TikTok Reinforces Privacy Controls for Teenagers

Chinese-owned quick video-sharing app TikTok on Thursday introduced stricter privateness controls for youngsters, looking for to deal with criticism that it has failed to guard kids from hidden promoting and inappropriate content material.

Owned by China’s ByteDance, TikTok has grown quickly world wide, notably amongst youngsters. However a variety of incidents have prompted issues about its privateness and security insurance policies.

TikTok stated the modifications, focused at customers aged 13 to 17 years previous, might be rolled out globally over the approaching months.

A pop-up will seem asking youngsters beneath the age of 16 to decide on who can watch their movies earlier than they will put up them.

“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,” TikTok’s head of kid security public coverage, Alexandra Evans, and its world head of privateness, Aruna Sharma, stated in a blogpost.

Users 16-17 years previous can activate a characteristic that lets a pop-up seem that permits them to decide on who can obtain their public movies. Downloads are completely disabled on content material from accounts beneath the age of 16.

Direct Messaging settings for the accounts of 16 and 17 yr olds might be set to “no one”. Users can change the choice.

TikTok stated it is going to cut back the time interval throughout which beneath 18s obtain push notifications. Those aged 13 to fifteen will now not obtain push notifications from 9pm whereas these aged 16 and 17 from 10pm.

© Thomson Reuters 2021