How does TikTok work?
Once signed up and logged in, you can either search for popular categories, creators, or find people via your friend’s contact list, or you can create the videos yourself. But many people just use the app to follow content creators.
Click on the ‘person’ icon and you can choose to sign up with an email, phone number, or existing Google, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram account.
Once you have selected an option, you are then asked to enter your date of birth, if it is below the age of 13, the app displays the following message: “Sorry, looks like you’re not eligible for TikTok. But thanks for checking us out!”
Your feed highlights what is going on in your community and a separate ‘For you’ feed shows tailored recommendations for you.
Why do teens love TikTok?
It is a way to express themselves and create short-form video clips to gain a following and build a community around their passions. It also features some great special effects that users can apply to their videos to make them more unique. You can also cross-post the content on other platforms (such as Instagram) to share it with more people.
Parents have expressed concerns about the inappropriate language of some of the videos posted which may make this less suitable for younger children.
Predators seeking to connect with children is another risk that parents have said to their children. A parent review can be found on Common Sense Media.
What should parents be concerned about?
When you download the app users can see all the content without creating an account although they are not able to post, like, or share anything until they’ve set up an account on the app.
By default all accounts are public so anyone on the app can see what your child shares. However, only approved followers can send them messages.
Users can like or react to a video, follow an account or send messages to each other, so there is the risk that strangers will be able to directly contact children on the app.
Children may be tempted to take risks to get more of a following or likes on a video so it’s important to talk about what they share and with who.
Need to delete your account? Go to Me>Tap …, located on the top right corner>Tap Manage account > Delete account. Follow the instructions in the app to delete your account.
TikTok has said: “Today’s announcement is about going one step further to put in place stronger proactive protections to keep younger members of our community safe.
We look forward to the feedback of our community and all of our stakeholders as we constantly improve with new features and resources to help our community manage their TikTok experience.”
Does TikTok have any safety features?
Digital Wellbeing Like Facebook and Instagram, it has a digital wellbeing element (which is password protected) that alerts users who have been on the app for more than two hours. You can also turn on ‘restricted mode’ to filter out inappropriate content on the app.
Private account You can set an account to be private so that all videos can only be seen by the creator and no one else on the platform. With a private account, you can approve or deny users and limit incoming messages to followers only. Please note that even with a private account, your child’s profile photo, username, and bio are still visible to all users on the platform. You can manage who can comment, duet and direct message your child on the app.