TikTok Family Pairing – Added Family Safety For COVID-19 Circuit Breaker

At a critical juncture when families around the world are staying home and turning to social media for entertainment and information amidst the COVID-19 situation, TikTok, the leading destination for short-form mobile video, is advancing its commitment to the safety of users through a new TikTok Family Pairing feature. The feature allows parents to customise the safety settings for their children. 

Family Pairing, which will be rolling out over the coming weeks, is launching with the objective of giving parents insight into, and control over, how their children use TikTok to facilitate responsible use and ensure a safer experience for users of all ages. This is part of TikTok’s continued work towards providing parents with better ability to guide their child’s online experience while allowing time to educate about online safety and digital citizenship. The feature will allow a parent to link their TikTok account to their children’s and set controls including:

TikTok Family Pairing – Screen Time Management

Control how long a child can spend on TikTok each day. In addition, TikTok has partnered with top creators to make short videos that appear right in the app and encourage users to keep tabs on their screen time. These fun videos use the upbeat tone users love while offering a suggestion to take a break and do something offline, like read a book.

TikTok Family Pairing – Restricted Mode

Restrict the appearance of content that may not be appropriate for all audiences. Even without Family Pairing enabled, parents can set Screen Time Management and Restricted Mode by visiting the app’s Digital Wellbeing controls at any time.

TikTok Family Pairing – Direct Messages (DMs)

Limit who can send messages to the connected account, or turn off direct messaging completely. There are many policies and controls in place for messaging – for example, only approved followers can message each other, and images or videos are not allowed to be sent in messages. Starting 30 April, DMs will be prohibited for registered accounts under the age of 16.

“While Singapore has continued to fare amongst the best in the world for online safety for children, content platforms should keep up the momentum by constantly updating and evolving their policies,” said Doreen Tan, User & Content Operations Manager, TikTok Singapore. “While these new features promote a safer and more trustworthy experience for our users of all ages, our progress in this area is also never finished. We look forward to working with all our stakeholders as we continuously seek to improve through new features and resources to help our community manage their digital experience.”

During these challenging times, TikTok is committed to user safety more than ever and has taken steps to improve – including making policies more transparent and accessible and growing its Trust & Safety hub in Singapore. In addition to Family Pairing, TikTok already offers a number of resources to support users on their social media journey, including educational safety videos and parental guides like Top Ten Tips for Parents. TikTok will continue to introduce measures to protect their users so they can stay focused on what matters to them – creating, sharing, and enjoying the creativity of TikTok’s community.

To learn more about TikTok’s efforts to support and educate the community, check out their resources page on the Safety Center.