TikTok Is Launching Two New DM Features Right Now
The US Department of Justice could sue TikTok and the app could be banned in the country by January , but that doesn’t stop the app from adding new features. It just so happens that there are two brand new options in private messages that can make messaging with other TikTok users easier and more fun: stickers and group chats.
TikTok Stickers
TikTok stickers , as you might expect, are graphics that can be shared in private messages on TikTok. If you’re familiar with stickers in other apps and chat platforms, such as the iOS sticker maker , TikTok’s options seem very similar.
In TikTok, you can make stickers static or animated. If you’re 18 years or older, you can upload your stickers (called “sticker packs” in TikTok) to the sticker store so other users can try them out in their DMs. You can also browse other sticker packs and use them yourself if you don’t feel like creating your own. Sticker packs can contain up to 24 stickers at a time, and each file can be up to 3MB in size.
Additionally, you can create stickers from TikTok videos. The same applies here, except that you must be at least 16 years old to create video stickers. (No clear reason is given here as to why there is an age difference between video stickers and regular stickers.)
You can learn more about creating stickers in TikTok on the company’s support page here .
Group chats on TikTok
While stickers are great, there’s bigger news: TikTok is launching group chats on the platform for the first time. Instead of sending videos and messages to friends individually, you can now create group chats with up to 32 users at once.
Unfortunately, not all users will be able to use TikTok’s new group chats. For users between the ages of 13 and 15, group chats will be completely unavailable. There are some restrictions for users aged 16 and 17: while these users can be added to a group chat by their friends on TikTok, they will not be able to join a group via a link unless they have at least one mutual friend. in this group. In this case, they will not be automatically added to the group; rather, they will need to actively join in order to communicate. Additionally, teens who create a group chat will have to manually approve new members.
Applying strict rules to younger users makes sense for the company, especially in light of the Justice Department’s lawsuit: The government alleges that TikTok illegally collected data from users under 13 without their parents’ permission, violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. If TikTok is going to give kids new ways to interact with each other on the platform, it makes sense to put up guardrails.
Users 18 years and older still need to be friends with users to accept invitations to group chats, unless you select “Nobody” in your DM privacy settings. And, importantly, although TikTok claims that DMs use encryption, end-to-end encryption is not currently available. In short, let’s assume that everything you send to other people on TikTok will remain private forever. (Of course, this is good advice for all Internet users, regardless of encryption level.)
While group chats aren’t yet live in my app, it looks like the process is similar to starting a direct message with a single friend: In the Inbox tab, you can click the Chat button, but instead of selecting one user to chat with, you can select multiple names. You can also select a name from the message list and then select More Options to add more people to the chat. Finally, click “Start Group Chat” to start chatting.