How to Use Parental Controls on Tiktok?

 

How To Use Parental Controls on Tiktok?

Pretty sure you wouldn’t be unfamiliar with “the world-famous app” Tiktok. The app that has driven teens crazy, and more so, their parents! How? I will tell you in this article today.

Tiktok is an online app that lets you produce, merge, and create short videos with the background music and song tracks of your own choice. Tiktok is also popular with the name Musical.ly. It’s so popular that it’s available in 75 languages, spread around 150 countries. Would you be surprised to know if I told you that in 2019 it was the second most installed app on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store? Well, don’t be, there is much more ahead. 

This app lets people circulate and create musical and goofy videos that can be shared online, and follow other users on social media. The app is just another source of entertainment and socialization like other social media platforms that prove to be harmless. But some factors come along the way of safety concerns for parents of underage kids. Those PG concerning factors are mentioned below.

Security Issues:

·        The app should be used by age groups above 12 because inappropriate content might be presented—mostly sexual and violent. The videos sometimes contain nudity, abusive language, drug abuse, and crude humor.

·        The app lets its users link their accounts with other social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube which exposes contact information.

·        To suggest and personalize an account at its best; Tiktok collects user’s personal data at the time of creating an account and later as well. Personal data might be behavior and location information, former messages, and shared content on other social media apps, Metadata, contacts on the phone, and much more. 

·        Unedited and inappropriate songs available for the creation of videos can be pretty harmful to immature users.

·        In-app purchases and ads can hinder the user too.

What to do?

Being a concerned parent or adult guardian, it becomes pretty complicated to provide kids/teens all the space they need but at the same time making sure they are not exposed to content and matters on social media that are inappropriate to their age. Being confused in this sort of dilemma, parents always want a loophole through which they can keep a safe-distance watch on their kid’s activities and set a restricted boundary for their protection. There are certain ways in which Tiktok allows parents to take care of the content that is exposed to the user, as well as set a specific time limit for screen usage.

Below a detailed step-by-step guide has been given that can allow to access and implement parental control features on Tiktok.

1.    Startup with the family pairing:

Family pairing is a feature in the Tiktok app that lets parents link accounts with their kids and alter control settings accordingly. 3 modes can help you as a parent to set specific boundaries of the app’s usage for your kids. Those modes are Screen Time Management, Restricted Mode, and Direct messages.

 

How to turn on Family Pairing?

Simply go to the profile page of the account and click on the three dots icon that you will see on the top right corner of the page. As you do so, an option of Privacy and Settings will pop up. There you have to select Digital Wellbeing and then tap family pairing.

 

 

2.    Setting up Screen Time Management:

This will allow you to set a specific time limit for using Tiktok. Once the user has exceeded the time limit a passcode would be required so that the user can regain access.

 How to set it up?

View the profile page of the user and click on the 3 dots above the right corner of the page. You would be displayed with Privacy and Settings. Select Digital Wellbeing and then Screen Time Management; follow the steps further to manage screen time.

3.    Setting up Restricted Mode:

Setting up this mode will expose the kind of content you want to be exposed to the user and limit the appearance of inappropriate content.

            How to set it up?

 Again, go to the profile page of the user and click on the 3 dots on the right corner of the page. Then select Privacy and Settings and further Digital Wellbeing. Tap on the Restricted Mode and let the app guide you to make alterations in the settings.

 

4.    Setting up control of Direct Messages:

If you don’t want unknown users to send messages to your kid, then you select users on Tiktok who can do so.

How to set it up?

Just go to Privacy and Safety settings. Click on “Who can Send Messages to Me” and there you have a list to choose from.

Other Helpful Strategies:

Well, Family pairing and other strategies mentioned above will only let you have limited control over your kid’s account. Other threats can be inappropriate comments and revealing private information (mobile number and email address), especially if the account is public. You can limit that as well, and also block and report users that cause threats online.

·        Managing comments:

By going to Privacy and Safety settings, just tap on Who Can Send Me Comments. Choose whoever you want to, or completely turn off comments.

·        Block or Report a User:

By going on the profile of the user that you want to block or report, Click the three dots icon “…” and select the desired option from the menu that pops up.

·        Private Account:

If you prefer having to set up a private account, just go on the profile page, click “…” the 3 dots icon, select Privacy and Settings, select Privacy and Safety and switch On Private Account.

Being occupied with cyber threats nowadays, parents want to make sure their kids are safe surfing different social media apps. The option of having parental control over the Tiktok account can help a great deal!

Protect that needs to be protected.