TikTokBy Suzy Loftus, Head of USDS Trust and Safety
In our work with parents and caregivers, we continue to hear that helping teens navigate the online world can be daunting because it's difficult to keep up with different apps and devices. At TikTok, we're working to simplify things for caregivers so they can feel confident supporting their teens' use of online platforms. Starting today, we're launching a suite of new and improved resources to help families make online safety choices tailored to their individual needs.
Empowering families to have conversations about online safety and well-being
In partnership with the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), we've developed a Digital Safety Partnership for Families. This new resource is designed to help make it easier for families to start conversations about online experiences and set positive digital boundaries together. It's intentionally not specific to any one app or service, which means that parents and teens can customize the template agreement as they discuss important topics, such as:
- The importance of having regular conversations, not only when something goes wrong
- Outlining responsible use of devices
- Committing to reviewing an app's rules, safety features, and parental tools before using it
In addition to FOSI, we consulted members of our Content Advisory Council, Youth Council, and parent TikTok creators to ensure we're considering the needs of those the agreement is intended to help. Families can find and download the template from our Guardian's Guide. To help caregivers learn about this and other digital parenting tips, we'll work with FOSI to raise awareness of resources available to families, supported by free advertising space on TikTok.
"The Digital Safety Partnership for Families is a great resource that will not only help families navigate TikTok, but also many other online platforms. At the Family Online Safety Institute, we appreciate that the agreement emphasizes the idea of online safety as a partnership that should be created and maintained between caregivers and their teens. We hope this resource encourages many families around the world to lead their digital lives with empathy, openness, curiosity, and respect." - Alanna Powers, Research and Program Specialist at FOSI
Improved resources for families
We're also launching refreshed editions of our Guardian's Guide and Teen Safety Center to help families utilize our tools and controls. Our Teen Safety Center has been updated with advice and feedback from our global Youth Council, where teens told us they wanted to see:
- More visual content
- Interactive features, like quizzes
- More information about how blocking and reporting works
We’ve also streamlined our Guardian's Guide to focus more clearly on the information parents told us they find most important.
Knowing the rules and using the tools
When we surveyed parents of U.S. teens and asked how they would like to see platforms supporting online safety, almost half (48%) said they wanted training on how to use tools to filter out content they don't want their teen to see. More than a third (37%) of parents said they wanted to hear from platforms in a way that doesn't require having an account.
Thanks to this feedback and additional listening sessions with parents, we've identified four safety features that caregivers can use to support their teen's experience on TikTok, including the content they see and engage with. These are:
- Family Pairing
- Default age appropriate settings for teens under 16
- Keyword filtering
- Comment privacy settings
We're doubling down on our investment to help caregivers learn about how they can use these features by launching a new national and local TV campaign. It will feature beloved TikTok creators who are parents of teens themselves, including @ctfit, @fitdadceo, @klemfamily and @mrandmrsgrit. More information about these tools and more can be found here.
We're committed to hearing and implementing feedback to help teens and families navigate our platform and the digital world safely. While we're proud of the advancements we've made to build a more positive, age-appropriate experience for teens, such as disabling DMs for teens under 16 and setting a one-hour screen time limit for everyone under 18, we recognize this work is never finished. We will continue to invest in industry-leading safety features that help to keep TikTok a safe place for our community.
