TikTok Boosts Privacy Features for Young Users

A month after federal regulators ordered it to disclose how its practices affect children and teens, TikTok is tightening its privacy practices for those under 18.

Starting Wednesday, the default privacy setting for accounts with users ages 13-15 will be private. This means that only someone approved by the user as a subscriber can see their videos, which was not the case before. But teens can always change this setting in public if they want to.

Older teens will not see this default setting change. For users aged 16 or 17, the default setting for users to upload videos they have created will now be “off” rather than “on”.

TikTok also blocks the ability for users to upload videos created by people 15 years of age or younger. This age group will also see direct messaging restricted and will not be able to host live streams.

TikTok is very popular with teens and young children. A feature called TikTok for younger users offers pre-selected “age-appropriate” videos. This feature was added after TikTok’s predecessor, Musica.ly, settled allegations by the FTC that it illegally collected personal information from children. She also agreed to pay $ 5.7 million.

A tool called “family association” allows parents to link their TikTok account to their teenager’s to enable content and privacy settings.

Last month, the Federal Trade Commission asked TikTok’s parent company, along with Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and five other social media companies to provide detailed information on how they collect and use consumers’ personal data and how their practices affect children and adolescents.

TikTok users are asked to indicate their birthday when they sign up for the service, but like other social media platforms, there is no real verification to ensure it is correct.