On TikTok’s Safety Campaign: An Interview with Malak Jaafar

After breaking down the 5 essential tips to help you protect your teen on TikTok, we sat down with Malak Jaafar, MENAT Outreach and Partnership Manager at TikTok, to give you all the details of the platform’s latest safety campaign.

Photo: Malak Jaafar, MENAT Outreach and Partnership Manager at TikTok.

Q1: How does TikTok ensure teens safety while using the app?

At TikTok, we’re deeply committed to ensuring the safety of our young users, especially teens. We’ve implemented a comprehensive approach that combines innovative technology, stringent policies, and user empowerment. For example, we have age-specific safeguards in place. For users aged 13-15, we automatically set their accounts to private and restrict access to certain features. This means their content is only visible to approved followers, and they can’t use features like LIVE streaming or Direct Messaging.

We employ a sophisticated content moderation system that uses both automated and human reviewers. Our automated system scans uploads in real-time, checking for violations of our Community Guidelines. It looks at various elements, including keywords, images, audio, and more. If potential violations are detected, content is either automatically removed or flagged for human review.

We’ve also introduced a Content Levels system, which organizes content based on thematic maturity. This helps prevent content with mature themes from reaching users between 13-17 years old, similar to how film and TV rating systems work.

User control is another crucial aspect of our safety approach. We provide a range of customizable safety settings. Users can choose to have a private account, control who can comment on their videos, filter comments, and manage who can send them messages. For users under 16, many of these settings default to the most restrictive options.

Additionally, we’ve developed the Family Pairing feature, which allows parents to link their TikTok account to their teen’s. This gives parents the ability to manage various safety settings, including screen time limits, restricted mode for inappropriate content, and controls over who can message their teens or comment on their videos.

We also run regular in-app safety campaigns and have created resources like our Youth Portal to educate teens about online safety and digital wellbeing.

We’re continuously improving our safety measures. We work closely with experts in youth mental health, cyberbullying, and online safety to refine our approaches. We’ve even launched a global Youth Council to directly involve teens in conversations about online safety.

Through this multi-layered approach, we strive to create a safe, positive, and enriching environment for teens on TikTok.

Q2: What important guidelines should parents know regarding TikTok safety measures? What is Family Pairing?

It’s crucial for parents to familiarize themselves with TikTok’s Community Guidelines that outline what content is and isn’t allowed on the platform, helping to maintain a safe and positive environment for all users. One of the most important tools for parents is the Family Pairing feature. This allows parents to link their TikTok account to their teen’s account, giving them direct control over several safety settings.

Here’s what Family Pairing enables:

– Screen Time Management: Parents can set daily time limits for how long their teen can spend on TikTok.

– Restricted Mode: This helps filter out content that may not be appropriate for all audiences.

– Search Restrictions: Parents can manage what content their teen can search for on the app.

– Privacy Settings: They can control whether their teen’s account is private or public.

– Direct Messages: Parents can decide who can send messages to their teen, or turn off direct messaging completely. It’s important to note that for users aged 13-15, direct messaging is automatically disabled.

– Comments: Parents can control who is allowed to comment on their teen’s videos.

– Liked Videos: They can decide who can view the videos their teen has liked.

– Account Discoverability: Parents can control whether their teen’s account can be recommended to other users.

TikTok also provides resources for parents to educate themselves and their teens about online safety. The Guardian’s Guide offers information on digital safety and tips for helping teens manage their online presence. We also encourage parents to explore the app themselves to better understand how it works.

It’s important for parents to have open conversations with their teens about their online activities. Discussing the content they engage with, the people they interact with, and how certain content makes them feel can help foster digital literacy and responsible online behavior.

Parents should know that TikTok regularly updates its safety features and runs educational campaigns to promote safe use of the platform. Staying informed about these updates can help parents better guide their teens in using TikTok safely and responsibly.

Q3: How can the platform reach parents who are not tech savvy but want to ensure their children’s safety on the app?

TikTok recognizes that not all parents are equally comfortable with technology, yet many are concerned about their children’s online safety. To address this, we’ve implemented several strategies to reach and assist these parents:

a) User-Friendly Resources: We’ve created the Guardian’s Guide, which is designed to be easily understood by those who aren’t tech experts. This guide provides clear, step-by-step instructions on how to use TikTok’s safety features, including Family Pairing. It’s written in simple language, avoiding technical jargon that can be confusing.

b) Educational Campaigns: We regularly run safety campaigns that are designed to be accessible to all users. For example:

– We partnered with creator Karen Wazen to produce a #FamilyFirst video that highlights our Family Pairing feature in a simple, easy-to-understand way.

– In Lebanon, we are rolling out our #DigitalGuardian safety campaign (سوا_منكون_الوصي_الرقمي#) that includes collaborations with parent creators. These creators will produce content that explains TikTok’s safety features in relatable, non-technical terms.

c) Step-by-Step Tutorials: As part of our campaigns, we provide detailed, visual tutorials on how to use key safety features. These tutorials break down complex processes into simple, manageable steps that are easy to follow.

d) Encouragement of Exploration: We actively encourage parents to explore TikTok themselves. By using the app, even if they’re not creating content, parents can gain firsthand experience of how it works. This hands-on approach can be more effective for less tech-savvy parents than reading about the app.

e) Simplified In-App Guidance: Within the app itself, we’ve worked to make safety controls and settings as intuitive as possible. We use clear labels, provide in-context explanations, and offer guided setup processes for features like Family Pairing.

f) Multi-lingual Support: To ensure we’re reaching as many parents as possible, we offer our safety resources in multiple languages.

By employing this multi-faceted approach, we aim to ensure that all parents, regardless of their technological proficiency, have the information and tools they need to help their children use TikTok safely and responsibly. We’re committed to continually improving our outreach methods to make our safety features and guidelines as accessible as possible to all parents.

Q4: What steps is TikTok taking to educate teens about responsible content creation platforms use?

By implementing diverse strategies, TikTok aims to create a culture of responsibility and safety among our teen users. We’re committed to continually evolving our approach based on feedback from users, parents, educators, and safety experts to ensure we’re effectively educating teens about responsible use of content creation platforms. Some of these strategies:

a) In-App Educational Campaigns: We regularly run in-app campaigns to inform our community about safety tools and responsible use. For example:

– The #CreateKindness campaign is a global initiative aimed at raising awareness about online bullying. Through creative video series, we highlight how users can choose kindness in their online interactions.

– Our #SaferTogether campaign involves collaborating with popular creators to discuss important safety topics. These creators share tips and information about staying safe on TikTok, making the content more engaging and relatable for teen users.

b) Youth Portal: We’ve developed a dedicated Youth Portal that serves as a hub for information on digital wellbeing and online safety. This resource is specifically designed for younger users, offering advice on:

– How to manage privacy settings

– Understanding data usage

– Recognizing and reporting inappropriate content

– Maintaining a healthy balance between online and offline activities

c) Global Youth Council: We’ve established a global Youth Council, which allows teens to directly share their views on online safety with us. This initiative not only helps us understand the perspectives and concerns of young users but also empowers teens to actively participate in shaping a safer digital environment.

d) Collaboration with Experts: We work closely with experts in youth mental health, cyberbullying, and online safety to develop age-appropriate educational content and safety features. This ensures that our approach to teen education is grounded in professional expertise.

e) Safety Center: Our Safety Center provides easy-to-understand guides on various safety topics. It includes sections specifically tailored for teens, offering straightforward advice on how to use the platform responsibly.

f) Digital Wellbeing Features: We’ve incorporated features that promote digital wellbeing directly into the app. For instance, we have screen time management tools that remind users to take breaks after extended periods of use. These features are accompanied by explanations about the importance of balanced app usage.

g) Community Guidelines Education: We make our Community Guidelines easily accessible and encourage teens to review them. We’ve also created simplified versions and visual guides to make these rules more engaging and easier to understand for younger users.

h) Content Creators Partnerships: We partner with creators to produce content that addresses responsible use of content creation platforms in an entertaining and relatable way. This peer-to-peer approach can be particularly effective in reaching and influencing teen users.

i) Interactive Learning Experiences: We’re exploring interactive learning experiences within the app, such as quizzes or challenges related to online safety and digital citizenship. These gamified approaches can make learning about responsible use of content creation platforms more engaging for teens.

j) Regular Safety Prompts: We incorporate regular safety prompts and tips into the user experience, reminding teens about privacy settings, reporting tools, and responsible sharing practices as they use the app.

Q5: How does TikTok handle reports of bullying or harassment, especially when minors are involved?

– We strive to foster kindness and maintain a safe and inclusive space for our community to create and discover, without fear of being shamed, bullied or harassed.

– We protect our community by removing content and accounts that violate our rules and by limiting how far content that is not suitable for a broad audience can travel.

– To foster a welcoming and supportive community, TikTok has various app settings that allow individuals to control their TikTok experience. These include allowing users to set their account to private (this is the default setting for individuals under 16), controlling who can send them a Direct Message, who can Duet and Stitch with them, who can comment on their videos, and filter comments.

– People put their hearts and souls into creating and entertaining users on TikTok, and the platform recognizes how discouraging it can feel to receive unkind comments on videos. This is why TikTok provides the ability for users to delete multiple comments at once or report them for potentially violating the Community Guidelines. Accounts that post bullying or other negative comments can now be blocked in bulk, too.

– We run in-app educational campaigns to educate our community about our safety tools and how they can use them to help ensure a joyful TikTok experience.

◦ With the launch of #CreateKindness, a global campaign and a creative video series aimed at raising awareness around online bullying, we highlighted to our community how we can all choose kindness.

◦ Using #SaferTogether, we asked some of our most recognisable creators to talk about the things we want our community to know about staying safe on TikTok.

– We’ve published guides to help foster conversation and understanding:

◦ Our Bullying Prevention guide for teens, caregivers, and educators explains how to identify and prevent bullying, and provide support.

◦ Our Guardian’s Guide on digital safety supports caregivers in helping their teens learn about digital safety in order to manage their online presence. It includes tips that we created in partnership with parents and teens on the type of support that teens really value from trusted adults.

Q6: Are there any specific initiatives aimed at reducing screen time for younger users to protect their mental well-being?

– We believe digital experiences should bring joy and play a positive role in how people express themselves, discover ideas, and connect. Having a positive relationship with digital devices and apps isn’t just about measuring screen time, it’s also about feeling in control of how we use technology and ensuring that the time we spend online contributes positively to our sense of well-being.

– We provide our younger community members with tailored support to ensure they can develop a healthy relationship with screen time.

◦ Accounts aged 13-17 will automatically be set to a 60-minute daily screen time limit.

Should teens decide to opt out of this limit, we’ll prompt them to set a screen time limit for themselves if they spend more than 100 minutes a day on TikTok.

◦ Accounts aged 13-15 do not receive push notifications from 9 pm and accounts aged 16-17 have push notifications disabled starting at 10 pm.

◦ Accounts aged 13-17 receive a weekly inbox notification which recaps their screen time.

◦ Our Digital well-being guide – How can I reflect on my digital well-being with my family and friends? – encourages our community to reflect more holistically about how they spend their time online – whether on TikTok or elsewhere – and how it makes them feel as they set the boundaries that best suit them.

– We invest in protecting the well-being of people so that our community can feel in control of their TikTok experience. We offer:

◦ A screen time limit helps people decide how much time they’d like to spend on our app each day, with the option of having different limits depending on the day of the week.

◦ Screen time breaks help people control how much time they spend on TikTok in a single sitting by prompting people to take a break after a certain amount of uninterrupted screen time, which they can set as they choose.

◦ The in-app screen time dashboard gives our community data about how much time they are spending on TikTok, with summaries of their daily time spent on the app, the number of times they opened the app, and a breakdown of daytime and night-time usage.

◦ People can opt for weekly notifications recapping their screen time.

◦ Community members can set a sleep reminder for themselves, which, when reached, will remind them that it’s time to log off.

– We encourage community members to take breaks when needed by sending them a friendly video reminder. These videos are shown to community members after prolonged TikTok use.

Q7: What is TikTok doing to proactively identify and remove harmful content before it reaches younger users?

– Videos uploaded to TikTok are initially reviewed by our automated moderation technology, which aims to identify content that violates our Community Guidelines. These systems look at a variety of signals across content, including keywords, images, titles, descriptions and audio. If a potential violation is found, the automated moderation system will either pass it on to our safety teams for further review or remove it automatically if there is a high degree of confidence that the content violates our Community Guidelines.

– More than 40,000 trust and safety professionals are dedicated to keeping TikTok safe. In order to support fair and consistent review of potentially violative content, moderators work alongside our automated moderation systems and take into account additional context and nuance which may not always be picked up by technology. We moderate content in more than 70 languages, with specialized moderation teams for complex issues, such as misinformation, including multiple dialects of Arabic.

– While TikTok is able to remove the majority of this content before it’s reported to us, we encourage everyone in our community to play an active part in keeping TikTok a safe and welcoming place by reporting content they feel violates our Guidelines.

– The platform enables users to report a problem which could be a live video, comment, video, DM, a TikTok account, sound, hashtag, or anything else. Parents and users can also utilize TikTok’s online feedback form to report content prohibited by TikTok’s community guidelines and to share concerns and suggestions.

– Our dedicated ‘Dangerous acts and challenges’ reporting category makes it easy for people to flag content they may be concerned about.

– We launched Content Levels system which organises content based on thematic maturity to help prevent content with overtly mature themes from reaching younger audiences between the ages of 13-17. This added layer of protection will help prevent content with mature themes from reaching younger audiences – similar to the way in which systems in the film industry, television, or gaming classify content function, but built for TikTok’s unique ecosystem.

– If someone comes across content that might be irrelevant or something they don’t want to see, community members can choose to hide future videos from the creator or hide videos that use the same sound. Learn more about our tools to limit unwanted content and customize content with filters.