TikTok is taking a disruptive lead as an interactive video platform competing in the same audience gap as YouTube, Likee, and Instagram. As the service grows popular, it’s the more teens and underage kids signup to use the rising video sharing platform.
Well, TikTok has introduced a new parental control feature that allows parents to control what their kids can watch and how much time they can actually spend on the platform, call it a Family safety mode.
For parents to take control of the content their kids can watch or post, they have to signup for an account first, then link the account to their child’s or the person they wish to control. Once linked, the Parent account automatically gains root control of over the child account.
TikTok’s family safety mode comes at a time when the platform has been subjected to an investigation by the U.K. Information Commission’s Office (ICO) for potential Europe GDPR violations.
An updated version of the current GDPR rules was last published in 2019 and the Investigation on TikTok’s potential violations must have risen from the state of parental guidance for kids streaming content on the platform.
According to TikTok, the new parental guide feature has bee rolled out to the U.K. today (19th February) before a global rollout in the next few weeks. However, the family safety mode is just a toss off a new set of features that it shares the same update with
The extra features include the ability to turn off commenting, an option to make accounts private, control who can watch profile content, and you can duet/connect with.
Hence, TikTok’s new parental guide feature is not just an escape path from the ongoing investigations that could see the platform fined for violations. But also, an upper control arm for parents that now have control over how children can use the TikTok App.