TikTok has underscored its commitment to online safety by introducing a new addition to its trust and safety features. The new feature called Family Pairing, allows parents and teens to customize their safety settings based on individual needs, as well as enable a parent to link their TikTok account to their teen’s and set controls including:
Screen Time Management
Control how long your teen can spend on TikTok each day. In addition, TikTok has partnered with top creators to make short videos that appear right in the app and encourage users to keep tabs on their screen time.
Restricted Mode
Restrict the appearance of content that may not be appropriate for all audiences. Even without Family Pairing enabled, parents can help their teen set Screen Time Management and Restricted Mode by visiting the app’s Digital Wellbeing controls at any time.
Direct Messages
Limit who can send messages to the connected account, or turn off direct messaging completely. With user safety in mind, we have many policies and controls in place for messaging already – for example, only approved followers can message each other, and we don’t allow images or videos to be sent in messages.
Starting April 30, TikTok will be taking those protections one step further as it relates to younger users, and automatically disable Direct Messages for registered accounts under the age of 16.
“Many users start their creator journey at 16 and are introduced to a wider array of app options for download, making it a critical time for teens and their families to learn about digital literacy and smart online behavior. TikTok understands this and has reinforced our platform’s safety features with Family Pairing. It is part of our continued work toward providing parents better ability to guide their teen’s online experience.”
Donny Eryastha, Head of Public Policy (Indonesia, Malaysia, and Philippines) at TikTok
Families are increasingly turning to internet platforms like TikTok to stay entertained, informed, and connected. This has only accelerated since the COVID-19 outbreak began as social distancing brought families closer together. This embrace of TikTok may be a good way to pass time, but it’s also important to keep in mind that there are creeps on the platform too who won’t hesitate at chatting up your kid.
This new feature, especially the ability to lock DMs for those under 16 looks like the big step that TikTok needed to make enhancing the safety of kids on the platform. That being said, teens can still lie about their age when registering, so perhaps some sort of verification feature is what they need to look at next.
