TikTok is going R-rated, adding the ability for creators to lock out users under the age of 18. Creators on the platform will soon be able to start 18+ livestreams, restricting underage users from entering.
This isn’t a ploy for the platform to cash in on the Internet’s largest source of traffic though.
“We do not allow nudity, pornography, or sexually explicit content,” notes the company’s community guidelines,
Monday’s media release from TikTok offered up a few examples of why creators might want to limit its watchers; “Perhaps a comedy routine is better suited for people over age 18. Or, a host may plan to talk about a difficult life experience and they would feel more comfortable knowing the conversation is limited to adults”.
Only for 18+ fans
An 18+ mode isn’t the only change coming to the platform. TikTok will soon bar underage users from hosting livestreams. As it stands, users need to be 16 and above with a following larger than 1,000 users to host livestreams. From 23 November, the age limit is increasing to 18+. No changes to the minimum follower count were mentioned, so expect that to stick around.
TikTok describes both changes in age restrictions as “our ongoing work to help keep our community safe”.
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An updated keyword filter is coming, which currently lets users filter out any unsavoury comments during a livestream. The feature will be able to suggest new keywords to filter, based on the words the host usually bans. It can also notice when users are commenting with similar words to that of the banned ones, and then suggest the user to ban them too.
Besides the changes to Live’s hosting age restrictions, TikTok didn’t release any dates for when we could expect to see these changes in-app. We do know we’ll be seeing them in a couple of weeks, but as for specific dates, only TikTok knows.