TikTok will play calm music at night in order to wind down

TikTok is launching a new feature to encourage teenagers to quit using the app at night. If a youngster under 16 continues to use the app beyond 10 p.m., TikTok will interrupt their feed with a full-screen "wind down" message that plays "calming music to help teens relax and be mindful of the time."

If teens ignore the first warning, it will display another, more difficult to dismiss. TikTok intends to enhance this wind-down function in the future, as it will begin testing inserting meditation activities into the reminder "in the coming weeks."

TikTok is also updating its Family Pairing function, which already allows parents to set restrictions on their children's accounts. It is unveiling a new Time Away tool, which will allow parents or carers to ban their child from using TikTok at particular periods and set a recurrent schedule. TikTok also allows parents to see who their kid is following, who follows them, and which accounts their child has blocked.

TikTok also claims it will continue to use age verification techniques, such as machine learning, to prevent minors under 13 from using the service. It is collaborating with the telecom giant Telefonica "to understand how people can use age information from their phone provider to confirm their age." Google has just revealed that it will begin using machine learning to predict users' ages.

The introduction of these new measures comes as policymakers continue to focus on online kid safety. Earlier this month, Utah became the first state to enact legislation requiring app store providers, such as Google and Apple, to verify users' ages before installing an app.