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Ofcom Opens TikTok Age-Check Probe Under Online Safety Act
Ofcom has opened a formal TikTok investigation over age-check failures under the UK Online Safety Act, putting age inference methods at risk industrywide.
Ofcom opened a formal investigation into TikTok on July 16 over whether the platform’s age checks meet its child-protection duties under the UK’s Online Safety Act.
The probe targets “age inference.” That is the system TikTok uses to guess a user’s age from behavior. It does not rely on a verified ID or a face scan. Ofcom assigned the case a number, CW/01352/07/26. It falls under section 12 of the Online Safety Act 2023.
Age inference is the lowest-friction gate a social platform can run. No ID upload. No biometric scan. No drop-off at signup. TikTok is not alone in leaning on it. A ruling that it fails the law’s “highly effective” test would disqualify soft age assurance across the industry. Hard verification would then become the only compliant path for every major platform. That reshapes who can reach an under-16 audience. It also reshapes how branded content and TikTok Shop reach the youngest end of a creator’s following.
What Ofcom actually found
The investigation landed the same day as Ofcom’s first Age Assurance Report. The report covers the first six months after the children’s protection duties took effect in July 2025. It says Ofcom has already ruled out age inference as highly effective age assurance.
Ofcom tied that finding to TikTok. The regulator said the report suggests age inference models, such as those used by TikTok, may have failed to correctly identify a significant proportion of children, putting them at risk of exposure to harmful content.
Kate Davies, Ofcom’s group director for strategy and research, put it plainly on BBC Radio 4. “We have very serious questions about whether age inference can be highly effective,” she said.
TikTok rejects the premise. A spokesperson said the company strictly enforces age-appropriate experiences through expert-informed platform rules and advanced age inference technologies, in line with major industry peers. The spokesperson added that TikTok is “confident that we meet our Online Safety Act obligations and will work with Ofcom to demonstrate it.”
The stakes and the timeline
The penalty ceiling is steep. Ofcom can fine TikTok up to £18 million, about $24 million, or 10 percent of qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater. TikTok publishes no standalone financials, and parent ByteDance keeps its accounts private. So the higher ceiling is an estimate, not a figure drawn from a primary disclosure. In the most serious cases, Ofcom can seek a court order. That order can require payment processors, advertisers, or ISPs to disrupt the platform’s UK business.
The first evidence-gathering stage runs about three months. Ofcom expects to publish an update in October 2026.
Ofcom told the wider industry to move now. It said services that use age inference should switch to other methods listed in its guidance as highly effective without delay.
The timing sharpens the pressure. The probe arrived a month after the UK government announced an under-16s ban from a range of social media platforms, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer preparing further legislation for a blanket ban. Ofcom plans to report to Parliament in late October on how over-16 age checks could work in practice, ahead of restrictions targeted for 2027.
The October update is the next fixed date. Parliament is still writing the ban the report says age inference cannot enforce.
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TikTok Adds Voice Comments, Polls and Photo Carousels
TikTok is turning its comment section into a voice, poll and photo surface, and the 1.7 billion daily comments it targets are a creator monetization signal, not a cosmetic tweak.
TikTok announced four new comment-section features Thursday, adding 60-second voice comments, creator-run polls, photo carousels and Live Photo replies across its platform.
The company detailed the rollout in a Newsroom post titled “Say More in the Comments.” TikTok said more than 1.7 billion comments are shared on the platform every day, the scale this overhaul targets.
For creators, the change is a business signal, not a cosmetic one. A comment section built for voice, votes and images is a comment section built for dwell time. Longer sessions and deeper interaction feed the engagement metrics that shape reach and ad-impression duration, the numbers that underwrite creator monetization.
Voice Comments are the headline feature. Users tap a microphone icon in the comment box and record a message up to 60 seconds long. Once posted, anyone can tap to listen.
That feature is rolling out globally over the next month, and it is restricted to accounts belonging to users 18 and older. TikTok is expanding a community tool and managing regulatory exposure at the same time.
Moderation runs underneath it. A TikTok spokesperson told TechCrunch that voice comments are subject to the same Community Guidelines as other content on the platform. The company said it uses human and automated detection, including speech-to-text transcription, to catch violations.
Comment Polls are live globally now. Creators can add a poll when commenting on their own video, choose up to five options, and set a voting timeframe. TikTok said results track in the comment section in real time.
The photo tools round out the bundle. Photo Carousel Comments let users add up to nine images in a single comment, up from one at a time, and roll out globally over the next month. Live Photo Comments, live globally now, let users upload a Live Photo that plays a brief burst of motion before the still image appears.
The design borrows from messaging apps, a lineage TikTok did not hide. In its announcement, TikTok framed the comment section as the place “where jokes get funnier, reactions get bigger, and total strangers connect in real time.”
Voice Comments and Photo Carousel Comments are expected to finish their global rollout around October 3, roughly a month after the announcement.
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Twitch Adds Clips to DJ Program, Ending Blackout
Twitch just reopened cross-platform discovery for its DJ Program, ending a two-year ban on clips and dangling a badge that expires September 15.
Twitch reversed a two-year content blackout for its DJ Program on September 1, letting DJ creators clip mid-set moments and share them to social platforms for the first time since the program launched in 2024.
The change is automatic. Twitch said clipping is now available to DJ Program creators, editors, and mods the moment they go live, with no opt-in step required. Clips can be made during or after a stream and posted straight to a creator’s socials.
For DJ streamers, the reversal reopens a growth channel that has been closed since the category went live. When the program launched, DJs who signed on had VODs, clips, highlights, and video uploads disabled on their channels, a contractual condition tied to the licensing deals behind the catalog. That left DJ creators with no shareable content and no way to feed TikTok, Instagram Reels, or X, the platforms where new listeners actually find them.
The old trade was steep. Twitch built the DJ Program on a first-of-its-kind partnership with Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music, and independent labels represented by Merlin, and the rights terms barred any recorded content. Discovery lived inside the DJ category and nowhere else.
Now the clips carry the parts that make a set travel. Twitch said clips capture a creator’s voice, crowd reactions, Chat hype, and any other non-music audio from the set, so the energy comes through even without the music itself.
The catalog effect matters here. Twitch cited more than 15,000 DJs building and monetizing communities on the platform when it announced the program in 2024, a number that had more than quadrupled since early 2020. Every one of them has been invisible off-platform until this week.
Twitch is pushing early adoption with a deadline. The company is offering a limited-time “Clipped That” chat badge to creators who download and share a clip to social by September 15.
The badge callout in Twitch’s announcement reads: “Unlock the limited-time Clipped That badge by downloading and sharing an epic mid-set moment from your stream to social by 9/15.”
The two-week window closes September 15.
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Only 16% of YouTube Users Also Use Netflix, Data Shows
New Apptopia panel data lands as Netflix signs YouTube talent by the dozen. The catch: only 1 in 6 YouTube users also has Netflix, and the gap is widening.
Only about 16% of YouTube users also use Netflix, while about 92% of Netflix users also use YouTube, new consumer panel data showed Friday.
The figures come from Apptopia’s US consumer device panel, analyzed by Tubefilter on the day of publication. Apptopia’s Adam Blacker put it plainly in his bylined post: “In August, about 92% of Netflix users were also users of YouTube while only about 16% of YouTube users were also users of Netflix.”
The gap matters because Netflix has spent 2026 signing YouTube talent whose channels collectively hold more than 500 million subscribers, The Wrap reported. The 16% funnel means those creators reach a structurally smaller Netflix audience than their YouTube base. Netflix borrows the creators. It does not borrow their viewers.
The overlap was more balanced at the start of the year. Apptopia data shows the drop-off began in January, when Netflix started hosting original podcasts. Short-form arrivals since then have made the decline sharper.
Podcasts are not the only pressure. Netflix users increasingly cross over to microdrama apps like PineDrama and DramaBox throughout 2026. That is a second competitive front YouTube does not face in the same zero-sum way, because YouTube already hosts every one of these formats under one roof.
Netflix is paying several million dollars a year for co-exclusive rights that let creators upload to both YouTube and Netflix at once. The jury is still out on how much those deals boost Netflix’s engagement.
For a creator weighing a Netflix check, the panel data reframes the pitch. A deal built to add reach can instead strand a creator between two audiences that barely overlap, growing neither. Netflix is paying to license audiences that already live on YouTube, and the 16% number is a measure of how few of them follow.
