by a black Amber Alerts screen, which will display photos and identifying information for the missing child, as well as options to call 911 or read more information on the NCMEC website — alerts are sent only to those in relevant geographic areas, similar to existing phone and TV alerts.

TikTok piloted the in-app notifications among Texas users last year. The company reported that the alerts, which ran from August to December, were viewed more than 20 million times and led to 2.5 million hits on NCMEC’s website. The new feature expands TikTok’s efforts to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse on the app, including community reporting tools and parental controls.

In 2022, Meta partnered with Instagram to add localized alerts to Instagram users’ feeds, extending the organization’s reach in its first social media collaboration — the organization’s leaders explained to Mashable that the ability to harness social media’s image-focused nature would be a crucial shift in its work. “What we know is that images are the number one critical tool for bringing kids home. By being able to distribute these pictures to individuals who are holding their phones, who are out there at the bank, sitting in traffic, at work, or at a store, they now have a piece of information that may lead to the recovery of a child,” explained NCMEC CEO Michelle DeLaune at the time.

TikTok says it will be donating advertising credits to NCMEC in order to extend the reach of the organization’s TikTok account and recruit popular TikTok creators to amplify their message. “Every second counts when a child goes missing,” said NCMEC’s vice president of communications and brand at NCMEC Gavin Portnoy. “By harnessing the reach and speed of a platform like TikTok, parents, caregivers, and communities nationwide can become powerful advocates in the urgent effort to locate missing children.”