Get your kids off TIKTOK. It's evil

[Codswallop20]

I've just joined in order to report a video about one of my kids.

This is a dark and evil place that no teenager should be on.

What nasty little shits kids can be. Get your children off it, for their safety and mental health, and for that of others.

My kids aren't on it but I am seriously shocked as to how vile children are to each other. Please please stop your kids.

English is not my first language, I realise now it sounds like I was accusing op of something but I wasn’t. I was just saying you see what you go on there to see and for most people who aren’t vile bullies they won’t see anything like that at all

Not how it works.

Oh well, I blocked him anyway 😬

Pretty much all social media is unhealthy as feck. Particularly for younger brains still developing. My life improved substantially when I came off it all but I'm 50+ and aren't reliant on it for communicating with friends.

And i think your shitty comment to the OP shows a lot about who you are as a person.

You only see 'nice' things, but have been utterly nasty towards the OP? The irony.
I assume you clearly haven't read her post to make a moronic comment such as 'it says a lot about you'.

YANBU - but as others have said, it's not the platform itself that is specifically evil, just the content that is on there. There is plenty of extremely dubious content on there, and yes, people can use it to bully.

My kids aren't allowed on it.

16 isn’t a child. You can get married at 16, have a child, sign up to the armed forces.

I think if your child is getting dodgy videos my question is what are they clicking on in the first place,

FWIW I am on Ds’s account and it is definitely not based on age profiling but what you watch.

I think he must watch a lot of funny cat videos

How does it work then because I haven’t seen anything like what is being described. Only more of what I have searched for

The algorithm pushes what you watch - TikTok is a positive place for me because I only stay on positive videos. Any videos I see that are bullying or inappropriate are immediately reported and in my experience they are far faster to pull videos and ban users than on any other app. They flag words like murder, death and sex so don’t really see how it’s so evil. Honestly it just makes you sound like you know nothing about how social media works and that your children will disregard anything you say as out of touch.

FFS some of you need to leave OP alone, she's not being hysterical or unreasonable. Tiktok is a nightmare purely from a data security point of view, way worse than other social media sites, which is why we don't have it in our house.

But seriously do some of you not know how algorithms work? Rainbows and butterflies may be what you see, but it doesn't mean that's what everyone sees - and the bad stuff allowed on this platform and others is fucking awful. And no it's not the only one, but seriously the argument that they're going to watch it anyway is ridiculous - my sister was getting into the drug scene at 16, by this argument she was going to do it anyway so my parents should have just lined up some coke on the table for her🙄

We know this shit is harmful, we know SM in general is not great for mental health, we know it's not a "product" being sold to us because we ARE the product being sold to others, we know teenagers and kids aren't necessarily always going to make good decisions and could be exposed to some downright traumatic stuff including courtesy of our local high school kids filmed sexual assaults on drunk teenage girls to be passed around and laughed at, but sure let's line it all up for our kids because they're going to watch it anyway and everyone else is doing it, wouldn't want to be seen as hysterical now, and really what's the worst that could happen?

I'm not saying stay off all internet, never let your kids on SM etc, but you are seriously naive if you think kids don't need protecting from what is on there. And I am so so sad for my kids that this is the world we've created for them.

To give context we were recently emailed from one of our kids schools regarding a Snapchat group using the schools name (not a school account). Kids were being pressured to join and bullied for opting out.

Along with bullying, violent language and calls for violence shared on the group, racial slurs and a video from TikTok referring to child rape was shared. These kids are 10-12yrs old, and a lot of them were unwillingly exposed to this stuff by other kids who no doubt come from violent, traumatic backgrounds. The method was Snapchat, source material from TikTok. It's not harmless and honestly I don't know that any number of cute cat videos could possibly make the trade off of child rape videos worth it. If one comes with a side dose of the other then quite frankly I'm willing to keep my kids off it as long as possible, and have decent safeguarding conversations with them about it - and just like giving them a car to drive, I need to know they're competent, trustworthy and able to handle the responsibility before I give them the ok to use it.

Agreed - mine is all gardening and travel clips with the odd bit of history and (inoffensive) comedy

Then again, I don't use it as a social media platform and don't have any "friends" on it. Perhaps kids are seeing these awful videos because they are following people on the app who are, or are interacting with the people creating them.

As is yours, as that sentence does not make sense.
I did read the op. I was responding to someone else.
I don't necessarily think tiktok is a great thing for children to be using, but if a teen is enjoying watching clips of things they're interested in, similar to how I use it, I don't think they're especially likely to encounter bullies and untoward content.

I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories, but in TikTok's case, I actually believe them!

Who typed this post for you? Is it hard being on Mumsnet when you can't read?

Is there someone with you who can explain OP went looking for a bullying post because it's her child being bullied?

Or is your an attempt at "clever surreal comedy"?

I only see funny, educational, recipes, animal and fashion videos. Not sure what OP and other PP are watching and interacting with to get all the dodgy video recommendations.

I can understand @Codswallop20 banning her 11yo from TikTok, but why has she banned her almost adult Dd? It is so much better to educate your teen dc rather than let them be naive. I think under 15s shouldn’t be on TikTok (even then, they should stay anonymous and not post). I also think Instagram, SnapChat and forums are more toxic!

I agree - it is truly awful. I put restricted mode on DD15 account and still some of the stuff is not appropriate.

I report but nothings ever done

I don't want her reading explicit stuff even at 15.

TikTok is no different to other social media platforms! Bit naïve to single it out, but down to your personal experience of particular content put on by those who know your kids.

As others have pointed out what people have in feeds on any platform is related to what they engage with. "Allowing" engagement should be determined on a case basis - can see how some children might be more vulnerable than others.

Quite frankly my teen is on all social media platforms especially TikTok. She learns a hell of a lot from it from news to GCSE content. No intention of stopping her access. She's surrounded by amazing people and doing brilliantly so no worries here.

My worry about TikTok video nasties is... you can't unsee them. And the platform does have a minimum age limit for a reason so allowing younger children to use it is on the parent. But I also feel it is about knowing your child and I won't be letting my 11year old DS on there (I had a look, within 10 mins had seen enough).

@MadameCholetsDirtySecret that link was very interesting, thanks for posting.
@Codswallop20 YANBU.
The lack of comprehension of your OP and subsequent posts by some posters must be very frustrating for you.

Has everyone posting "well MY feed only has artisan organic bakery on it" forgotten what it like being a teenager? Remember, before you got all wholesome? Ditto everyone saying "my teen would never look at things like that". Does no one else remember the version of yourself you tell your parents being grossly different to what you and you friends got up to in private?

OP be careful. My DD was banned from TikTok, her internet usage closely monitored etc. She showed no interest in it etc. I have uncovered secret TikTok accounts she has made by using her friend’s devices etc. I demanded the passwords from her and you don’t even want to know what people were saying to her via private message. Kids just want to fit in with their friends.

@Drame that can happen with any kid though, it's not just those who are banned from SM. My sister's kids (older than mine but still young to mid teens at the time) use SM fairly liberally, she had the passwords and monitored their usage like any sane parent. It wasn't until one of them ran away with some seriously dodgy people and police were involved that his sister snitched on his secret insta account (as opposed to the one he made for his Mum to check). His official account was all athletics and random memes from his mates, the secret one had messages outlining drug deals and evidence of grooming by much older gang members that had been going on for months. He was 14.

Unfortunately kids are going to do dumb stuff and make stupid decisions and there are definitely people out there looking to exploit that very specifically via social media. I don't know what the answer is, really, but I don't think monitored usage is anywhere near the protection we would hope it is.

I was really irritated when I bought DS1 a new phone just last week, to discover that one of the "default" apps on there was fecking Tiktok.
It's been deleted.