U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn on Friday sent a letter to the head of the company that owns Kik, the messaging platform previously used by Graham Platner, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, which was recently called a “predator’s paradise” in an article published by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE).
The senator began her letter to MediaLab CEO Michael Heyward by directly referencing the NCOSE research released on June 4, which detailed an experiment that saw a Kik account belonging to a fictional 12-year-old girl overwhelmed with graphic sexual messages and requests from strangers. The report also detailed four arrests, convictions, or sentences of the platform’s users since April.
According to Blackburn, “Kik has followed a similar playbook as other social media companies: promise safety by design while simultaneously turning a blind eye to—or even allowing—the exploitation and abuse of minors. This conduct is disgusting and must immediately come to a stop.”
In addition to the NCOSE report, Blackburn referenced the latest annual report by the parental controls company Bark, which listed Kik among the top platforms where children are likely to be exposed to severe sexual content for half a decade. The report specifically lists Kik as the third most flagged application for severe bullying and second most flagged for severe sexual content.
With a June 19 deadline, Blackburn posed 10 questions to the company, requesting information about age verification measures Kik uses to verify its platform is used by adults, what safeguards are in place to prevent adults from contacting self-identified children, the reports it receives involving potential child sexual exploitation, how many Kik users have been engaged in or had their accounts terminated for such behavior, and the total number of reports made by the company to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) CyberTipline over the last five years.
The questions from Blackburn, who last year reintroduced the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which aims to protect children using the internet, and who polls suggest is the Republican frontrunner to become Tennessee’s next governor, come amid increased national scrutiny of Kik following the revelation that Platner maintained an account on the platform.
The profile was first exposed on May 30, and on June 1, Fox News Digital reported that the account remained active on the platform, despite the Platner campaign claiming it had been deleted. The outlet reported that Platner’s campaign said the application was long deleted from the candidate’s phone, and that there was no evidence he used the messaging platform to communicate with minors.
Platner was previously dogged by the revelation that he sent “sexual” messages to at least a half dozen women other than his wife.
– – –
Tom Pappert is a 2025 recipient of the Dao Prize and the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star. He also reports for the Star News Network. Follow Tom on X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Marsha Blackburn” by Marsha Blackburn.
