How to Restrict Your Child’s Access to TikTok
Earlier this year, TikTok implemented what it calls “Family Pairing,” a parental control tool that allows parents to link their child’s TikTok account to their own, giving them direct control over their child’s privacy settings. Now, the short video platform app further expands the ways parents can use this tool to restrict who their child communicates with, what they are looking for, and who can see their content.
TikTok ‘s original Family Pairing features included the ability to control how much time a child can spend in the app each day, a “restricted mode” to restrict their access to potentially inappropriate content, and the ability to restrict or disable direct messaging with other users. … All of these functions still exist; new features include:
- Search: Decide if your child can search for content, users, hashtags or sounds.
- Comments: Decide who can comment on your child’s video (everyone, friends, nobody).
- Discoverability: Decide if your child’s account is private (they decide who can see their content) or public (anyone can search and view their content).
- Videos Liked: Many people like to find new videos to watch that others have also liked and followed, but this control allows families to decide if others can view the list of videos your teen liked.
TikTok is quite popular in the United States with about 100 million users nationwide. However, in recent months, the Chinese company has come under intense pressure from the Trump administration to sell or spin off its U.S. business due to concerns over its data collection practices.