When a younger teenager indicators up for TikTok, their account will now be extra non-public by default. TikTok mentioned immediately that it’s updating the default settings for customers aged 13 to 15, limiting who can see and touch upon their movies. Solely customers who they add as mates will be capable to view their movies, and their account gained’t be recommended to different customers.
TikTok will even utterly disable the choice to let anybody touch upon these customers’ movies, even when they make their account public. Customers between 13 and 15 will solely be capable to enable their mates to touch upon their movies, or they’ll flip off feedback altogether.
TikTok has been regularly including extra privateness controls and restrictions for youthful customers
The app’s Duet and Sew options, which permit customers to repost and reply to a different individual’s video, will likely be disabled for movies posed by customers underneath 16. The flexibility to obtain movies of customers underneath that age can also be being disabled.
For customers between 16 and 17, TikTok is disabling the power to obtain their movies by default and limiting the Duet and Sew options to simply their mates.
The suite of tweaks ought to add as much as a TikTok that’s extra protecting of its youngest customers. These customers can nonetheless, by and enormous, use TikTok the best way anybody else can, however the app is doing extra to defend these customers and their movies from the group at massive.
TikTok has been regularly including extra privateness controls for youngsters’ accounts over the previous yr. In 2020, the app began permitting mother and father to remotely set restrictions on a baby’s account and later started permitting mother and father to tweak their child’s privateness settings, too. TikTok additionally beforehand disabled direct messaging for customers underneath 16.
That is all a considerable turnaround from how TikTok’s predecessor dealt with children’ accounts. TikTok needed to pay $5.7 million in 2019 to settle allegations that the older app, Musical.ly, failed to achieve parental approval for teenagers underneath 13. TikTok now has a separate app expertise referred to as “TikTok for Youthful Customers” that simply exhibits curated movies.
