A day after TikTok launches new parental controls, digital safety expert shows a major flaw that would allow teens to bypass them
If you're the parent of a teen, you might have noticed that TikTok just announced new parental-control safety measures—including a meditative shut-down prompt that teens will face if they're scrolling past 10 p.m., as well as a way for the adult in charge to block their kid from the app during set times.
That was on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, a digital safety expert and mom to a 16-year-old demonstrated on social media just how easy it would be for a savvy (and even not-so-savvy) teen to bypass.
"I can't believe that all the smart people working at TikTok think that the general population of parents will, A, accept this; B, use this; C, find this meaningful in any way, shape, or form," Titania Jordan, chief parent officer at online safety company Bark Technologies and author of a brand-new book about raising kids in the digital age, Parental Control, posted in the caption of an Instagram reel. "Seriously, what are they thinking?"
The new parental-control features are designed to work within an existing Family Pairing safety framework, through which parents link their account with their child's to better monitor and control their use of the app. Some experts have already weighed in on the features with Fortune, with Jill Murphy of Common Sense Media calling them "a step in the right direction" while emphasizing they are not the only answer. "In general," she said, "parental controls are just not a set-it-and-forget-it solution.'
Jordan, meanwhile, begins her new reel by declaring, "TikTok must think that every parent is just a complete idiot." She goes on to explain how a Google alert about the new safety features piqued her interest on Tuesday, prompting her to examine the details.
"I read it over, it seemed super fluffy, especially the meditation part," she said. "Like, no, you're not going to get kids to meditate within Tiktok—especially if you've curated an addictive algorithm of things they are most interested in!"
What she really wanted to investigate, though, was the new family pairing feature that "supposedly" gave parents more tools, such as controlling kids' time spent on the app. Jordan demonstrated how, to test it, she created the new TikTok account of a fictitious 15-year-old and then had that account follow her real adult account. She then linked her adult account to the fake teen account through the new pairing feature.
"I was really hoping that TikTok finally did something right. They did not," she said, reporting that, within a few taps, the 15-year-old account was able to unlink the account that the parent, a.k.a. Jordan, had just linked. "No warning, no blocker, no 'Hey, you need a PIN code password to make this happen.' No permission needed."
TikTok did not immediately respond to Fortune's request for comment about Jordan's reel, but we will update with any response.
But TikTok's parental controls, Jordan concludes, "are the biggest load of you-know-what that comes out of a bull. You can do better, TikTok," she says. "It's not that hard."
More on teens and smartphones:
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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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