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Tiktok introduces new safety features for teenagers
TikTok logo on a mobile phone. photo
© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press/AP/dpa
The short video platform Tiktok now wants to give teenagers and parents better control.
Amidst a heated political controversy surrounding Tiktok, the Chinese short-video platform has announced new security features especially for teenagers. The measures are intended to enable users to better control the screen time spent with Tiktok, the company said on Wednesday in Berlin. In addition, parents of minors should be able to keep a better eye on their children’s Tiktok use.
With the changes, Tiktok is making a second attempt to respond to political concerns. Last June, Tiktok promised better protection against hidden advertising at the end of year-long talks with the EU Commission. The European consumer association Beuc had previously complained that children and young people were not adequately protected from hidden advertising and potentially harmful content.
The current question is how much time children and young people in particular spend with Tiktok. The service is changing the default screen time setting for teens under 18 to a maximum of 60 minutes a day. After that, however, the app is not blocked. “If teens decide to turn off this new default limit and spend more than 100 minutes in a day on Tiktok, they will be prompted with a notification to set a daily screen time limit for themselves.” In one test, this approach increased the use of screen time management tools by 234 percent.
Daily time limit for teenagers
Tiktok also expands parental controls. In “supervised mode,” guardians can set a daily time limit for teens that can be customized for each day of the week. Parents could get an overview of the time spent in the app. They can also see how often Tiktok has been opened. The dashboard also provides an overview of how time is divided between day and night in the app.
Tiktok is currently facing serious allegations that go far beyond child and youth protection. In the past few days, the governments in the USA and Canada, as well as the EU Commission, have banned their employees from using Tiktok on their company cell phones for fear of Chinese data espionage.
A Tiktok spokeswoman denied the allegations. They were based on “fundamental misunderstandings”. Tiktok is currently improving data security, among other things by setting up three data centers in Europe to store user data locally. In addition, employee access to data is further reduced and data flow outside of Europe is minimized.