TikTok’s new parental controls give parents additional tools to manage various aspects of their teen’s account as well as their privacy

By Clayton Cranford
Cyber Safety Cop

TikTok announced it is expanding its parental control, known as Family Pairing, to give parents additional tools to manage various aspects of their teen’s account as well as their privacy. The new tools will allow parents to set their teen’s account to private, control whether their Liked Videos are visible to others, control who can comment on the teen’s videos and even decide whether the teen is allowed to use TikTok’s search feature. See an earlier article (https://www.cybersafetycop.com/tiktok-sugar-daddies-the-new-predator-ploy/) about TikTok predator problems and parental controls.
When Family Pairing first launched in April, it allowed parents to link their account to their teen’s in order to manage screen time, direct messaging and whether or not the teen’s account would be in “Restricted” mode — a special mode which limits TikTok’s feed to a safer set of more moderated content.
With the update rolling out today (Nov. 17), parents will now be able to adjust an expanded range of parental control settings for their teen. They can now turn on or off the teen’s ability to access the search bar in the app, where they would otherwise be able to search for content, users, hashtags and sounds.
Parents can also choose to now turn on or off the ability for other users to see the teen’s “Like Videos” on their profile. And they can limit who is allowed to comment on their teen’s videos by selecting either “everyone,” “friends” or “no one.”
Lastly, they can choose to switch the teen’s account from public to private. The latter would limit discoverability to just those people the teen knows and approves. A private account makes sense for a minor child, of course, but teens often turn their account to public in the hopes of gaining more views for their videos or going viral.
The Family Pairing feature is designed to be used by parents with children age 13 or older, as the app in the U.S. offers a COPPA-compliant, view-only mode for the “under 13” crowd, TikTok for Younger Users.
Families can choose which parental controls make sense for them for use with their teen and for how long. It’s a differentiating feature for TikTok to offer, as other social apps popular with teens — like Snapchat and Instagram — offer no way for parents to limit their teen’s experience.

Cyber Safety Cop’s recommendations
If you have a child under the age of 13, their account should be set up in the “view-only” mode. For children 13 years old or older, use the new parental controls you see necessary to better protect your child on this social media platform. TikTok’s move to increase parental involvement and safety controls is a very good sign and should help keep more children safe, provided their parent knows about these controls and is engaged in their child’s digital world.

Reference
TikTok expands parental controls to include search, commenting and account privacy. (2020). Retrieved 17 November 2020, from https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/17/tiktok-expands-parental-controls-to-include-search-commenting-and-account-privacy/#:~:text=The%20Family%20Pairing%20feature%20is,teen%20and%20for%20how%20long.
Clayton Cranford is a sergeant in a Southern California law enforcement agency and owner of Total Safety Solutions LLC. Clayton is one of the nation’s leading law enforcement educators on social media, child safety and behavioral threat assessments. Clayton is the author of the definitive book on cyber safety for families, “Parenting in the Digital World.” Clayton has more than 20 years of teaching experience and was awarded the 2015 National Bullying Prevention Award from the School Safety Advocacy Council, and the 2015 American Legion Medal of Merit.

Similar Posts