To help keep sexually suggestive content away from its younger users, TikTok is strengthening its content policies. Similar to film and TV, TikTok’s short form videos will have an age rating that prevents users aged 13-17 from seeing overly adult or mature content.
The app shares it has “taken additional steps to help prevent teen accounts from viewing more mature content”. So far, it has prevented teen accounts from viewing over 1 million overtly suggestive videos in the last 30 days, it says.
New changes also include empowering content creators to share videos that suit the appropriate demographic. Creators that want their content to only be available to over 18s will get their wish over the coming weeks, TikTok shares.
Creators already had the ability to limit their audience to over 18s in the LIVE feature, but this will be expanded to the short form video side of TikTok soon.
The app also highlighted that it is constantly improving its machine learning capabilities to detect sexually explicit content, as well as ‘suggestive’ or ‘borderline’ content.
“Our aim is to quickly identify and remove violative content from our platform and prevent borderline or suggestive content from being recommended to or searchable by teen accounts”, it explained in a recent post.
The renewed focus on protecting younger users comes as TikTok partnered with StopNCII.org, which works to stop the spread of non-consensual intimate imagery. Content identified and recognised by StopNCII will be automatically prevented from posting on TikTok, it said.