Published , by Donovan Erskine
Published , by Donovan Erskine
The merits of TikTok and its impact on users have been strong topics of debate over the past few years, as the video-sharing app has risen to be one of the most popular entertainment and social media platforms in the world. As governments put the heat on owner ByteDance, the company is trying to take measures to assuage concerns. ByteDance has announced that it will be implementing a daily one-hour screen time limit for teenagers on TikTok.
Cormac Keenan, Head of Trust and Safety at TikTok, shared the update in a post to the company’s official newsroom. In the post, he explains that the new 60-minute daily time limit will be a new default settings for accounts owned by users under the age of 18. “While there's no collectively-endorsed position on the 'right' amount of screen time or even the impact of screen time more broadly, we consulted the current academic research and experts from the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children's Hospital in choosing this limit.” He goes on to talk about the possibility of users opting out of the new limit.
There has been a lot of political and legal pressure on TikTok over the years. President Donald Trump famously tried to ban the app in the United States during his time in the White House. Last year, the FCC commissioner said that the United States should ban the video sharing app. This week, we learned that the House Foreign Affairs Committee will vote on a bill that could potential get TikTok banned.