TikTok has announced a range of new safety and privacy controls for teenagers aged 13-17 to further enhance proactive protections on the platform.
This includes making accounts for under the age of 16 private by default, reserving features like Direct Messaging to people 16 and older, and more.
Check out the new features below:
• New changes to Direct Messaging privacy settings – The Direct Messaging setting of users aged 16-17 will now be set to ‘No One’ by default. To message others, they will need to actively switch to a different sharing option. In addition, existing accounts that 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 TikTok’s current messaging protections, such as not allowing images or videos to be sent in messages and disabling messaging for accounts under age 16.
• Sharing options – It allows users 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 teens under the age of 16 are ready to publish their first video, asking them to choose who can watch it. They won’t be able to publish their video until they make a selection.
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. Plus, Duet and Stitch are also disabled for accounts under 16.
• Download option – TikTok provides additional context to help teens aged 16-17 understand how downloads work, so they can choose who can download their public videos. 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. Downloads are permanently disabled on content from accounts under the age of 16.
• Reduced time period for push notifications – TikTok reduces the time period during which younger teens can receive push notifications. Accounts aged 13-15 will not receive push notifications from 9 PM and accounts aged 16-17 will have push notifications disabled starting at 10 PM.
According to TikTok, these changes will continue rolling out to their community globally over the coming months.
Source: TikTok
