TikTok Takes Teen Accounts Private

TikTok has decided to boost privacy measures for its underage users, the popular video-sharing social-media company announced. TikTok’s popularity is being driven by teens — the company reported in 2019 about 60 percent of its 26.5 monthly users are between the ages of 16 and 24, and these latest measures are an attempt to make the platform safer for its youngest users, according to the company. TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance. “Starting today, we’re changing the default privacy setting for all registered accounts ages 13-15 to private,” the statement said. “With a private TikTok account, only someone who the user approves as a follower can view their videos. We want our younger users to be able to make informed choices about what and with whom they choose to share, which includes whether they want to open their account to public views. By engaging them early in their privacy journey, we can enable them to make more deliberate decisions about their online privacy.” TikTok Privacy Settings Additional changes for the under-18 TikTok crowd include limiting comments on videos created by users 13-15; limiting Duet and Stich to only users over 16; changing the default setting for Duet and Stitch to “friends” for 16- and 17-year-old users; and prohibiting downloads of videos by users under 16. Duet allows a user you to build on another user’s video by recording their own video alongside the original as it plays. Stitch meanwhile allows users the ability to clip and…

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