In the first month of the COVID-19 shutdown, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported a three-fold increase in reports of online exploitation and abuse, soaring from 300,000 reports to more than 1.1 million, with more than 70% of those reports coming from social media. This threat continues as children continue to stay home and attend school virtually. In order to educate young people about online dangers, we went to the one platform where they are spending more and more of their time: TikTok. So we created the Help Locker – a TikTok account that directly calls out and debunks common myths about trafficking being spread.
Since its launch, the Help Locker account has amassed thousands of followers and almost 3 million total likes since its launch in January.
Teen’s comments and reactions have been encouraging and have inspired the Help Locker to keep going strong. Each video conveys important, relevant information, but in the tone and style that has become popular on TikTok.
