TikTok expands parental controls, adds new search restrictions

Parents will now be able to restrict who can comment on their kids' videos, who can view their account and who can see what videos they've liked.

San Francisco: Chinese short-video making app TikTok has expanded a privacy feature where parents will have more options over what their children can see and restrict comments on their content.

Parents will now be able to restrict who can comment on their kids’ videos, who can view their account and who can see what videos they’ve liked.

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Parents will also be able to stop their kids from searching for videos, users, hashtags or sounds.

TikTok already offers the ability for parents to turn off or limit direct messages, reports The Verge.

The new options are all part of TikTok’s Family Pairing feature.

The update is a big step from TikTok.

In February 2019, the company paid $5.7 million to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over alleged violations of a children’s privacy law.

In April this year, the short video-sharing platform announced to introduce ‘Family Pairing’ which gives parents more control over their children, by linking their own account with their kids, with a caveat that children have to approve this.

The move gives parents more control over the user activity of their kids as they can set controls on ‘Screen Time Management’, ‘Direct Messages’ and ‘Restricted Mode’.

However, parents still need to get their kids’ approval to agree to have their accounts linked under the new system.