Understanding Parental Controls for TikTok

With the huge popularity of TikTok, tons of videos with sensitive, misleading, and disturbing content can appear on your page. This can be extremely harmful, especially for teenagers and other sensitive groups. Knowing how to filter TikTok content can help you avoid these types of videos. Using parental controls makes it easier for you and your family to have a safe and positive experience using the platform.

Here’s our guide to understanding TikTok parental controls.

What is family matching?

This option allows parents and teens to customize their settings to their liking. This way, you can link your and your teens’ accounts to set up parental controls and make sure they are safe while using TikTok.

Here are some settings for parental control:

• Daily Screen Time that lets you choose how much time your teen can spend watching videos
• Screen time dashboard that reports on the time your teen spends on TikTok
• Liked videos, comments, and direct message settings
• Find, discover, and suggest your teen’s account to others

Here’s how you can set up family pairing:

1. Go to the app and select “Profile” at the bottom right.
   
2. Tap the “Menu” button in the upper right corner.
   
3. Go to “Settings and privacy”.
   
4. Then click “Family Pairing.”
   
5. Choose “Parent” or “Teen.”
   
6. Follow the steps below to pair accounts.

Public and private accounts

When you download and create your TikTok profile for the first time, your account automatically becomes public. This means that all the videos, stories, and posted videos that you liked and added to favorites are available for everyone to see. Anyone can follow you, as well as comment and duet on videos you’ve posted. But you probably don’t want to share all your data, especially your children’s.

To avoid privacy issues and unwanted comments, your teen’s account should be set to private. This way, your videos can be seen by followers who are friends or people you know in real life.

Here’s how to change your account from public to private:

1. Tap the “Profile” icon at the bottom right.
   
2. Click the “Menu” button at the top right (button that looks like three lines).
   
3. Go to the “Privacy and settings” screen.
   
4. Tap “Privacy & Security.”
   
5. Activate “Private account”.
   

Unfollow and remove a user

You or your teen can always choose to unfollow accounts with content you don’t want to see, as well as limit your interaction. This means that the user’s content is less likely to appear in the “For You” feed and will not appear in the “Following” p of the app.

This is how you can unfollow an account:

1. Go to your “Profile” by tapping the bottom right icon.
   
2. Tap “Following” to see who you’re following.
   
3. Tap the “Following” button“ Button to stop following a user.
   

You can also tap the three dots on the user’s name and remove them from your followers.

Block a user

You can block accounts to avoid interacting with them. By doing so, the blocked user will not be able to view or comment on their teen’s videos. This option is especially useful for making sure your teen doesn’t see content they don’t want. If other settings don’t work as well to filter the videos they watch, blocking a user ensures that she won’t see unwanted content.

Blocking someone’s account can be done in three quick steps:

1. Go to that user’s profile.
   
2. Tap the three dots in the top right corner.
   
3. Tap “Block.”
   

Restricted mode

When you enable restricted mode, you limit your teen’s exposure to videos that might not be appropriate for them. TikTok is actively working to improve this option. While using this mode, if he still sees content that he does not find appropriate, he can report the videos.

Please note that this feature is not currently available on desktop and mobile browsers. Still, you can activate it in the app. Here’s how to activate restricted mode:

1. In the app, click on the “Profile” icon located at the bottom right.
   
2. Click the “Menu” button at the top right (button that looks like three lines).
   
3. Select “Settings and privacy.”
   
4. Tap “Content Preferences.”
   
5. Tap “Restricted Mode.”
   

You can then follow the steps in the app that allow you to create a password that disables restricted mode.

What are video keyword filters?

When you filter for a keyword, you won’t see videos in your For You and Following feeds that contain this keyword in their descriptions. This is mainly how the algorithm works. The more times you watch the video with certain keywords in the description, the more content with the same words will appear on the For You page.

You can enter up to 70 video keywords that you don’t want to see. It is important to know that there are certain words that TikTok will not allow you to filter.

Here’s how you can use video keyword filters:

1. In the app, tap the “Profile” button.
   
2. Select the “Menu” button at the top.
   
3. Go to “Settings & Privacy,” then “Content Preferences.”
   
4. Tap “Filter video keywords.”
   
5. Enter the keywords you want to hide.
   
6. Choose which feed you want to filter.

Screen time limits

TikTok is quite addictive for both adults and teenagers. One moment you’re checking the app and the next thing you know, hours have passed and you’ve been browsing your phone non-stop. Knowing how to limit the time you and your family spend on TikTok can save you some trouble.

TikTok developers are aware of the app’s hypnotizing powers, which is why they have developed a screen time management setting. This is how you can configure it:

1. Select “Screen Time” in the app settings.
   
2. Click “Screen Time Breaks” and set the time to take the break.
   
3. Toggle “Weekly Screen Time Updates.”
   

Report physical danger

Lately, we’ve been seeing more TikTok “challenges” and trends that are downright dangerous for teens or anyone else. Teens and young adults like to participate in new trends, but seeing this graphic content over and over again can be desensitizing. Since the challenges don’t look as real when they’re on screen, they can cause serious damage if attempted.

Although it may be entertaining to see people performing minor stunts, serious damage, injuries and violence should be reported.

Below we explain how you can report content for physical danger:

1. Click the arrow in the lower right corner of the video.
   
2. Tap “Report”.“
   
3. Choose “Violence or harm” or “Self-harm” depending on the content.
   

I’m not interested in videos

Although the algorithm works to adapt the videos to your tastes, sometimes you may see a video that you don’t like. You can always use the “I’m not interested” option when you come across unwanted content. Additionally, there is no limit to this feature.

Simply long-press on the video in question, tap the “Not interested” icon, and you’ll see fewer videos of a similar nature.

Adapting TikTok to your preferences

TikTok can be a useful, fun, and creative app once you learn how to use it. It is extremely important to make sure your family is safe while you scroll through the For You page and interact with others. Knowing how to limit time spent and protect your teen from harmful content can make the app more enjoyable for both of you.