How to Restrict Your Kid’s TikTok Access

Earlier this year, TikTok implemented what it calls “Family Pairing,” a parental control tool that lets parents link their child’s TikTok account with their own, giving them direct control over the child’s privacy settings. Now, the short-form video platform app is further expanding the ways parents can, through this tool, restrict who their child communicates with, what they search for, and who can see their content.

The original features under TikTok’s Family Pairing included the ability to control how long a child can spend on the app each day, a “restricted mode” to limit their exposure to potentially inappropriate content, and the ability to restrict or disable direct messaging with other users. Those features all still exist; the new features include:

• Search: Decide whether your child can search for content, users, hashtags, or sounds.
• Comments: Decide who can comment on your child’s videos (everyone, friends, no one).
• Discoverability: Decide whether your child’s account is private (they decide who can see their content) or public (anyone can search and view their content).
• Liked videos: Many people enjoy finding new videos to watch that others they follow have also enjoyed, but this control empowers families to decide whether others can see the list of videos your teen has liked.

TikTok is quite popular in the United States, with approximately 100 million users across the country. The Chinese-based company, however, has been under intense pressure from the Trump administration in recent months to sell or spin-off its U.S. business over concerns related to its data-collection practices.