Some commentators have praised TikTok as being genuinely good fun and inclusive of eclectic interests and subcultures, and the New York Times hailed it for its relatively low levels of bullying and harassment, saying TikTok “might well be the only truly pleasant social network in existence.”
TikTok is especially popular among teens, who typically use it to post videos of themselves singing along to their favorite songs, short comedy sketches, or a variety of viral “challenges.” In August 2018, it replaced the rebranded Musical.ly app in the United States after that app was acquired by the Chinese company ByteDance. TikTok is a wildly popular mobile app that allows users to record and share videos of up to 15 seconds in length. As such, the February 2019 viral Facebook message was fundamentally mistaken in the focus of its warning, suggesting as it did that the app’s settings - rather than the actions of its users - allowed potentially predatory adults to access contact details that a child did not allow to be shared. It is possible for someone to obtain a phone number, email address, or other personal information about a TikTok user, but only if the TikTok user in question shares such information. This warning was further promulgated on Facebook when it was re-posted on 12 February:
Even with her account being set to private, they can still access all of her information.” We took her phone to Verizon and they said it was the most dangerous app. They knew her name, age, where she lived and her email. “If your child has MUSICALLY/TIK TOK, make them delete it now! Friday night, got a text from a Pennsylvania number. In early 2019, a viral Facebook message warned about the purported dangers of TikTok, the most popular example of a recent wave of short-video social media apps, including Snapchat, Dubsmash and (prior to 2016) Vine:
Sexual predators and pedophiles do use such apps to target and contact children and young teens (as we have examined previously), but the claims made in viral Facebook warnings are often overstated or even erroneous - children can usually protect themselves from the unwanted attention of strangers by using the privacy settings that come with most popular apps, as well as by taking a general approach of caution and skepticism about would-be contacts or “friends.” Social media and chat apps have long been a cause of concern for parents and adults, as well as a source of viral online warnings about the dangers to children of cyber-predators.
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