A big chunk of TikTok users are actually quite young, being between the ages of 13-17. Because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up putting these children in harm’s way, a lot of people have been calling on TikTok to put restrictions in place for the purposes of protecting them. TikTok is now following through with some of these suggestions.
Profiles that belong to users that are between the ages of 13-15 will now automatically be set to private which means that only their followers would be able to see them and they will have to approve followers before they can gain access to their content. What’s more is that users under 17 will also have their DMs turned off by default, although preexisting users in this age range would still have them on and would instead be given a prompt that would request them to check their privacy settings.
Another really positive step that TikTok is taking involves not allowing users under 16 to get any notifications after 9pm. Social media use before bedtime is known to cause interrupted and not particularly restful sleep, so the fact that TikTok is trying to reduce usage at night is definitely a good thing.
TikTok, is also rolling out a feature that will "help teens understand the sharing options available to them", TikTok said its "now adding a pop-up that appears when teens under the age of 16 are ready to publish their first video, asking them to choose who can watch the video". Adding further, Under 17 users "won't be able to publish their video until they make a selection". The social network is also adding an option that allows young users to choose who can download their public videos.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that there is still a long way to go before TikTok can claim to be perfectly safe for children. Social media in general has been found to be very harmful for people that are still developing their brains, and more steps will have to be taken for the harm that is being done to teenagers to be reduced. Regardless, this is still a very responsible move from TikTok, one that sets an example for other social media platforms to follow.
Read next: TikTok plans to introduce the stories feature that will be similar to stories on Snapchat and Facebook-owned Instagram
Profiles that belong to users that are between the ages of 13-15 will now automatically be set to private which means that only their followers would be able to see them and they will have to approve followers before they can gain access to their content. What’s more is that users under 17 will also have their DMs turned off by default, although preexisting users in this age range would still have them on and would instead be given a prompt that would request them to check their privacy settings.
Another really positive step that TikTok is taking involves not allowing users under 16 to get any notifications after 9pm. Social media use before bedtime is known to cause interrupted and not particularly restful sleep, so the fact that TikTok is trying to reduce usage at night is definitely a good thing.
TikTok, is also rolling out a feature that will "help teens understand the sharing options available to them", TikTok said its "now adding a pop-up that appears when teens under the age of 16 are ready to publish their first video, asking them to choose who can watch the video". Adding further, Under 17 users "won't be able to publish their video until they make a selection". The social network is also adding an option that allows young users to choose who can download their public videos.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that there is still a long way to go before TikTok can claim to be perfectly safe for children. Social media in general has been found to be very harmful for people that are still developing their brains, and more steps will have to be taken for the harm that is being done to teenagers to be reduced. Regardless, this is still a very responsible move from TikTok, one that sets an example for other social media platforms to follow.
Read next: TikTok plans to introduce the stories feature that will be similar to stories on Snapchat and Facebook-owned Instagram
