TikTok, minors will only be able to use it for one hour a day. And the French government also says “no” to the app

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After the shutdown of the United States, Canada and the European institutions, the French government is also banning Tiktok from service phones. This was stated by the spokesman of the Paris executive, Olivier Véran, in response to a question on possible measures against the Chinese social network in the light of the decisions taken by other countries to avert the risks associated with security.

The platform owned by the Chinese company Bytedance thus ends up increasingly under scrutiny and, also to clear the field of doubts about the negative effects of the use of the social network, especially by the youngest, runs for cover and announces that minors will be able to use the app for only one hour a day.

The stop of France

“The President of the Republic, the Prime Minister and the members of the Government have service telephones which do not allow the installation of social networks. No professional phone has the Tiktok app or other social networks,” said French government spokesman Véran last March 1 speaking at the end of the cabinet meeting. And he added: “Ministries such as the Defense or the Interior have already asked that no social network apps be installed on service phones. Reflection is underway with regard to other ministries and possibly for central or territorial administrations”. “We don’t want these apps to have data that is processed outside the EU because European sovereignty depends on it and we are not naive on this issue,” Veran added. Even Paris therefore shares the fears that led the White House, the Canadian government, the European commission and the EU council to ban the app, accused of accessing the personal data of American and European users and of spying on journalists, as it allegedly confirmed a leak in the US. Fears also shared by the Italian government, which through the Minister of Public Administration Paolo Zangrillo has made it known that it is thinking of banning the use of TikTok for public employees.

For minors, the app will “turn off” after 60 minutes

Meanwhile, in the coming weeks for the accounts of all users under 18, the daily usage time limit will be automatically reset to 60 minutes. Once that limit is reached, teenagers will be required to enter an access code in order to continue watching the videos: an active decision will therefore be required to extend the time. This was announced by Cormac Keenan, Head of Trust and Safety of TikTok, explaining this decision was made after consulting academic research and experts from the Digital Wellness Lab of Boston Children’s Hospital, “although, to date – he says – there is no commonly shared on what duration can be considered “excessive” nor, more generally, on the impact of time spent online”. You can decide to disable the automatic limit of 60 minutes, but even in this case, teenagers who spend more than 100 minutes on TikTok in a day will receive a notification from the app inviting them to set a new daily limit. To all minor user accounts, the app will then send a weekly summary of the time spent online.

Tools for families

These security measures, explains TikTok’s Trust and Safety manager, are in addition to those already provided by the app and which also include tools for families: adults can in fact use the “Family Connection” function to customize the daily limit of a teenager, with the possibility of choosing different limits according to the day of the week. Furthermore, the accounts of 13-15 year olds are automatically set to “private, so that girls and boys can make informed decisions about what they choose to share, when and with whom”, they explain again from TikTok. Direct messages are only available to people over 16, and you must be over 18 to host a Live.