"Virtual rape": 14-year-old files criminal complaint against TikTok
She claims the platform repeatedly rejected reports about a post that called her a "whore" and a "slut," and removed it only after a warning letter from a lawyer.
A 14-year-old girl who suffered a series of humiliations and sexual harassment on TikTok has filed a criminal complaint against the platform and against the head of its Israel operations, Anna Pelkin. The claim: TikTok knew about the humiliating content, but agreed to remove it only after being threatened with legal sanctions.
"The complainant and her family were left helpless in the face of a giant platform that trampled crudely over the complainant's privacy and dignity," the complaint states, filed by the girl's attorney, Guy Ophir.
"The complainant and her family did everything in their power to protect the complainant's dignity, but time after time encountered an opaque platform, devoid of basic standards, which openly prefers to promote and glorify viral posts and 'traffic' over protecting the rights of a minor being trampled under its auspices."
At the center of the complaint is a TikTok account called "The Wall of Shame of [name of the town where the girl lives]." The profile picture of the account, which was opened on May 24 this year, is of the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
According to the complaint, the account, which is still active, serves as a platform for publishing humiliating content against various minors who are residents of the town. For example, one post includes the caption "[name of minor] is already tired of sucking off police officers and taking it in the ass at the station," alongside an AI-generated image of the minor sitting on a chair surrounded by police officers. Other posts contained even more explicit content.
The post concerning the girl went up on the day the page opened, and includes her photo under the headline "[girl's name] the whore." The hashtag "#whore" was attached to the post.
"In the caption of the image, the offender attributed to the complainant a false and fabricated statement of a clearly sexual nature, as though this declaration had come from her mouth: '...I just love to slut around.' This is an attribution that has nothing whatsoever to do with reality, and whose sole purpose is to present a 14-year-old girl as sexually promiscuous, before thousands of users of TikTok Israel and TikTok worldwide," the complaint states.
"The publication went viral within a few hours, and accumulated thousands of views, hundreds of shares, dozens of saves by users, hundreds of likes, and dozens of offensive comments echoing and perpetuating the label 'whore,'" it is alleged.
Relative to the scope of activity on TikTok, thousands of views and hundreds of shares are not significant, but when it comes to a small community, this is content that was in fact seen by most of the girl's acquaintances: "The complainant became, against her will, the talk of the day in her town of residence and at the school where she studies, was ashamed to leave her home, and stopped attending school because of this."
Shortly after the post was published, the girl, her family members, and acquaintances reported it to TikTok in an effort to have it removed. The first report was filed on the day the post was published; half an hour later, TikTok stated that the post would not be removed because it did not violate the platform's rules. TikTok responded to another report filed in parallel: "We reviewed the image you reported and found that it does not violate our community guidelines."
"Additional reports, filed by other parties from the complainant's social circle, were all rejected in exactly the same manner. Even a report filed against the account page as a whole was rejected," the complaint states. "This determination, according to which a photo of a 14-year-old minor, alongside the labels 'whore' and 'prostitute,' and a clear and false sexual attribution, 'does not violate our community guidelines,' is not only mistaken, but is illogical, is obtuse, and constitutes a failure bordering on malice."
The post was removed only about 48 hours after its publication, following a warning letter sent by the girl's attorney to TikTok. "Only as a result of his sharply worded appeal did the defendants deign to remove the publications that are the subject of the complaint, and even this the defendants agreed to do only after about 30 hours from his appeal," it states.
The complainant is requesting that TikTok and Pelkin personally be ordered to pay compensation of 150,000 shekels under the Penal Law. "The amount of compensation requested reflects the severity of the acts, the young age of the complainant, the sexual nature of the publications, the duration of the publication, its scope, and the psychological, social, and future damages caused to the complainant within her community," it states.
"The refusal to remove a shame page that sexually harasses minors, humiliates them, and carries out a 'virtual rape' of its victims, in a properly functioning world would receive assertive police handling, but appeals to the police went unanswered," Ophir told Calcalist.
"TikTok is a wealthy, decentralized multinational corporation. A civil suit, no matter how many zeros it carries, will not deter a multinational corporation. As a rule, only the state is permitted to file a criminal indictment. The exception to this is the private criminal complaint process, which authorizes the victim to step into the state's shoes, and to file an indictment on matters such as privacy and defamation. Left with no choice, we will try to do what the state should have done, which is to steer TikTok's conduct through the criminal justice system," he continued.
"My client has an outstanding family, who gave her a shoulder and support, and also funded a lawyer for her who got the publications removed. This shame page continues, even at this moment, to harm LGBT and autistic minors, who are not armed with lawyers. Likewise, the TikTok network is full of criminal violations against minors and the wider public, who are not strong enough to take legal action against it. If we win, the whole public benefits, and perhaps some suicides will be prevented. If we lose, the public will suffer, and this will only intensify."
TikTok's response has not been received as of this time.
