TikTok Integrates Amber Alerts for Missing Children on For You Page

03/20/2025 Social Media

TikTok is stepping up its efforts to help find missing children by partnering with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to bring real-time Amber Alerts directly to users' For You feeds in the United States. This new feature ensures that if law enforcement activates an Amber Alert in a designated search area, users within that area will see the alert prominently displayed in their For You feed.

The alerts will contain crucial information, including the child's photo, description, last known location, and any other relevant details to aid in the search. TikTok determines a user's location through their device's IP address.

Successful Pilot Program

The nationwide launch follows a successful pilot program in Texas. During the pilot, Amber Alerts on TikTok were viewed over 20 million times, leading to 2.5 million visits to NCMEC's website between August and December 2024. This demonstrates the potential impact of leveraging TikTok's vast reach.

In addition to integrating Amber Alerts, TikTok is also donating advertising credits to NCMEC to amplify their messaging around missing children and youth safety information.

This move makes sense for TikTok, given its massive user base, especially among teens, who may be more likely to notice these alerts than traditional notifications.

"Every second counts when a child goes missing," said Gavin Portnoy, Vice President of Communications & Brand at NCMEC. "By harnessing the reach and speed of a platform like TikTok, parents, caregivers, and communities nationwide can become powerful advocates in the urgent effort to locate missing children."

TikTok joins other social networks like Facebook (since 2016) and Instagram (since 2022) in integrating Amber Alerts into their platforms, highlighting the growing recognition of social media's potential to aid in emergency situations.