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TikTok on Thursday announced a new feature called Family Pairing to provide additional controls to parents for monitoring their child’s usage of the short video app.
Additionally, TikTok also announced that it would be disabling Direct Messages for users under the age of 16.
“Many users start their creator journey at 13 and are introduced to a wider array of app options for download, making it a critical time for teens and their families to learn about digital literacy and smart online behaviour,” TikTok said in an official blog post.
Family Pairing will allow parents and teens to customize their safety settings based on individual requirements. Parents can connect their account to their child’s account for the same. The settings are divided into three broad categories, including screen time management, restricted mode and direct messaging.
Screen Time Management will allow parents to control the amount of time that teens spend on the app each day. TikTok has also partnered with top creators to make short videos that appear right in the app, encouraging users to keep tabs on their screen time.
The Restricted Mode allows users to limit the content that appears on a user’s account based on how appropriate it is for young audiences.
“Even without Family Pairing enabled, parents can help their teen set Screen Time Management and Restricted Mode by visiting the app's Digital Wellbeing controls at any time,” said TikTok.
As for messages, users can restrict who can send messages to the connected account, or turn off direct messaging completely.
Furthermore, TikTok’s new features can let users enable settings where only approved followers can message each other. To prevent any harassment on the platform, the video-sharing app does not allow images or videos to be sent in messages. These measures will be put into practice starting on April 30.
TikTok is one of the top five free apps on the Google Play Store in India.
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