TikTok attracts people from all walks of life who want to be amused, find joy in their daily lives, and express their creativity. Everyone can find their community on TikTok, whether it’s by checking out the latest book recommendations on #BookTok or showing off their new digs on #renovation. Our goal is to create a warm and respectful platform for these lively, different communities.
TikTok provides a variety of safety and privacy restrictions, allowing users to choose who they share their content with. They also feel that ensuring even greater proactive protections to assist keep teenagers safe is critical, and they have implemented enhancements to encourage age-appropriate experienceson their platform on a regular basis. This involves making accounts for those under the age of 16 private by default, limiting services like Direct Messaging for those 16 and up, and allowing parents to manage their teen’s TikTok visibility through Family Pairing.
To further reinforce these proactive measures, they are releasing a new set of enhancements for customers aged 13-17 today. These modifications will continue to be rolled out to users around the world in the coming months
New changes to Direct Messaging privacy settings
TikTok wants to help teens make active decisions about their privacy settings, so when someone aged 16-17 joins TikTok, their Direct Messaging setting will now be set to ‘No One’ by default. To message others, they will need to actively switch to a different sharing option. Existing accounts who have never used DMs before will receive a prompt asking them to review and confirm their privacy settings the next time they use this feature. These updates build on their current messaging protections, such as not allowing images or videos to be sent in messages and disabling messaging for accounts under age 16.
Decide who can watch your videos
The process of making a TikTok is fun and creative – choosing music, picking effects, and getting the transitions right – but it is just as important to choose who that video will be shared with. To help teens understand the sharing options available to them, TikTok is now adding a pop-up that appears when teenagers under the age of 16 are ready to publish their first video, asking them to choose who can watch the video. They won’t be able to publish their video until they make a selection.
With each video going forward, creators can decide who can watch before they post. Accounts aged 13-15 are set to private by default, and private accounts can choose to share their content with Followers or Friends, as the ‘Everyone’ setting is turned off. Duet and Stitch are also disabled for accounts under 16.
Choose who can download your public videos
TikTok is also providing additional context to help teens aged 16-17 understand how downloads work, so they can choose the option that’s most comfortable for them. If they opt to turn the feature on, they’ll now receive a pop-up asking them to confirm that choice before others can download their videos. Note that downloads are permanently disabled on content from accounts under the age of 16.
A mindful approach to push notifications
TikTok prioritises and supports the well-being of their community members, with features like Screen Time Management that can be enabled both by account holders or by parents as part of Family Pairing. They want to help their younger users in particular develop positive digital habits early on, and they regularly consult with leading pediatric experts and youth well-being advocates to develop their Youth Portal, bullying prevention guide, and other features that support youth-well being. Now, they will be drawing upon this research to make changes that reduce the time period during which their younger teens can receive push notifications. Accounts aged 13-15 will not receive push notifications from 9pm, and accounts aged 16-17 will have push notifications disabled starting at 10pm.
These changes continue to build on their ongoing commitments as there’s no finish line when it comes to protecting the safety, privacy, and well-being of their community. They are working with teens, community organisations, parents and creators to further innovate and they’re excited to share more over the coming months. To learn more about their efforts to support youth and families, you can read our Guardian’s Guide.
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