Tik Tok Has Made Major Changes for Underage Users
If your child has entered into the wide and weird world of Tik Tok, and it has you worried - I've got some good news for you. The wildly popular social media newcomer has just implemented some new features that will help them stay safe while they are trying to perfect that new Jason Derulo dance.
Having a kid who wants their own smartphone is stressful, but giving your kid a smartphone may be more stressful. Case in point: My 12 year-old son. Don't get me wrong, he's a great kid and he's very responsible and trustworthy. In fact, it's not so much him having access to everything I'm worried about - it's everyone else in the world possibly having access to him that has me losing sleep.
Just so you know, I use every tool at my disposal to keep tabs on his online activity. I get alerted if he strays outside of our agreed upon parameters. He's not too thrilled about having big brother watching over his shoulders, but he also understands that it is absolutely a condition of having the phone.
According to Today.com, these new features that Tik Tok has added will definitely help you and I keep the wrong people from interacting with our kids. The 4 new settings should already be active on every account for folks under 18 years old, and are set as defaults automatically.
1. All users between the ages of 13 and 15 will have their account set to "private." That means that the user would have to approve followers before those users can see their videos. The “suggest your account to others” setting will be turned off for these users as well
2. Users in the aforementioned age range will have to choose who can comment on their videos. They can choose "friends" or "no one." The option for "everyone" to comment will be disabled for these users.
3. The "Duet," and "Stitch" tools will only be available for users 16 and up.
4. Although the platform already limited which videos can be downloaded to those posted by accounts belonging to users 16 and above, a new feature for 16 and 17 year-olds will allow them to restrict access to this ability to "friends only."