Sniff garlic and clear your nose? One of the latest TikTok trends is once again causing a stir. We give you a TikTok update.
What is TikTok? TikTok is an app that allows you to record videos of up to one minute and share them with other users . A variety of pieces of music, effects and challenges can be used, for example to create a playback video for your favorite song or to tell something about yourself (#dasbinich).
The videos are categorized based on their hashtags and, ideally, also displayed in the “Discover” tab for other users (e.g. #mystyle, #eggchallenge or #6secondtest). Hashtags also make searching easier: TikTok automatically displays a selected list of the most popular videos for each hashtag and song.
App still trending
The short video app TikTok continues to be trendy. With almost 4 million users, it is the second largest classic social media platform in Austria. Children and young people in particular are fascinated by creating musical video clips and sharing them with the TikTok community. However, the possibility of anonymous use, unreliable age controls and risky challenges lead to problems.
Protection of younger people
In order to counteract the dangers of using it, TikTok has now made some adjustments to protect younger users. These include the accompanied mode with extended control options for parents and the age-differentiated presetting of accounts. Profiles of young users are preset to “private” and posts can only be seen by friends. It is also possible to set up an individual screen time .
According to TikTok, more than 60 million videos were deleted for community guidelines violations in the first quarter of 2021, as well as over 7 million accounts belonging to those under 13 years old . still face risks when using TikTok . This is confirmed by continuous research by jugendschutz.net.
Cyber grooming, cyber bullying and dangerous challenges
In the current practice info “TikTok – Making children and young people aware of risks” (PDF), jugendschutz.net provides information about, among other things, cyber grooming , cyber bullying and dangerous challenges within the video network. The desire to belong to the community and compete with others encourage many children and young people to take part in challenges. The garlic challenge is still one of the harmless ones; many of these “challenges” can lead to serious health damage . In doing so, users usually endanger not only themselves, but also outsiders. Children and young people must be informed that such challenges are no fun and can lead to serious health problems.
Tips for parents
- Discover together. Just try out TikTok yourself or go on a “journey of discovery” with your child. Not only will you better understand the fascination behind it, but you will also be able to better assess possible risks.
- Talk instead of banning. Even if you are skeptical, a mere ban is counterproductive, especially if TikTok is very popular among your child's circle of friends. Talk to your child about why they really want to use the app and clarify possible risks together.
- Agree on rules. Decide with your child what types of videos are acceptable on TikTok and what are not (e.g. no revealing videos or those that allow conclusions to be drawn about where you live or go to school). If other people can be seen in a video, they must be asked for permission before posting.
- Protect privacy. Discuss with your child why a private account on TikTok might make sense and take a look at the app's privacy settings .
- Respect copyrights. Explain to your child what copyright is and why you can't simply upload the videos produced on TikTok somewhere else.
- Get creative. Encourage your child to let their creativity run wild on TikTok - the videos don't necessarily have to be your child in the picture! With a little skill, you can also create an alternative performance that is impressive (e.g. a stop-motion video with drawn characters).
Related to the topic: Illegal content on TikTok
Thanks to Klicksafe.de and saferinternet.at for their content support.
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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )

