Tiktok is partnering with National Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to provide real-time Amber alerts directly to users for its US feed, the company announced Thursday.
This new feature will activate Amber Alerts by law enforcement and alerts will appear in your feed if you are in the specified search area. A company spokesperson told TechCrunch that Tiktok is identifying whether users are within a specific search through the device's IP address.
The alerts include important details available in standard Amber Alerts, including children's photos, descriptions, last known locations, and other important information that will help you search.
According to Tiktok, the nationwide launch of Amber Alerts follows the Texas pilot, with Amber Alerts on Tiktok being viewed over 20 million times and 2.5 million visits to the NCMEC website between August and December 2024.
Image credit: Tiktok
The company says it is donating advertising credits to amplify NCMEC's message on Tiktok regarding safety information for missing children and adolescents.
It makes sense for Tiktok to introduce in-app amber alerts. This is because the platform's huge teenage user base is more likely to notice these alerts than traditional notifications that are often overlooked.
“It counts every second when a child goes missing,” said Gavin Portnoy, vice president of NCMEC Communications & Brand, in a press release. “By leveraging the reach and speed of platforms such as Tiktok, parents, caregivers and communities across the country, we can become a strong advocate in our urgent efforts to find missing children.”
Tiktok is not the only social network that integrates Amber alerts into the platform. Facebook has been pushing Amber alerts to users since 2016, and Instagram has been doing so since 2022.