By Dimithri Wijesinghe
TikTok has become a leading social media platform, possibly even the number one player when it comes to short-form video over the past few years. Even in Sri Lanka, the platform has grown massively in popularity and its membership has skyrocketed. However, with such a growing membership comes challenges, especially in areas of safety and security.
Sharing some local insights, the team at TikTok stated that despite their best efforts, the platform continued to be linked with negative news stories associated with dangerous challenges and illegal actions such as using firearms in videos. Most of these negative stories report users aged between 13 and 19, which has led to them focusing mainly on young users on the platform.
Parental controls
This younger demographic is what inspired the introduction of their new initiative – the Family Pairing feature – which gives parents an option to control their children’s TikTok accounts.
TikTok introduced the Family Pairing feature amidst its vow to uplift communities and connect people. It aims to provide safe browsing and empowers parents to check and restrict the access of questionable content to teens and children.
The new feature focuses on three key areas. Screen Time Management will allow parents to control the amount of time a child spends on TikTok. Restricted Mode is where the parent can choose to halt certain content they feel is inappropriate for their child, while with Direct Messages, parents can either limit or shut down the direct message option altogether on their child’s TikTok app.
Platform users may have seen top creators creating awareness regarding the feature, encouraging parents to utilise these services. Many of them have addressed the fact that children are a step ahead when it comes to technology and it is pertinent that parents do their best to keep up.
Mixed reactions
The Sunday Morning Brunch also reached out to a few parents who spoke of their first impressions of the feature. While not many have used it yet, they shared that they believed it was an inspired initiative. However, they also personally felt that unless their child was particularly young, it would be quite difficult to truly implement such an initiative.
Dinika Karunaratne, whose child is 13 years old, shared that her daughter was an avid TikTok user and she had concerns about some of the videos that she watched as well as the type of content she posted. However, she noted that if she attempted to exercise such control over her teenage daughter, realistically, it would not be a success. “I think it is good for younger kids, but for those around 11-12 and above, I don’t know how realistic it is. The burden is of course on parents to monitor and educate, but I think the platform should also be a bit more stringent in monitoring content as well,” she said.
Erangi Edirisinghe, a stay-at-home mother of a 14-year-old son, said: “Teenagers are difficult enough to negotiate with. We, as parents, have to display trust. If I attempted to monitor my son’s social media, I would tarnish my relationship with him.”
She added: “I hope that he is exercising reason and good judgement, but he is young, and while I am tempted to use a programme like this, it is realistically not possible because of this age group. Teenagers are very advanced and unlike kids, they are not open to this kind of parenting.” She noted that while teenagers were a different breed, younger children such as those aged nine, 10, or 11 may listen to their parents and that they did indeed need this type of hands-on monitoring.
Also sharing her thoughts on the matter, Radhi Vijay Raja shared: “My daughter is 16. There is absolutely no way she would allow this type of monitoring and to be perfectly honest, I too think she is at an age where I cannot even suggest implementing this type of monitoring.”
“I don’t know much about TikTok and there is no real way for me as a parent to ensure that she is not having to deal with dangerous things online. Of course I hope that she is able to decide for herself, I think she is old enough. I hope that her education and peers give her good enough support to stay safe, but I think that the burden should be on the platform to curate safe content and not to allow dangerous material to exist on the platform,” she elaborated.
It would appear that parents of older children have concerns about implementing these measures with their children, especially with those who already have their own accounts on the platform and are using them freely. While many were appreciative of the efforts, the majority felt that it would be difficult to implement practically.