Emma Roth is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, user tech, crypto, societal media, and overmuch more. Previously, she was a writer and editor astatine MUO.
TikTok is rolling retired a caller feature to promote teens to extremity utilizing the app astatine night. If a teen nether 16 is still utilizing the app aft 10PM, TikTok will interrupt their provender pinch a full-screen “wind down” reminder, which will play “calming euphony to thief teens relax and beryllium mindful of the time.”
It will show different reminder that’s harder to disregard if teens disregard the first one. TikTok plans connected expanding this wind-down characteristic successful the future, arsenic it’s going to commencement testing incorporating medicine exercises into the reminder “in the coming weeks.”
TikTok is making immoderate updates to its Family Pairing characteristic arsenic well, which already lets parents put restrictions connected their child’s account. It’s launching a caller Time Away characteristic that will let parents aliases caregivers to forestall their kid from going connected TikTok during circumstantial times, arsenic good arsenic group a recurring schedule. TikTok will besides springiness parents the expertise to spot who their teen is following, who follows them, and which accounts their kid has blocked.
Additionally, TikTok says it will proceed to usage property assurance technology, including instrumentality learning, to forestall children nether 13 from utilizing the app. It’s partnering pinch the telecom institution Telefonica “to understand really group tin usage property accusation from their telephone supplier to corroborate their age.” Google also precocious announced that it would commencement utilizing instrumentality learning to estimate users’ ages.
The motorboat of these caller features comes arsenic lawmakers proceed to location successful connected online kid safety. Earlier this month, Utah became the first authorities to walk a rule to require app shop operators, for illustration Google and Apple, to verify users’ ages erstwhile downloading an app. Other authorities laws person emerged that would artifact children from accessing societal media, but galore of them have been blocked by courts.