As TikTok Videos take Hold with Teens, Parents tussle to keep up

Owned by China’s Byte Dance, boasted 500 million users as its purchase last year of Musical.ly, which greatly expanded its reach in the US
As TikTok Videos take Hold with Teens, Parents tussle to keep up

Paris: Millions of teenagers seeking their 15 seconds of fame are flocking to TikTok, but many of their parents are only now learning about the express-yourself video app-often to their dismay.

The social network became the most downloaded on Apple's App Store in the first half of this year according to market analysis firm Sensor Tower, beating out titans like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.

The site, owned by China's Byte Dance, boasted 500 million users as of June following its purchase last year of Musical.ly, which greatly expanded its reach in the US.

 "TikTok capitalizes on short-term creative content that other platforms don't encourage, by their design and community,"

"If there is one thing Silicon Valley can learn from Chinese app development, it's that it is tuned in to viral-as-a-service, meaning that their most popular apps have really been about making content and personas viral and also hyper-engaged,"

The app itself promises a video-sharing community that's "raw, real and without boundaries" and claims to be appropriate for children aged 12 and older.

Parents aren't always convinced, given the numbers of young girls suggestively singing along to sexually explicit lyrics which are often degrading to women. Media reports have documented cases of users being bombarded with disturbing comments, while others have been asked for private contact details or to post provocative images.

Last summer the Indonesian government banned the app after more than 170,000 people signed a petition saying that lip-syncing in revealing outfits was not suitable for children.

It was lifted only after TikTok representatives from China flew to Jakarta and promised to hire more people to weed out inappropriate content. The US internet watchdog Common Sense says the combination of mature content and privacy risks means users should be at least 16.

"Because the age limit is so low, you attract a greater assortment of dangerous characters, and users lying about their age," Solis said.

But raising the age limit would remove millions of people from the platform, and curb TikTok's exponential growth.

In France for example, 38% of youths aged 11 to 14 have a TikTok account according to Generation Numerique, which tracks internet usage.

Girls are by far the majority among French pre-teens, with 58% saying they have an account compared with just 15% for boys.

French police warned parents last month about the dangers, saying their teens "may be targeted by indecent sexual proposals".

"TikTok promotes dancing and singing in particular, things which are still pretty feminine that boys don't always dare to do," said Cyril di Palma, Generation Numerique's president.

The effects of early exposure to social media are so new that "parents, educators, even doctors… are either under-qualified or completely ignorant in the face of the need to guide a young generation in the dangers and possibilities of these new technologies," Solis said.

William Soally, a French father whose 12-year-old daughter is a dance fan, took action after seeing alerts about TikTok among YouTube users.

"I talked about it with my daughter and we decided to remove the app from her phone," Soally, 35, acknowledging the move had initially provoked tears and worries about "a loss of social status".

"The solution has to come from parents, who need to understand that the internet is not a world of Care Bears," he added, referring to the 1980s cartoon characters.

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