Anger at museum for tiktok of staff member

[DeepLemonBeaker]

DS turned 13 in January and wanted to have a phone with tiktok for Roblox videos with his friends. I'm an ex social worker who was completely reluctant to do this at first but agreed on the promise I get to see his account when asked. The other promise was he never took his phone to bed and it was left downstairs as not to impair his sleep. He agreed, and I've used this time to double check the phone.

In my view he is a child and completely vunerable, I am a bit of an outcast in conversations in work and among some friends for this view, some parents are more casual with a lot more trust but I think I have seen too much to take the chance.

We visited a museum in early Feburary, we only conducted a two hour visit before heading for a meal as the weather was bad (Typical Welsh weather) My DD has taken some interest in some of the stuff there and would like to return and I did enjoy myself although DH & DS were bored s*less.

However one week after this visit my sons account was "following" a man in his 50s who had mulitple videos of himself in a gallery attendants uniform. Some had him dressed with women's hairstyles and talking in a childs voice. No gallery attendant that looked like this on the day of the visit and I am unaware how my DS has stumbled upon this mans page but it has raised questions in my head

I want to send the details on to the Museum and express concern but DH thinks this is a massive overreaction that could harm this mans job. He is correct that there has been no "interaction" between the two and my son blocked the account when asked but I cannot get this out of my head and have questions.

It’s probably St Fagans.

As PP have said, you need to find out more about how the internet and particularly smart phones and apps work so that you know the difference between what’s out there and exists and whether someone has actually targeted your child, irrespective of the way they prefer to dress.

You should be more annoyed at yourself for letting a thirteen year old have TikTok.

I'm not going to comment on the Tiktok issues this raises. However, I would say that it might be worth contacting the Museum to see if they are aware that someone is wearing their uniform to make Tiktok videos. They don't sound like official Museum posts. If it's a member of the museum's staff making unofficial videos wearing the museum uniform, the management will probably appreciate being informed (assuming they don't know already) so that they can take action as needed. If it's a member of the public making unofficial videos in museum uniform, again, the management will probably appreciate being informed although there may be less that they can do about it.

Think I watched around 10 or so videos of his. I found them all quite strange for a man of his age and the hairstyles and staring did make me pause.

I am not sure what you mean by this. He cannot really know who is watching??

He will know that people would squirm.
He won't know exactly who is doing the squirming, but just knowing it's a likely response is enough.

You are saying the videos are intentionally set out to make people uncomfortable? is this a common thing to do?

Yes.

OP I don’t think you understand TikTok enough to let your kid use it.

His FYP (for you page) isn’t people he follows… it’s anyone. Anyone from anywhere in the world that TikTok decides it wants to show him based on things he’s liked and viewed before. It could be anything from conspiracy theories to half naked adult women to skits to video games to Red Pill content about how women are all whores to politics to dance videos to extremist religious views to criminal acts.

Its unfettered video access of the internet that you can ‘train’ but you cannot block every account on the internet or only view followed accounts. You can only watch the ‘following’ section but you can’t eliminate the FYP.

TikTok isn’t like Facebook or even Instagram. It’s addictive and insidious and dangerous.

Of course! It’s the internet! It’s full of people doing weird things for their own weird kicks and reasons.

No, it's not - it's just what MN does. Any mention of trans and out come those desperate to paint them as paedos/perverts/wrong uns. 🙄
Seeing as none of us have actually seen the video you're on about, we don't even know if they're trans anyway! Doesn't stop some people doing massive stretches and leaps, and making up their own scenario. 🙄

This thread is so bananas.

1. don’t let your child have TikTok or anything else you don’t understand yourself- do some research first, it’s not rocket science.
2. yes TikTok suggests ‘for you’ using proximity as a data point. This means they know where your child physically is. This is another reason why you should not allow your child to have it.
3. a man wearing pigtails is none of your business, even if he wears a museum uniform

How exactly do you know that the guy will enjoy making 'people squirm'?

You don't know who he is, you haven't seen the fucking videos!

They're anti trans bigots. Anything that isn't cis or straight, makes them uncomfortable and is a threat to their world view.

I've said once already. No idea if this person is transexual transgender or a cross dresser and kinda not the point really!!!

One visit to the Museum meant tiktok showed my son an account of a worker there it just happened to be very strange. I've brought up the deleting of it again this morning and some things on here are making DH agree. Thank you MUMSNET

I'm not sure what the first sentence means, sorry. You had replied lots to other people and danced around the issue, which is why I asked again. It's hard to make a comment if you're unclear on the issue.

I'm still not sure why your lack of understanding around tik tok would make you want to go to a strangers employer but glad to hear you've seen that's not appropriate and have no plans to call crimestoppers!

but glad to hear you've seen that's not appropriate and have no plans to call crimestoppers!

I want to be there for the phone call if she does, I'd love to see how that one goes 😁
I can imagine their faces like this 😁

What's cis?

basically non-trans, invented to avoid using negatives when talking about normal people and also to avoid using normal people.

You’re making me squirm with this drivel.

Sorry! Did not mean to dance around the issue, I didn't really predict this level of response and it was quite hard to articulate why I was concerned. I think I wanted to understand how his account was recommended and realise it appears to be location based.

I have no plans to contact anyone anymore. Son has been told tiktok will need to go and is strangely calm around the situation so will monitor for any secret accounts he may try to get away with!!

You needed controls on his phone so he can't download apps you don't approve of

She did approve of it. She just doesn't understand it.

I said the because later on in the thread the OP said about removing tiktok and hoping he doesn't sneakily download it again