Strengthening privacy and safety for youth on TikTok

I wonder how they plan on dealing with all the children who claim they are older than they are. TikTok is very popular in the 10 and 11 year old age bracket: an age bracket that already cannot formally use the app, but they do.

All the articles aimed at parents about the child-modes where only safe content can be accessed and no videos of themselves can be posted mention that these are not interesting to these teens at all, and go on to mention that the age limit can be subverted.

In the EU the minimum age to use WhatsApp is 16, yet nearly every teen from 10 onwards has it installed. When it comes to the bottom line, it's just not in the company's interests to block these users except when explicitly pointed out. They have disposable income (or will have in a few years), and they are influenceable. Advertisers love them.

>"Starting today, we're changing the default privacy setting for all registered accounts ages 13-15 to private. With a private TikTok account, only someone who the user approves as a follower can view their videos."

It is good to see Tiktok default to friends-only followers for their youngest users.

These also seems to be a good step that Facebook and other should follow:

>"Screen Time Management: Control how long your teen can spend on TikTok each day."

>"Restricted Mode: Limit the appearance of content that may not be appropriate for all audiences.

>"Direct Messages: Restrict who can send messages to the connected account, or turn off direct messaging completely.