Mums and dads, this one will turn your stomach.

There is now a growing pile of evidence that TikTok’s so-called “For You” algorithm is doing something deeply disturbing — pushing videos posted by teenage girls straight onto the screens of grown men.

We’re not talking about anything those girls did wrong. They’re posting the everyday stuff a 14-year-old uploads — dance routines, lip-syncs, clips from a school dance, mucking around with friends. Then somewhere inside TikTok’s black box, the algorithm sorts the audience. And the eyeballs watching that 14-year-old aren’t her classmates. They’re middle-aged men, in suburbs all over Australia, with viewing histories that would horrify any parent.

Researchers have been raising the alarm for years. The pattern keeps coming back the same way: set up a brand-new account posing as an adult man, linger on a couple of clips of underage girls, and within minutes the feed is flooded with more of the same. The platform isn’t just allowing it. It is engineering it.

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has been hammering this point for years. We’ve now passed laws banning under-16s from social media on paper. But laws on paper don’t stop an algorithm that has been quietly built to maximise watch-time at the expense of every kid on the platform.

Hear more on this and other talking points from Ben Fordham Live in the playlist below and give us a follow on Apple Podcasts: