#FamilyFirst: TikTok reinforces commitment to safety with its Family Pairing feature

TikTok is continuing its efforts towards family safety with its unique Family Pairing feature, which allows parents and teens to customise their safety settings based on individual needs. With its #FamilyFirst initiative, TikTok aims to create awareness on how parents can use Family Pairing feature to monitor activities on their teens’ accounts including DMs, notifications, watch and download settings, forming an important part of TikTok’s ongoing commitment to support and care for the safety of youths on the platform.

Family Pairing allows a parent to link their TikTok account to their teen’s and set controls including:

• Screen Time Management: Control how long your teen can spend on TikTok each day, with the option to choose between 40 to 120 minutes

• Restricted Mode: Limit the appearance of content that may not be appropriate for all audiences. Even without Family Pairing enabled, parents can help their teen set Screen Time Management and Restricted Mode by visiting the app’s Digital Wellbeing controls at any time

• Direct Messages: Restrict who can send messages to the connected account or turn off direct messaging completely. With user safety in mind, TikTok has many policies and controls in place for messaging already – for example, only approved followers can message each other and TikTok does not allow images or videos to be sent in messages. TikTok also automatically disables Direct Messages for registered accounts under the age of 16

• Manage privacy and security settings: Parents can decide who can like or comment on their teens’ videos, decide whether their account is private or public or whether their account can be recommended to others. Parents can also decide whether their teen can search for content, people, hashtags, or sounds

TikTok has collaborated with some of Sri Lanka’s most popular celebrities and creators who will be creating exciting content to amplify TikTok’s endeavours around family safety, especially focusing on younger users aged between 13 and 19. 

The embrace of platforms like TikTok is providing families with joint tools to express their creativity, share their stories, and show support for their communities. At the same time, they are often learning to navigate the digital landscape together and focused on ensuring a safe experience.