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When a young teen signs up for TikTok, their account will now be more private by default. TikTok said today that it is updating the default settings for users aged 13 to 15, limiting the number of people who can view and comment on their videos. Only the users they add as friends will be able to see their videos and their account will not be suggested to other users.
TikTok will also completely disable the option to allow anyone to comment on these users’ videos, even if they are making their account public. Users between the ages of 13 and 15 will only be able to allow their friends to comment on their videos, or they will be able to disable comments altogether.
The app’s Duet and Stitch features, which allow users to repost and reply to another person’s video, will be disabled for videos posted by users under the age of 16. The ability to download videos from users under this age is also disabled.
For users between the ages of 16 and 17, TikTok disables the ability to download their videos by default and limits the Duet and Stitch features to their friends.
The suite of changes should add to a more protective TikTok for its younger users. These users can still, on the whole, use TikTok like anyone else can, but the app does more to protect these users and their community videos in general.
TikTok has gradually added more privacy controls for teenage accounts over the past year. In 2020, the app started allowing parents to remotely set restrictions on a child’s account and then started allowing parents to change their child’s privacy settings as well. TikTok had also previously disabled direct messaging for users under the age of 16.
This is all a substantial turnaround from the way TikTok’s predecessor handled children’s accounts. TikTok had to pay $ 5.7 million in 2019 to settle claims that the old app, Musical.ly, failed to gain parental approval for children under 13.
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