TikTok

[Rachelwilson1]

Dear mums! Is anyone else letting their child use this new application called TikTok? Apparently, children (and adults) post 15 second videos of anything which can be viewed by anyone. However, usually it involves some kind of dancing or lip singing or Meme. Then people can like your videos and follow your account. What age do you think is appropriate to allow your child to download this and do you think it is safe?

TikTok requires that users be at least 13 years old to use the app and that anyone under the age of 18 must have approval of a parent or guardian. Some of DDs friends have it (she's 11) but she's not allowed and won't be for a good while.

potentially taking SSRI's at a rave

I would not remotely be worried about my children taking Prozac at a rave. I suspect you don’t mean SSRIs.

Your overly protective parenting will only lead to your children getting older and realising that for them to do what teenagers do with their friends, they will have to lie to you.

You think it’s “overly protective” to make sure your kids aren’t being groomed by sexual predators?

mashable.com/article/tiktok-locks-users-out-of-accounts.amp/?europe=true

Basically tiktok were forced to enforce the 13 rule (due to being fined for illegally collecting data on children) and then lots of people got locked out because they had pretended to be under 13. Oh I’m sorry put the wrong date of birth in

Tiktok then let’s them change their date of birth to get back in. So a bunch of adults were pretending to be children (I wonder why) then get access to their account again, presumably by being 13 years and 1 month. Company is dodgy as

My DC are going nowhere near it!

Hopefully @mummys not an actual doctor

Pretty sure she shouldn't be a parent with an attitude like that....

Level of protectiveness changes depending on age of children.

This sort of connectivity would usually carry a 13+ warning. I checked Commonsense Media (a rally useful site for all things content and age related) and it puts it at 16+

I think it is important to monitor your DC's internet use (which includes checking phones) until they are mid-teens at least. Just like you don't allow them to go out in RL where they fail they are old enough to deal with the likely hazards - you check where they're going, who they're meeting, what fallback measures they have, etc. And scale their independence to their capabilities and experience.

Its not new and used to be called musicly. I would say 14? Its not a bad app. An app I would watch out for is Whisper.

I googled the age for it and its 16+ but can be used by 13+ with parental consent.

My DD (12) has had it for a few years, when it was music.ly and now TikTok.

She has a private account and I periodically check her account and messages, as I do with all her apps. She’s not had any dodgy interactions on there.

She hardly uses it these days.

@mummythedoctor considering the thread you've posted I really hope that's not true!

OP my sisters both use it (14 & 15) but I think it's so cringe. I wouldn't let your DC use it, personally.

Gin have you ever had any child IT safety training?

I def will read whats on my 10 year olds phone (occasionally), and she tells her friends that's what will happen and it so far avouds conversations going of tracknas she can say "my mum will see this" and its a good get out clause for her.

I dont think a 10 year old knows truly the dangers and can be responsible. I know even in our sleepy area there's been issues of child grooming, its really worth knowing the dangers. Even a "sensible" child can emd up watching able content because you tube lept to it or someone they considered a "friend" started asking for photos.

Common sense media is a really good resource.

Thinkyouknow is a good resource with information for different age groups (and parents)

Internetmatters is another one. Def recommends parental controls when children are younger.

A lot of it is about the relarionship with the child, and gradually increasing freedoms whilst staying in conversation about it.

Def worth reading up. There was another site I cant remember where you could look up a game (such as fortnite) and read all about it so you could make a decision as to what the level of connectivity was (or if you can disable that) etc.

I did ask my eldest to keep an eye on what my youngest is doing on there as she is less mature, but I don't care if they use it. At the end of the day, at that age they should really be responsible enough to protect themselves so if anything happens on there it's their problem, not mine. I'd probably say 13+ without supervision, but as long as someone's checking what they're doing its fine for younger kids.

Ridiculous! They're children!

TikTok is renowned in my area of work, for being an app commonly used by paedophiles.

@mummythedoctor are your hands looking a bit hairy this morning?

Just wondering, given the other thread you just posted...

www.google.no/amp/s/amp.commonsense.org/blog/b6355546-ace0-453b-a04a-8a9c1c5eaa15

This link is useful OP, it sums up most of what everyone is saying here.

My 9 yo uses it on my iPad, mostly she makes videos of the cat as I have told her in no uncertain terms she is not to make videos of herself or use the chat features or I will stop her using it for good. As it’s on my iPad I easily check up on her and all her notifications come to me first.

You have to be very naive, bordering on irresponsible, to let a child use this app.

Its not only that they can make videos, but its the videos they watch and the content theyre exposed to.

Nope, my friend referred to it as the paedos playground, friend works with vulnerable children

^ This. I work in a similar sector and this is exactly haw it well-known in that sector. If you don't mind some paedophile wanking over videos of your child lip-synching then go ahead. Because that IS how it used and anyone who thinks their child can use it without any likelihood of that happening is kidding themselves.

Yep if you google theres reports of investigations into paedophiles and tiktok. Its not just scaremongering.

"Andy Burrows, NSPCC Head of Child Safety Online Policy said: “The Information Commissioner’s investigation into TikTok, and whether its site design puts children at risk of grooming and abuse, is significant."

We had police officers coming to talk to pupils and they told us this is one of the top grooming apps.

@mummythedoctor
"At the end of the day, at that age they should really be responsible enough to protect themselves so if anything happens on there it's their problem, not mine"

Until your child is kidnapped, raped and murdered. I'm sure you'll be snugly sitting in the police station, standing by their grave, cuddling their sibling...saying to all "well, there was nothing I could have possibly done to prevent this, it really was down to the 13 year old to protect themselves. I have no blame or guilt in this"

You can make your account private.
No. You need to teach your children that nothing on the internet is private. Seriously.
And Hell no to tik tok.
I know so many parents who "trust" their kids to be sensible online, whose children have no real idea what this means. A couple of online safety chats at school does not prepare them for the use of apps like this. They are a paedos paradise. Aside from that they are a gift for bullies (record lip sync video, 10 minutes later the whole school has seen it..) And no to cocking Instagram for 10 years old also.
Parents need to wake up, honestly.

You should be more worried about your children consciously and potentially taking SSRI's at a rave
I'm not worried about this as it's not 1989

I take SSRIs every day of my life.

is that what the poster meant?

confused right now!!

At the end of the day, at that age they should really be responsible enough to protect themselves so if anything happens on there it's their problem, not mine

You seriously think your 10 year old CHILD is responsible enough to protect themselves and you wash your hands of any actual parenting? No wonder the teenagers are feral these days, they probably have "parents" like you

Aside from the messaging concerns, there are grown men whipping belts and handcuffs at the camera using audios that describe sexual things, so it's your prerogative as a parent if you want your teen to see those things. The "For You Page" is the screen where you scroll down through all the videos. They start without warning and you aren't sure what the content is going to be.

There's also a lot of cosplayers and makeup artists who do incredibly detailed (impressive really) horror makeup which may affect some more sensitive children/teens. The FYP shows videos of anyone and everyone almost at random, you don't have to be following any of them, so you can't control what you're seeing on the app unless you block creators as their videos come up, but that's futile as there are so many.

It used to be musical.ly, people would just dance to short clips of music and it was fairly harmless. But now there's a bit of content that I would say is inappropriate for children/younger teens but we all have different standards for what is appropriate and what isn't. You don't need an account to scroll down the FYP page, so get the app yourself, have a look at the content and make an informed decision for yourself. There IS a messaging feature, and children have been contacted by groomers on the app before, there are videos and articles about this available with a Google search, so be wary of that.

A lot of the content is intended to be just funny, but humour that older teens who were around for the Vine app era would get. There's many dance videos that are totally innocent and harmless, there are some creators who post fact videos, or videos of them dressing up as people from films such as clueless, coraline, Disney/pixar films, there's someone who dresses up as and makes videos as strawberry shortcake, so a lot of the content is clean, innocent fun, but some TikToks aren't and they do just pop up out of nowhere at times.

If your child has the app and posts videos, anyone can see them unless their account is on private, and some people do save the videos to their phone and put them in a compilation to post on YouTube to mock them, and I'm sure it goes without saying that children and teens need to know that when they post something online it's out there forever, and the things they think are cool or funny when they're younger can come back to embarrass them later, even if it's just a 15 second dancing video.