Posted by Tiktok is a application which is connected to China. It is owned by ByteDance and this app is a video-sharing social networking service. With this app you are able to create looping videos which can range from 3 to 60 seconds. It is also a different version of another Chinese app called Douyin. Douyin was released in the Chinese market in September 2016 and TikTok was launched in 2017. Now fast forward just a couple years TikTok has now hit the United States and has exploded. It is by far the biggest application amongst adolescents and some adults. Within the whole world the app has over 2 billion downloads on mobile devices, this was as of this month October. TikTok has dealt with a lot of controversy over this past year with its correlation to China.
Besides the brief history of this application it has created many community guidelines for users to follow. Some guidelines that are in effect include no hate speech, harassment, bullying, adult nudity, and sexual activities. With these guidelines it creates a safer environment for users to browse the app. Although not everyone follows the guidelines and consequences will occur. For example, there is a TikTok content creator who has 3.5 million followers. He said a anti Semitic slur which was supposed to be a joke, but was taken very seriously. He ended up getting banned from the app entirely, and lost his job in the Army. Now it has been a couple months since that had occurred, he has deeply apologized for his actions, and TikTok actually allowed him to use the app again and he also got his job back. This shows how very cautious TikTok is about their community guidelines.
Safety is obviously a number one priority for anyone using any social network. It can be risky, but it is totally possible for kids to safely use TikTok with total adult supervision. At first when your signing up for TikTok, your account is public automatically, which means anyone can see what you post, send you direct messages, and use your location. Parents should turn on all the privacy settings for kid accounts. This is so only people you know can interact with you and watch your videos or message you. That means either going from public for a private account or change the settings for comments, reactions, and messages to only friends. You are also able to completely change those settings if you want to go back to being public instead.
One problem that relates to these safety precautions is TikTok needs to crack down on more is people faking accounts and trying to solicit inappropriate images and try to lure young kids into traps. This does not just happen on TikTok, it tends to happen on all types of social media. TikTok has definitely done a better job than most, but it’s still tends to happen a great amount to people.
TikTok inspires a great amount of people during this time. This application creates so much happiness for people all over the world. Social media never means to be used in a harmful way, but it can always happen that someone might misuse their power. What I mean by this is that kids do not understand how powerful technology is especially when it’s in the wrong hands. Overall, TikTok and other social media platforms need to make sure the guidelines for their platforms are being abided by at all times.