TikTok reps to take safety questions from Hillsborough parents Thursday
TAMPA, Fla. - If you have a high school or middle school student in your house, whatever dance they’ve been trying to teach you, whatever joke you hear them repeating in the car with their friends, there's a good chance that it started on the video-sharing site TikTok. But the mobile app also comes with quite a few safety concerns.
Hillsborough County Council PTA will host a student panel at a internet safety meeting Thursday night called "The Smart Talk with TikTok." There will also be representatives from TikTok to discuss online activity, viral stunts, and general safety practices. According to the district, the event is aimed at empowering teenagers to make smarter decisions with the phones at their fingertips around the clock.
The app's developers describe TikTok as a destination for short-form mobile videos. There are dance challenges, DIY tutorials, lip-syncing, historical parodies and internet memes. Overall, users are producing highly-creative and engaging content. But parents are also raising concerns about kids getting bullied and harassed by peers, or getting contacted by strangers.
Thursday’s meeting also comes amid concerns over viral stunt trends like the ‘skull breaker challenge,’ which involves two people tricking a third into jumping before kicking their victim’s feet out from under them.
Tech and social media expert Leslie Samuel said teenagers face unique challenges in an era of viral fame.
"It’s a very interesting time that we’re living in now, because of the fact that you can do something so simple and get hundreds, if not thousands or even millions of people to see what you do,” Samuel explained during a FaceTime interview. “So what you have is, in many cases, the peer pressure of wanting that attention and the peer pressure of being able to do something that could potentially go viral. A lot of kids are just doing these things without even thinking about the damage that can cause to someone else."
According to the Safety Center on TikTok’s website, there are several actions teenagers can take to control who sees their videos and sends them messages:
We have a number of tools in place to help you control your teen's experience, including limiting who can see their uploaded content, follow them, and send them messages by making their account private. With a private account, your teen can approve or deny followers and restrict their uploaded content and incoming messages to followers only. If your teen has a public profile, anyone signed into TikTok can view that user’s public videos. However, only approved followers can send them a message. Whether users choose to have a public or a private account, they can always:
• Block another from contacting them at any time
• Save a video privately so that content will not be viewable by any other user
• Filter comments
• Manage your duets
Please remember: Even with a private account, profile information – including profile photo, username, and bio – will be visible to all users. Counsel your teen not to reveal personal information such as age, address, or phone number in his/her profile.
"Emphasize conversation,” Samuel said. “It’s important for us to be talking with our kids. For us to start educating ourselves about the platforms and what is happening on this platform so that when we’re talking about these platforms, it’s not just a matter of, Hey, that’s that thing the kids are doing."
Samuel said being intentional is crucial in keeping communication open.
“It’s a matter of me and my kid having that conversation making sure that they understand what the parent's expectations are and the kids’ responsibility. That’s the most important part.”
According to a district spokesman, Hillsborough County is one of only thirty county councils in the nation given a grant to host this event and one of only two venues where TikTok will be present.
The meeting will be held at Buchanan Middle School, located at 1001 W. Bearss Ave. in Tampa. It begins at 5:30.