TikTok has introduced a new feature called Family Pairing, that will allow parents to remotely set restrictions on their child’s account. They’ll be able to disable direct messages, enabled restricted mode content (similar to YouTube) and set time limits.
It comes a year after the company was fined $5.7million for violating children’s privacy laws by allowing people under 13 years of age to sign up without consent from an adult. TikTok has made these changes, and added many others since then – they’ve been rolling out since the beginning of this year in Europe.
Parents and kids will need to link accounts, by scanning a QR code. Their children will have to agree to having the feature, and it’s possible for them to disable it at any point. The adult will receive a notification when Family Pairing is disabled and can re-link it again. Parents can then control settings from their own phone.
TikTok is also making changes to direct messages today: direct messaging will be disabled for all users aged 16 and under. The app had issues with predatory behavior, according to BuzzFeed.
