TikTok introduces new privacy changes for teens ages 13-17

Following the privacy changes of Google and Instagram aimed at users under the age of 18 to use the platforms safely, TikTok today announced that it will introduce some privacy changes for users between the ages of 13 and 17.

TikTok first announced some privacy changes for users under the age of 18 in January. At that time, the company said it is changing the default privacy setting to private for user accounts between the ages of 13 and 15. 

Now, the company says that when someone aged 16-17 joins TikTok, their Direct Messaging setting will now be set to ‘No One’ by default.  They will need to actively switch to a different sharing option to message others. Existing accounts that have never used a DM before will receive a prompt asking them to review and confirm their privacy settings the next time they use this feature.

TikTok also announced that it is now adding a pop-up that appears when teens under the age of 16 are ready to publish their first video, asking them to choose who can watch the video. (“Everyone” option is disabled.) They will not be able to publish their video until they make a selection.

In addition, teens aged 16-17 will now receive a pop-up asking them to confirm that choice before others can download their videos, if they opt to turn the feature on. The downloads are permanently disabled from the accounts under the age of 16. 

Lastly, TikTok will not send push notifications after 9 PM to the teens ages 13-15. For the teens aged 16-17, push notification will be disabled starting at 10 PM.