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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowTikTok announced Wednesday that many teenage users will now be limited to 60 minutes of screen time—that is, until they enter a passcode to bypass the feature and continue scrolling.
The social media company said that app users who have identified themselves as younger than 18 will start getting an automatic message when they hit an hour of daily scrolling. They’ll have to enter a passcode to dismiss the message.
The plan will not limit kids to a strict period of screen time—besides entering the passcode, users on social media have been known to alter their ages to avoid features meant for kids.
Still, TikTok said similar reminders have been shown to spur users to try to take control of their screen time.
“So we’re also prompting teens to set a daily screen time limit if they opt out of the 60-minute default and spend more than 100 minutes on TikTok in a day,” the company said.
The move comes as TikTok has been under significant political pressure in the United States as lawmakers from both parties have raised concerns about its security and ties to China. TikTok is owned by Chinese parent company ByteDance.
Lawmakers have expressed concern that the app could pose a national security concern, suggesting that TikTok’s ownership leaves the app open to surveillance and censorship.
TikTok has said such concerns are based on “misrepresentations,” and it has launched a charm offensive in Washington in an attempt to persuade lawmakers it is trustworthy.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told The Washington Post in an exclusive interview last month that the Chinese government has never asked for U.S. user data and that, “even if they did, we believe we don’t have to give it to them because U.S. user data is subject to U.S. law.”
This week, the White House said federal agencies had 30 days to make sure the device had been removed from federal devices, and Canada said it would also ban the app from government-issued phones.
Chew is slated to testify in the House on March 23, the first time the company’s CEO will appear on Capitol Hill, where a growing number of lawmakers have been pushing to ban the app entirely in the U.S.
Screen time has for years been a focus of lawmakers and advocacy groups who are concerned about the hold social media has on users, and especially on kids. Social media companies have tried for years to quell these concerns by adding screen time management features and reminders, but many experts say they don’t go far enough.
Some experts say that the impact of social media on kids’ mental health isn’t fully understood, but others say it has demonstrable effects.
Last month, Big Tech critic Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, introduced a bill to require companies to verify all users are over 16 before letting them use the sites.
In Wednesday’s announcement, TikTok said parents or guardians would have to set a passcode to bypass the screen time limit for users on the app who are under 13. Those accounts already have limited features and cannot comment on other’s videos or send messages.
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“ TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told The Washington Post in an exclusive interview last month that the Chinese government has never asked for U.S. user data and that, “even if they did, we believe we don’t have to give it to them because U.S. user data is subject to U.S. law.”
Hysterical because it’s not true.
“… according to leaked audio from more than 80 internal TikTok meetings, China-based employees of ByteDance have repeatedly accessed nonpublic data about US TikTok users — exactly the type of behavior that inspired former president Donald Trump to threaten to ban the app in the United States.
The recordings, which were reviewed by BuzzFeed News, contain 14 statements from nine different TikTok employees indicating that engineers in China had access to US data between September 2021 and January 2022, at the very least. Despite a TikTok executive’s sworn testimony in an October 2021 Senate hearing that a “world-renowned, US-based security team” decides who gets access to this data, nine statements by eight different employees describe situations where US employees had to turn to their colleagues in China to determine how US user data was flowing. US staff did not have permission or knowledge of how to access the data on their own, according to the tapes.”
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-tapes-us-user-data-china-bytedance-access
TikTok should be banned in the US. The ban can be lifted when they allow US social media applications to operate in China.
Shut it down, shut it down now. Shut down all social media where people can post their opinions where they would never dare to speak their opinions face to face.
While I certainly don’t advocate being rude or cruel, and I do think social media can be harmful, we have something called the First Amendment that protects most speech, including rude and hurtful remarks. The government has ZERO authority to shut down all social media. TikTok can be regulated with respect to privacy concerns or certain limited material that minors may see, but there is NO governmental authority to enforce politeness or kindness. These are learned behaviors that PARENTS, other family members, teachers, neighbors, community leaders and other role models need to teach children and enforce with adults by setting boundaries.
People need to learn to regulate their own behavior, and social media platforms can certainly voluntarily enforce codes of conduct (which all of them actually do to some extent or another). The government can only be involved in a very looted capacity. After all, I am sure you wouldn’t want the government deciding it didn’t like *your* comment and swooping in to delete it. That is something that happens in an authoritarian regime, like Iran, not in a free society.
not a fan of tiktok. don’t have it. but you sound like you’re afraid of freedom of expression/1a