TikTok has announced changes to its app to better protect underage users, by limiting their public visibility and also giving users more control over who can see and comment on their videos. TikTok's head of US safety Eric Han, head of privacy in Europe Elaine Fox, and global minor safety policy lead Tracy Elizabeth announced the updates on Wednesday. The short-video app will set the accounts of users aged between 13 and 15 years to “private” by default, circumscribing the people that can interact with these accounts. Only someone who the user has approved to follow them can view their videos. Users in this age group can also choose to either disallow comments on their videos or only let their Friends comment; the “everyone” option will be removed. “Suggest your account to others'' will be off by default for this age group, and they can no longer make their videos downloadable. Further, the Duet and Stitch features, which lets users repost and respond to another user’s video, will be available only for users aged 16 and above. The company is also changing default settings across the app for users under 18. Unless they actively change the settings, 16 and 17 year-olds will have downloads disabled by default. In addition, duet and stitch videos, by default, can only be viewed by Friends. The changes were announced for the US, UK, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Italy, Spain, Russia, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Ireland, Brazil, Latin America, Netherlands, the Philippines, and Turkey. Essentially, all geographies…
