‘We got smashed’: TikTok removed child safety campaigner Adam Washbourne’s account

An account that shared details about convicted Aussie paedophiles and child offenders was removed by TikTok. See why it was ripped down.

TikTok has suspended an account that features the names and photographs of convicted sex offenders.

The child safety campaigner behind the account is angry TikTok has left harmful content online when all he was trying to help keep Australian children safe from predators by sharing information already in the media.

President of Fighters Against Child Abuse Australia (FACAA) Adam Washbourne suspects TikTok came under pressure from families of the men he made videos about.

“Out of nowhere I logged on and there was 16 videos that had all been violated overnight, and our account was permanently banned, without so much as a suspension. We got smashed,” Mr Washbourne said.

Adam Washbourne said his TikTok account was banned because of videos identifying convicted child offenders,

Adam Washbourne said the aim of his TikTok account was to help protect Australian children.

There had been some warning prior to that, but TikTok was not specific about the “community standards” were being violated.

But far worse is brazenly posted on TikTok, he claimed.

“There’s violent content. We get people sending us stuff all the time on Tik Tok saying, Have you seen this?’ It will be literal child abuse videos. You inform them and you get a report back saying ‘thanks for your report, it doesn’t violate our community standards’.

Mr Washbourne avoided using words like sexual assault, rape and murder and initially didn’t have any problems as his account gained 5000 followers and 250,000 likes.

Adam Washbourne, the founder of Fighters Against Child Abuse Australia. Picture:: Ryan Osland

“Then out of nowhere we logged on and it was repeated violations, ‘your account has been banned’ and so that was it,” he said.

He suspects a “mass reporting” by those closest to the paedophiles and sex offenders he spoke about on his videos. One particular video saw his inbox flooded with demands to remove it.

“But [then] it was just 16 videos popped up as violated community standards at once. So I couldn’t say exactly what it was but I know we’ve we’re not we’re not exactly making friends.”

The only people on FACAA’s social media accounts are people who have been convicted.

“We don’t report the name of anyone who’s just been charged - because if they’re acquitted that mud sticks and we don’t want that for anyone,” he said.

The feedback until the account was axed had been “huge” from people who urged him “not to stop”.

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“Every post we put up we’d get at least 100 comments on and they would all say the same thing - ‘thanks for exposing these monsters’.

FACAA has Instagram and Facebook accounts but was keen to tap into the younger demographic on TikTok.

“They’re the people we’ve got to get to realise that this happens on every street, this happens in every suburb. And then we throw videos in prevention like how to spot if your child is being groomed, how to spot if someone is online grooming you or if you’ve been stalked or followed,” Mr Washbourne said.

After inquiries from News Corp, a TikTok spokeswoman said the account had been reinstated after a review.

“In this instance, our team detected content we suspected violated our Minor Safety policies, which we enforce actively. As a result, this content was removed and an account ban was enacted. On review, we determined that the user was not breaching our Community Guidelines, and his account has now been reinstated.”

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Originally published as ‘We got smashed’: TikTok removed child safety campaigner Adam Washbourne’s account