Latest news with #TitaniaJordan
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
TikTok is trying to be better for children. Parents are skeptical.
TikTok has introduced new safety features to protect children. TikTok is facing a series of state lawsuits that claim it's harmful to children's mental health. Child safety advocates say TikTok's efforts are welcome but not enough to solve the problem. TikTok's algorithm is so masterful it's difficult to look away. While that's good for TikTok, it might not be so good for anyone else. Mental health professionals have long warned about the dangers of social media in general, and TikTok in particular. TikTok is also now facing a series of lawsuits that say the app is dangerous to children's mental health. In response, TikTok has added features to encourage more responsible use of the app. But while child safety advocates welcome the effort, some of them say it's not enough to solve the root problem. TikTok announced its latest safety features this week. They give parents more control over — and insight into — what their kids watch. TikTok also now allows parents to set time limits. "No teen or family is the same, and whether it's during family time, school, at night, or a weekend away, caregivers can use our new Time Away feature to decide when it's best for their teens to take a break," TikTok said in its announcement. TikTok expanded its family pairing function, which lets parents see who their kids are following on TikTok, who follows them, and what accounts their child has blocked. The feature will also soon let children choose to alert a parent when they report content they think violates TikTok's rules. Titania Jordan, the chief marketing officer of parental control app Bark and author of the book "Parental Control," told Business Insider there is one problem with the new features: A kid can easily just turn them off. "I was like, 'Wow, maybe TikTok is really going to do something meaningful,' and they didn't," Jordan said. Last year, attorneys general from 14 different states sued TikTok, accusing the app of being harmful to children. The coordinated lawsuits resemble the strategy used to take down Big Tobacco and Purdue Pharma, putting TikTok in some unsavory company. Jayne Conroy, an attorney at a firm that represents some 50 plaintiffs in a separate class-action lawsuit accusing social media platforms of harming children, previously told BI that the state investigations into TikTok showed it is designed to "relentlessly engage and exploit the adolescent brain." Ariana Hoet, the executive clinical director at the Kids Mental Health Foundation, said children who spend several hours a day on social media are at an increased risk for mental health conditions like anxiety and depression. However, she said the impact social media has on children depends on how much time they spend scrolling online, what they look at, and with whom they engage. "One of the things that we always recommend is making sure that the parents are involved," Hoet said. "If you decide to give access to your child, you want to continue monitoring, you want to continue conversations, and then you want to teach them digital literacy." Hoet said it's important for parents to monitor their children's social media activity, especially given that children's brains aren't yet fully developed. "Even as adults with fully formed brains, we have a hard time disengaging," Hoet said. "Kids are never going to win. There's no way that they're going to beat out these algorithms that are created to keep them on there." TikTok has denied accusations that it is addictive to children, but has nonetheless added features like default screentime limits, family pairing, and default private accounts for children under 16. TikTok has also added a "wind down" feature for teen accounts. After 10 p.m., a pop-up will encourage teens to log off for the night with "calming music." The pop-ups are optional, however, and the teen can continue using TikTok after dismissing them. TikTok also says it will add "meditation exercises" to the wind-down prompts in the future. Jordan told BI that the wind-down and meditation features seemed like surface-level fixes that do not address the root of the issue: that social media content is addictive to children. "I don't know what child or adult is going to opt into meditating within an app that succeeds at delivering the most viral, engaging content that's personalized," Jordan said. "What do I want to do? Do I want to meditate? Or do I want to keep consuming this addictive content?" Omar Gudiño, the deputy clinical director and senior psychologist at the Child Mind Institute, said the parental controls are a step in the right direction. "It's a complex problem," Gudiño said. "We also want to be thinking about what messages we are sending at a family level and what messages we are sending in schools, so there's multiple points for interventions. There's probably more that apps can be doing themselves." Hoet said the onus for protecting young social media users' mental health typically falls on the parents. "Right now, those burden falls on parents, and that's unfair," Hoet said. "We need the tech companies to be more responsible in their design, and we need them to be more responsible in sharing the data that shows how it's impacting kids." Politicians also need to step up and create laws focused on protecting children's mental health during the digital age, she said. "We are at a place where the technology developed fast and we're catching up," Hoet said. Gudiño said tech companies designing social media apps with young audiences in mind could help. "If apps could do more to think about what content kids are exposed to or how the app is set up to keep them on for longer, there might be more to be done to help bring the risk down," he said. Gudiño said designing apps that balance children's mental health and social media's quest for user engagement might seem "incompatible," but the challenge presents an opportunity for tech companies and families to work toward a common goal. "What's the best for children's development? How do we design content and set up families for success in a way that's going to work for everyone?" Gudiño said. Read the original article on Business Insider
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Yahoo
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: Exclusive: Prince Harry and 'The Anxious Generation' author talk social media and mental health Is teen social media use a crisis or moral panic? How 'big back,' 'fatty,' and other 'fatphobic' slang is damaging your teen's mental health This story was originally featured on
Arab Times
20-02-2025
- Arab Times
Hackers target baby monitors: A parent's nightmare of an intruder speaking to their baby
NEW YORK, Feb 20: A device intended to provide parents peace of mind is instead causing them to worry. A mother recently shared her unsettling experience on Reddit, revealing that an unauthorized user gained access to her baby monitor and began speaking to her newborn. The mother, who chose to remain anonymous, explained that she had purchased a 'cheap' YiHome WiFi-enabled camera from Amazon. This camera, designed to detect movement, allow parents to hear and speak through it, and feature time-stamped recordings, was intended to monitor her baby. However, the device lacked Bluetooth capability, meaning it needed to connect to WiFi and be controlled via a smartphone app. One evening, after placing her baby down for a nap, the mother went to the restroom. Her son was crying, so she opened the app and turned on the audio to check on him. To her surprise, she heard a woman's voice say, 'hello?' through the monitor. Alarmed, she asked her husband if the camera or anything in the child's room could make noise, to which he replied no. As she returned upstairs, she heard the same woman's voice again, speaking to her son through the camera, saying, 'Hi baby! It's okay!' The terrified mother immediately disconnected the camera, swearing not to use it again. It wasn't the first time the mysterious voice had spoken to her son. She later realized the woman had gained access to the monitor for 'at least four days.' Her sister, who lives with the family, had also heard the strange voice but attributed it to the television, which had not yet been installed. The mother warned others about the vulnerability of WiFi-enabled baby monitors, suggesting they opt for Bluetooth cameras instead. She suspected the stranger likely accessed the device through the corresponding app, easily exploiting its weaknesses. Many readers on Reddit labeled the incident as 'creepy,' 'scary,' and 'nefarious,' wondering why anyone would want to talk to someone else's baby. Sadly, the mother's experience is not unique. Over the years, other parents have reported similar incidents, with hackers accessing baby monitors and speaking to their children. According to Allen St. John, content manager for Consumer Reports' baby monitor section, many WiFi-enabled baby monitors have poor security and privacy features. While these monitors are more convenient for parents, Titania Jordan, CMO of Bark Technologies, emphasized their vulnerabilities. 'Many WiFi baby monitors ship with default or easy-to-guess login credentials that were never changed,' Jordan explained. 'Uninstalled manufacturer updates or insecure app settings also increase the risk of exploitation.' Experts also warn that a home router with poor encryption or a weak WiFi password can expose the entire network—and the baby monitor—to hackers. For added security, experts advise parents to read customer reviews before purchasing baby monitors and choose those with a local video feed. Additionally, they recommend changing the default login credentials immediately upon setup, selecting a unique password with letters, numbers, and symbols, and using WPA2 or WPA3 encryption for WiFi.
