Technologies

Is TikTok Safe for Kids? Change These 11 Privacy Settings Right Now

TikTok can be a dangerous place, especially for teenagers. Here’s how you can help protect them.

TikTok is the second-most-popular social media site among teenagers in the US. It not only offers kids an endless stream of entertaining videos, TikTok also connects people with their friends and family and with people who have similar interests. And it gives folks the chance to go viral with one of their own creations. But there’s also a dark side of TikTok.

Many kids and teens who have their videos go viral are subjected to harassment, ridicule and bullying. There’s also the worry of violent and obscene videos coming up in their timelines. Not to mention anonymous users sending inappropriate messages.

If you have kids on TikTok, or even use the service yourself, it’s important to become familiar with the features and settings TikTok offers to keep you safer while you’re online. Here are 11 settings that can help protect you from unwanted followers, harmful comments and violent videos on TikTok.

See everyone who views your TikTok profile

If you have a public account and you’re over 16 years old, anyone on TikTok can access your profile and watch your videos. (Accounts for people under 16 are automatically set to private.)

For many users, widespread exposure is the attraction of TikTok. It’s a chance for your content to be seen around the world. But you may not want everyone, like bullies or even some family members, to be able to view your TikTok account.

Luckily, it’s easy to find everyone who has looked at your profile.

On TikTok, go to Profile and tap on the three-dash menu in the top right.
Tap Settings and privacy and go into Privacy.
Hit Profile views and toggle on Profile view history.

If you enable the profile views setting on TikTok, other people will be able to see when you check out their profile.

Nelson Aguilar/CNET

You’ll now be able to see everyone who’s viewed your profile in the last 30 days. If you find someone that you don’t want to have access to your profile and videos, you can then block them.

Block accounts on TikTok so they can’t see your profile

If you want to stop a certain account from being able to see your profile, you can block them — whether they’re harassing or stalking you, or for any reason you like.

First, find the account you want to block and go to their profile.
Next, tap on the three-dot icon in the top right.
Finally, hit the Block button in the small menu that appears and then hit Block again when prompted.

Blocking people on TikTok — Block someone’s account so they can’t see your profile, send you messages and more.

Nelson Aguilar/CNET

Not only will a blocked account be unable to view your profile, they also can’t send you messages or even find your profile by searching for it. However, if your video is in a duet or you’re on a livestream with multiple hosts, it’s possible that a blocked account may be able to see those videos.

Set your TikTok account to private to control who can see it

The easiest way to maintain your privacy on TikTok is to make your account private, meaning only people you actively allow can view your profile and videos. To make your account private:

Go to Profile in the nav bar at the bottom of the page.
Tap the three-dash menu in the top right.
Hit Settings and privacy > Privacy
Toggle Private account to On

Private account setting on TikTok — If your TikTok account is private, only those you accept as friends will be able to see your videos.

Nelson Aguilar/CNET

After changing to a private account, only users that you approve can follow your account and watch your videos, but existing followers are allowed to continue following you. If that’s a problem, you’ll need to individually block any followers that you don’t want seeing your videos.

Stop people from downloading your TikTok videos

By default, anyone who stumbles across your video on TikTok can download it using the site’s built-in video download feature. If you don’t feel comfortable with other people having your videos saved on their devices, you can disable that feature.

Go to Profile > three-dash menu > Settings and privacy
Tap Downloads underneath the Interactions heading
Toggle Video downloads to Off

Video downloads setting on TikTok — There are still other ways to download videos from TikTok, especially with third-party services.

Nelson Aguilar/CNET

Unfortunately, there are other ways that people can download your videos, such as screen recording, third-party apps and shortcuts, but this setting will prevent one of the most popular (and easiest) ways of downloading videos from TikTok.

Report problematic accounts, videos or comments on TikTok

Blocking an account may not always be enough. If an account is pretending to be someone else or harassing people in general, you might be able to report the offending actions and have the account restricted or permanently banned. Not only can you report individual accounts, but also specific videos, comments and direct messages.

To report hateful, violent or other prohibited content on TikTok:

Account: Go to the account profile of the offending party, tap the three-dot icon in the top right, hit Report and follow the instructions.
Video: Long press on the video, tap Report and follow the instructions.
Live: Long press on the live video, tap Report and follow the instructions.
Comment: Long press on the comment, tap Report and follow the instructions.
Direct Message: Long press on the message or messages, tap Report and follow the instructions.

Reporting a video on TikTok — You can report TikTok accounts, videos, comments and other improper behavior.

Nelson Aguilar/CNET

You can report something for a variety of reasons, including minor safety, disordered eating, self-harm, adult nudity, bullying, harassment, spam, harmful misinformation, illegal activities, violent content and more.

Stop TikTok from recommending your account to other people

If you want your account to stay low-key and away from too many people’s eyes, you can stop your account from being suggested to other people that might have your contact information on their phone or have mutual friends with you. To stop your account from being recommended by TikTok:

Go to Profile > three-dash menu > Settings and privacy > Privacy
Tap Suggest your account to others
Toggle off all the options

Setting to stop suggesting your account to others on TikTok — By default, your account is suggested to other people on TikTok.

Nelson Aguilar/CNET

Your TikTok account is normally suggested to several groups, including your contacts, Facebook friends, people with mutual connections and people who open or send links to you (including links to content on TikTok that are shared outside of TikTok). Disable all of the settings to stop your account from being suggested at all, which will make it harder to find.

Keep your TikTok comment section safe and healthy

Comments on any social media service can quickly turn hostile, and TikTok is no exception. Fortunately there are several features buried in your TikTok settings to help you moderate your comments and eliminate spam and hateful comments.

To find your comment settings, go to Profile > three-dash menu > Settings and privacy > Privacy > Comments. Consider adjusting the following settings:

Who can comment on your videos and Stories: Choose between all of your Followers, Followers that you also follow or No one.
Comment filters: You can choose to filter all comments, only spam and offensive comments or comments with certain keywords. All filtered comments will be hidden until you individually approve them.
Comment management: Here is where you can review your filtered comments, choosing Approve or Delete to decide which comments will appear beneath your videos.

Comments settings on TikTok — Don’t like what’s going on in your comment section? Use these settings to manage it.

Nelson Aguilar/CNET

Restrict who can tag and mention you on TikTok

As long as someone knows your TikTok username, they can tag you in other videos or mention you in comments. If someone is tagging you in videos you don’t want to see or mentioning you in comments as a way of targeted harassment, there is a way to prevent unwanted tagging.

First, you’ll need to find the mentions and tags settings. Go to Profile > three-dash menu > Settings and privacy > Privacy > Mentions and tags, and configure these settings:

Who can tag you: Choose between Everyone, People you follow, People that follow you back or No one.
Who can mention you: Again, choose between Everyone, People you follow, People that follow you back or No one.

Mentions and tags settings on TikTok — You can restrict who mentions and tags you on TikTok

Nelson Aguilar/CNET

An in-box notification setting can also send you a notification anytime someone you follow likes or comments on videos you’re mentioned in, but that doesn’t really affect your privacy on TikTok.

Stop direct messages from strangers and stalkers on TikTok

While most content on TikTok is out there for the world to see, direct messages aren’t so clear and visible. Many people use DMs to harass, bully and spam other people. However, there is a way to help prevent that from happening to you.

Go to Profile > three-dash menu > Settings and privacy > Privacy > Direct messages, and change these settings:

Who can send you direct messages: Choose between Followers that follow you back, People you sent messages to or No one.
Message preference: If you toggle Filtered requests on, messages from people that TikTok suspects as being malicious or spammy will appear in your filtered requests until you reply to them.

Direct messages settings on TikTok — Don’t let just anyone send you a direct message.

Nelson Aguilar

Restrict who can Duet or Stitch your TikTok videos

On TikTok, you can react to other videos by either inserting yourself into their videos or using their videos in your own. The Duet feature lets you create a reaction split-screen video, combining half of your video with half of someone’s else’s video to create a single reaction video. With the Stitch feature, your video and someone else’s video are integrated into each other — you can edit a portion of their video into yours.

If you’re not a fan of these features or don’t want other users putting your videos into theirs, you can disable them so that no one can Duet or Stitch your video. To do this, go to Profile > three-dash menu > Settings and privacy > Privacy and then:

Duet: Choose between Followers, Followers that follow back or No one.
Stitch: Choose between Followers, Followers that follow back or No one.

Duet and Stitch settings on TikTok — The Duet and Stitch features are fun, but they can also get out of control.

Nelson Aguilar/CNET

If your account is set to private, no one but you can create a Duet or Stitch with your videos.

Prevent others from viewing your following list and liked videos

You might post videos on TikTok for everyone to see, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you want everyone to be able to see who you’re following or which videos you like. Who you follow and what you like can give others more information than you might want to share, but you can easily set TikTok so that no one but you can see your follower list and liked videos.

To stop others from viewing your following list or liked videos, go go to Profile > three-dash menu > Settings and privacy > Privacy and then:

Following list: Choose between Followers or Only me.
Liked videos: Choose between Followers or Only me.

Following list and liked videos settings on TikTok — Just because you follow accounts and like videos doesn’t mean the whole world needs to know it.

Nelson Aguilar/CNET

If you select the “only me” option for the following list, other users will still be able to see your mutual friends.

For more about TikTok and privacy, learn how the company is protecting young users from inappropriate videos and why some US regulators are worried about TikTok sharing private user data with China.

Technologies

China indicates rare earths will keep flowing to EU, regardless of U.S. trade deal expiration

European trade commissioner Maroš Sefčovič met with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Beijing last week.

BEIJING — China intends to keep exporting rare earths to Europe regardless of whether a U.S. trade deal with Beijing gets extended past January.

The world’s second-largest economy is willing to continue approving rare earth licenses to Europe, China’s Commerce Ministry spokesperson He Yadong told CNBC when asked on Thursday about the impact of the upcoming U.S. deadline.

Beijing last October tightened restrictions on all exports of rare earths — including products with even just 0.1% of China-sourced rare earths. The move followed a new U.S. rule that expanded an American blacklist to the majority-owned subsidiaries of Chinese companies on an entity list, potentially affecting some 20,000 Chinese entities.

However, both the U.S. and China agreed to suspend those measures for one year at a meeting in late October 2025 between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump. Ahead of the leaders’ latest summit last month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the truce was extended by two months to January.

Trade tensions between the EU and Beijing cooled last week after European trade commissioner Maroš Sefčovič met with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Beijing. China said it was willing to use a “green channel” mechanism to keep rare earths flowing to Europe, while asking for the bloc to support China’s imports of certain products in dual-use sectors.

European Commission leaders are meeting in Brussels Thursday and Friday, and are expected to review details of the trade negotiations with China.

Technologies

Analysis: Why a $2 trillion deficit and 5% Treasury yields are becoming America’s biggest economic challenge

Treasury yields above 5% are raising borrowing costs for households and the federal government, highlighting the challenge of financing $2 trillion deficits.

Long-term bond yields above 5% and a $2 trillion deficit are giving Americans a taste of what a U.S. debt crisis would be like. A true emergency would hurt much more, and isn’t baked in. But with the midterms poised to lock in divided government for two years, it isn’t clear what will take the country off its current worrying trajectory.

Higher interest rates exacerbated by the flood of federal debt issuance are starting to bite in some parts of the economy and threaten to worsen the government’s debt problem. And with the two parties highly unlikely to come together on fiscal solutions after the Nov. 3 midterms, any fixes are years off in the future.

The housing market is showing signs of slowing as the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage hovers around 7.5%. Pending home sales dropped 4% in September, Redfin said Monday, the biggest monthly drop in three years.

Mortgage rates track the 10-year Treasury yield

Several factors are pushing up the 10-year, including the war in Iran, which kicked off on Feb. 28 and precipitated the rise in long-term yields. Oil and diesel prices are up sharply, and that has bond traders asking for more yield to account for the possibility that central banks such as the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates.

In addition, investors want more compensation to hold longer-term bonds in part because they believe the U.S. government will continue to flood the market with them. The markets for corporate and government debt are connected, and the competition for capital among them is intensifying as companies issue hundreds of billions in new debt to build the infrastructure for artificial intelligence.

Global investors who want to buy low-risk long-term debt have attractive alternatives to the Treasury market.

If the U.S. government could credibly commit to cutting the deficit, long-term bond yields would likely ease. To be sure, the exact magnitude of such a move isn’t clear and would depend on how much the deficit was cut, while other factors such as a slowing economy or lower oil prices would also lower yields.

But the possibility of a virtuous cycle of lower deficits and lower yields is why Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has argued that the U.S. ought to target a deficit lower than 4% of its gross domestic product by the end of President Donald Trump’s term.

There is almost no way the U.S. will hit that target. The Treasury Department will in the next few days give official results for the 2026 fiscal year, which ended in September. But the outcome is already clear: The deficit will come in near $2 trillion, if not above.

That is likely to put the deficit in the range of 6.0-6.2% of gross domestic product for the year, based on the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of a $1.993 trillion deficit and a projection of third quarter GDP.

Higher rates make debt reduction tougher. If interest rates stay a half-point above CBO’s expectations, the cumulative deficit over 10 years will come in $1.9 trillion higher, the agency estimates. If rates overshoot by 1.5 points, that adds $6 trillion in deficits.

CBO expects the 10-year Treasury to average 4.3% over that period, compared to 5.3% today. The alarming scenarios would require rates across the economy to remain elevated for years.

“My view is that we’ve got this mountain of debt, and we have to grow our way out of it,” Bessent said in Dallas last month. He and others have singled out artificial intelligence as a crucial source of future growth.

AI could help but can’t fix the problem entirely. It would take a decade of 7.2% growth to balance the budget with growth alone, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a research group that advocates for balanced budgets.

GDP growth was recently revised up for the second quarter from 1.5% to 2.2% at an annualized rate. The acceleration that quickly would get us to 7.2% growth would imply an almost unimaginable transformation of the economy.

Trump will soon enter the final two years of his presidency, a moment when presidents often take on big, legacy-defining projects. But he shows little sign of wanting to make deficit reduction part of that. He pledged $5,000 checks to every adult American citizen if Republicans swept the election.

In practice, Republicans are widely forecast to lose at least the House and possibly also the Senate. Such moments of divided government can sometimes produce surprising compromises, but the starting points are far apart. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Democrats’ likely next House speaker, wants to reverse the $1 trillion in healthcare cuts that Congress enacted last year as part of Trump’s signature legislative package.

And that’s leaving aside the deep animosity between the parties.

The overall U.S. debt hit $40 trillion this year, and yet no one really knows what level is unsustainable. A full-on debt crisis likely remains much farther out in the future. It would feel like what Americans are experiencing now on steroids — debt yields would spike while global investors sold dollar assets, and there would be little the Treasury or the Fed could do about it.

For now, though higher yields are also attracting investors to U.S. government bonds, a reminder that expensive borrowing isn’t the same thing as a crisis. But the bottom line is that economics alone can’t solve the problem. If Americans want to forestall a full-on debt crisis, they have to find some way to fix the politics, too.

Technologies

Key Details on Starshield, SpaceX’s Defense-Oriented Starlink Network

Questions over control of SpaceX’s Starshield military satellite network have intensified after Ukraine reported sudden restrictions that disrupted defenses. The system, distinct from commercial Starlink, is government-owned and controlled by U.S. authorities.

Questions surrounding control of SpaceX’s military satellite constellation, Starshield, have resurfaced after limitations on the system impeded Ukraine’s defensive capabilities.

Kyiv has leveled accusations against SpaceX

Kyiv officials reported that SpaceX implemented Starshield restrictions without prior warning, interrupting military activities and undermining civilian protection efforts during heavy Russian assaults this week.

Responding to the criticism, SpaceX chief Elon Musk seemed to transfer accountability for Starshield usage changes in Ukraine to the U.S. government and President Donald Trump. Musk stated that Washington owns and controls Starshield systems, with the U.S. military and ultimately the president setting any usage boundaries. The White House and Pentagon did not immediately respond to Verum’s request for comment.

Here’s an overview of Starshield and its distinctions from Starlink.

What is Starshield and how does it function?

Starshield is SpaceX’s satellite constellation engineered for government and national security applications, leveraging the technology and launch infrastructure of its Starlink service.

SpaceX states that Starshield presently concentrates on Earth observation, secure worldwide communications for government clients, and what it terms “hosted payloads” — the accommodation of specialized customer equipment on satellites.

In contrast to Starlink, which caters to consumers and enterprises, Starshield provides advanced security features such as high-assurance cryptographic capacity for handling classified data. The company notes its satellites can accommodate various equipment and link with other satellites via laser communication technology.

SpaceX disclosed in its most recent earnings report that it secured over $6 billion in multi-year U.S. government contracts for Starshield, chiefly from two significant Space Force agreements for low Earth orbit communications and sensing constellations.

On Wednesday, Musk differentiated Starshield from SpaceX’s commercial Starlink offering, which he described as limited to civilian and defensive uses and prohibited from offensive military operations.

How does Starshield contrast with Starlink?

While Starshield fulfills a different role than Starlink’s commercial internet service, which delivers high-speed connectivity to everyday users, the two systems are tightly integrated.

Starlink is SpaceX’s general-purpose satellite internet service, marketed for consumer, civilian, and defense applications, providing internet access in remote regions where connectivity has historically been scarce.

Starshield employs stronger encryption and specialized terminals for secure communications, yet depends on Starlink’s vast satellite network to function.

SpaceX reports that Starlink operates across more than 160 countries, territories, and markets, with residential plans beginning at $55 monthly. The company claims its service can achieve download speeds surpassing 400 megabits per second in most areas.