Children as young as five are livestreaming pornographic content on TikTok to raise funds for video games such as Fortnite and Roblox, police experts have warned.

A document put together by the UK Online CSEA Covert Intelligence Team (OCCIT) has revealed that paedophiles are ‘paying’ kids on the social media app for explicit content using a virtual gifting system that can be converted back to actual cash.

The paedophiles – who generally operate in groups of 10,000 – employ TikTok’s ‘gift’ system to reward children who carry out their twisted acts, such as performing handstands whilst wearing skirts.

In documents seen by The Telegraph, the specialist police force said it was alarmed that self-generated child pornography and self-harm was permitted to be created and monetised by the video sharing app.

It cautioned that TikTok ‘doesn’t just enable online sexual abuse. It currently promotes it.’

The report pointed specifically to two gaming platforms, Fortnite and Roblox, where children had been ‘observed selling content’ in exchange for currency.

It warned that this can ‘escalate all the way up to the most explicit sexual acts being undertaken by children on TikTok livestreams,’ which the paedophiles subsequently recorded and broadcast.

The force said that this can lead to ‘blackmail and extortion’ by the sex offenders and can cause the participating children to be exposed to the ‘most extreme and humiliating abuse imaginable’. 

Police experts have warned that children as young as five are self generating pornographic content for paedophiles so they can raise funds for video games such as Fortnite and Roblox

The OCCIT document was provided to Baroness Kidron (pictured) ahead of a House of Lords session looking into whether social media should be banned for under-16s

The OCCIT identified hundreds of TikTok accounts in the UK concentrated on the sexualisation of children and said the video app is a ‘favoured’ platforms for locating victims.

The revelation comes ahead of a session of the House of Lords committee session which aimed to examine if under-16s should be banned from social media, following the example of Australia.

Baroness Kidron was issued the document. She told peers: ‘Last Monday, while the Commons was voting against the ban, I got evidence from the police about live streaming on TikTok which makes for such poor reading that my parliamentary assistant said he felt rather sick and asked if he could go home.’

Lady Kidron said the findings were ‘unacceptable,’ and placed blame on both the government and the opposition for letting the issue spiral out of control.

She said: ‘Honestly, shame on the Government for implementing a three-line whip to stop risk-assessing things for child sexual abuse material and shame on the opposition for not voting for it.’

TikTok said it had not been made aware of the OCCIT’s findings, but that its law enforcement response team was actively engaging with police, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre within the National Crime Agency.

It added that it investigated the content referenced and has removed any material that violates the platform’s policies. 

A spokesperson for TikTok said: ‘Child Sexual Abuse Material is abhorrent and categorically prohibited on our platform.

‘We invest significantly in combating exploitation and staying ahead of bad actors through proactive detection technology and specialist teams, and we take deliberate design decisions that make our platform hostile to predators.’