TikTok's US Joint Venture Joins Lantern Child Safety Program and Pledges $2M to NCMEC
September 22, 2026 - 3:08 pm
TikTok’s US business has joined Lantern, a program that enables tech companies to share warning signs about individuals who sexually exploit children as they move across platforms, TechCrunch reported. The member is TikTok USDS Joint Venture, a majority-American-owned company formed in January to operate TikTok in the US. ByteDance retains a 19.9% stake, while Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX each hold 15%.
Lantern, launched in 2023, allows members to securely exchange signals such as accounts, links, or content tied to abuse, helping identify predators who may be active on multiple services. Other members include Google, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Snap, Discord, Roblox, Reddit, X, Twitch, and Anthropic.
By the end of 2025, participating companies shared over two million signals of potentially violating behavior, according to Lantern. Its director, Marc Leone, stated that TikTok’s participation will strengthen coordinated enforcement across the industry.
Most of TikTok's major rivals were already members, making this move a significant step as it brings one of the largest youth-focused platforms into a system its competitors had been using without it.
TikTok’s US venture is also contributing $2 million to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to modernize its CyberTipline, the channel through which US companies must report child sexual abuse material.
The funding will be used to implement search, automation, and analysis tools that TikTok claims will halve manual processing time and expedite the delivery of usable reports to law enforcement. The upgrade, expected to run for three years at a total cost of $10 million, is supported by AWS, Microsoft, and Palantir.