Technologies
Is TikTok Safe For Kids and Teens? Enable These Privacy Settings Right Now
TikTok can be a dangerous place, especially for children.
TikTok is the second-most popular social media site among American teenagers — and for obvious reasons. It offers kids an endless stream of entertaining video, whether it involves dancing, cooking or pranks. TikTok is also a great way to connect with friends and other people with similar interests, making it easy to share videos back and forth. And of course, there’s always the chance that a clip can go viral. 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 familiarize yourself with all the features and settings TikTok provides to help bolster your privacy. Here are 11 settings that can help protect 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/CNETYou’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.
Block someone’s account so they can’t see your profile, send you messages and more.
Nelson Aguilar/CNETNot 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
If your TikTok account is private, only those you accept as friends will be able to see your videos.
Nelson Aguilar/CNETAfter 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
There are still other ways to download videos from TikTok, especially with third-party services.
Nelson Aguilar/CNETUnfortunately, 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.
You can report TikTok accounts, videos, comments and other improper behavior.
Nelson Aguilar/CNETYou 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
By default, your account is suggested to other people on TikTok.
Nelson Aguilar/CNETYour 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.
Don’t like what’s going on in your comment section? Use these settings to manage it.
Nelson Aguilar/CNETRestrict 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.
You can restrict who mentions and tags you on TikTok
Nelson Aguilar/CNETAn 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.
Don’t let just anyone send you a direct message.
Nelson AguilarRestrict 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.
The Duet and Stitch features are fun, but they can also get out of control.
Nelson Aguilar/CNETIf 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.
Just because you follow accounts and like videos doesn’t mean the whole world needs to know it.
Nelson Aguilar/CNETIf 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
Meta Confirms Testing of Premium Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp Subscriptions
The company says it’s testing paywalled premium sharing and AI features.
People using Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp may soon need to decide whether they want to pay extra for additional features beyond the free versions they’ve been using.
Meta confirmed that it’s planning to roll out and test premium subscription tiers for its three most popular services, which, according to the company, would unlock «special features and more control over how they share and connect,» according to a TechCrunch report detailing the changes.
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A representative for Meta did not elaborate on subscription plans, but confirmed to CNET that TechCrunch’s story is accurate.
According to the report, this would differ from the Meta Verified badge offering aimed at businesses and internet content creators. Meta Verified starts at $15 and includes enhanced support options and protections against impersonation.
Instead, the new subscriptions that Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp users can expect will offer a broader Premium experience, but it’s unclear so far which specific features will be included. According to TechCrunch, AI will be a part of that mix with potential paywalls or extra access to AI image generators or AI agents as part of its plans. What bundles and subscriptions are offered could change based on customer feedback, Meta told TechCrunch.
Subscriptions for once-free social media services are now common, with LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter) and Snapchat all giving people the option to pay more for extra features.
Technologies
I Avoided Using a Sports Watch Until I Tested This One by Garmin
Garmin Venu 4 Review: It’s the best-looking sports watch I’ve tested, with all the fitness metrics you need to level up your training, for a price.
Our Experts
Pros
- Week-long battery life in smartwatch mode
- Polished circular design
- Advanced fitness and recovery metrics
Cons
- $100 more than previous generation
- Software can feel sluggish
- UI is not as intuitive as other smart watches
Until the Garmin Venu 4 landed on my wrist, I mostly shied away from using dedicated sports watches from brands like Garmin or Polar as my daily driver. Part of that was imposter syndrome; I’m a fitness enthusiast, not a full-blown athlete (yet). But mostly, I wasn’t willing to accept the trade-offs that came with them: clunky software, limited smart features and designs that felt more like gym gear than something I’d want to wear all day.
The Venu 4 isn’t the only good-looking sports watch on the market, but it’s the first one that’s come close to convincing me to go all-in. It’s well-rounded (literally and figuratively) and packed with fitness features that don’t feel condescending to an athlete wannabe like me.
The line between sports watches and traditional smartwatches seems to get blurrier each year. Both Apple and Samsung now have rugged Ultra smartwatch lines, and sports watches are starting to look (and act) more like traditional smartwatches.
The Venu 4 feels like Garmin’s strongest attempt yet to bridge these two worlds. It goes all out on fitness features with advanced insights like training readiness and suggested workouts typically reserved for the top-tier Fēnix models, but has a design and a price that are approachable for people who live somewhere between casual fitness enthusiast and aspiring athlete.
The $550 price (for both 41mm and 45mm models) is $100 more than its predecessor, and upgrading from the Venu 3 makes sense only if you plan to use the data it provides. If you’re someone who mostly just wants the occasional workout tracking, then the Venu 4 will be overkill.
I may not be a full convert (yet), but after weeks of living with it day and night with the Venu 4, I get the Garmin obsession, and I can see how a sports watch could help me level up my fitness journey when I’m ready.
Venu 4 fitness: Garmin’s core strength
The Venu 4 supports what feels like every workout imaginable, from running and cycling to rowing, HIIT, and even golf course mapping. It supports multi-band GPS, which I found provided more accurate location tracking, even on trail runs without my phone. Heart rate tracking stayed impressively close to my Polar chest strap after the initial jump from resting to higher-intensity sprint.
Garmin’s strength isn’t just the sheer volume of data it collects, but how it helps you understand how those metrics impact your training. On the Venu 4, you get heart rate, breathing rate, blood oxygen, stress, ECG, skin temperature changes, HRV, and advanced sleep and menstrual cycle tracking.
On their own, these metrics can feel overwhelming or even meaningless. What Garmin does especially well is connect the dots through features like Body Battery, Training Readiness, Load and other recovery insights that translate raw data into a clearer picture of how prepared your body is for activity. And because you’re not constantly taking it off to charge, Garmin can build a more complete picture of your health and recovery that becomes more accurate over time.
I found waking up to a low Body Battery score when I felt off was both depressing and validating: no, I probably can’t just «shake this one off,» and yes, I should probably take a rest day (or two) before getting back to that New Year’s resolution.
The watch also highlights when you’re theoretically at your best to work out, even if real life doesn’t always cooperate. There’s no greater irony than seeing I’m in «peak» training readiness while rocking my toddler to sleep, or hustling to get a story in on time. That’s ultimately my biggest barrier to fully crossing over into the Garmin ecosystem. I’m not always in a position to follow the advice that makes these metrics most valuable.
Garmin Connect Plus subscribers ($7 per month) get access to personalized coaching plans and daily suggested workouts that adapt based on their sleep, recovery and activity history. I tried a running plan to prep for a 10K, but by day three, I’d gone rogue and settled back into my tired, but realistic, workout routine. Learning new routines takes time, and at this stage of life, 20-minute workouts squeezed between everything else will have to suffice.
Venu 4 battery life: Amazing for a smartwatch, but meh for a Garmin
The Venu 4’s shiny new upgrades (brighter display and improved GPS tracking over the Venu 3) come at a slight cost to battery life: You get 12 days on the Venu 4 versus 14 on the Venu 3. But I think it’s well worth it when you factor in everything else it has.
I averaged about 10 days of battery life per charge for the smaller 41mm Venu 4 that I tested. But that’s in smartwatch mode, which disables the always-on display. If, like me, you prefer the always-on display, battery life drops. I got roughly four days on a charge (slightly less on long hiking days when the GPS was running). It’s not quite multiweek endurance like Garmin’s Enduro or Instinct lines. But even at the lower end, the Venu 4 is still far better than most Apple and Samsung watches.
I’ve never worn a smartwatch this long without taking it off for a charge, which turns out can be both a good and a bad thing. On the plus side, it made sleep tracking more consistent, which is key to unlocking Garmin’s best features like Body Battery, HRV (heart rate variability) and recovery insights. Wearing the watch for so long is also important for identifying long-term health trends and detecting early signs of illness.
The flip side of wearing it nonstop was skin irritation. After about five straight days, the skin directly under the watch became red and itchy. I tried to power through it, which only made things worse. A perfect storm of winter weather, a suppressed immune system, and the polymer backing on the underside of the watch likely didn’t help matters. After taking a week off, cleaning it more regularly, and giving my skin the occasional break, the issue hasn’t returned. And if you have sensitive skin like me, it’s probably worth building in a little breathing room.
Venu 4 design: Not your average sports watch
The Venu 4 is hands down one of the best-looking watches I’ve tested (Note: I didn’t say sports watches). It even earned its fair share of compliments from friends who didn’t know it was a sports watch. The Venu 4 comes in two sizes, 41mm and 45mm, both with a 1.4-inch AMOLED screen and a stainless steel case in lunar gold, slate, or silver finishes. It’s covered in Gorilla Glass 3 and has a fiber-reinforced polymer back.
The bezels are larger than those on an Apple Watch Series 11, and the usable screen area feels smaller than expected. The Venu 4’s display is bright and legible even in direct sunlight. You might not find it as responsive to touch if you’re coming from an LTPO OLED or Super AMOLED display with a higher refresh rate, like those on Apple or Samsung watches. Which is why the physical button navigation is so important.
Garmin slimmed the design down to two physical buttons (the Venu 3 had 3). One button brings up navigation, while the other handles quick settings. Long-pressing the bottom button activates other actions, like the flashlight, but until muscle memory kicks in, it’s easy to forget which one does what.
The built-in LED flashlight is a standout feature. It’s an actual light embedded in the side of the watch, not a screen-based workaround like found on other smartwatches. It’s surprisingly powerful and incredibly useful, whether you’re doing an ultramarathon or, in my case, checking on a sleeping kid without turning on any lights.
Venu 4 watch basics: Functional, but not seamless
On paper, the Venu 4 checks most of the smartwatch boxes. It has notifications, mobile payments via Garmin Pay, music storage, voice assistant access (via your phone) and supports calls from your wrist. Android phone owners get the added perk of responding to texts from the watch; iPhone owners are out of luck.
In my testing, this is where Garmin still lags behind true smartwatches. Everything works, but it’s not seamless; simple actions often take more steps than they should, and Garmin’s app ecosystem remains limited. Even changing your watch face requires an additional phone app (Garmin IQ). The upside is cross-platform compatibility, and aside from the ability to respond to texts, the experience is consistent across iOS and Android.
Venu 4 accessibility features
Garmin has also added more accessibility options in the Venu 4. There are spoken watch faces that read out time and health data, hourly audio alerts, and multiple color filters for people with color blindness.
Venu 4: Final thoughts
I’m still a practical generalist in the throes of working motherhood, but the Garmin Venu 4 is the closest I’ve been to going full sports watch. If I were ready to make fitness a true priority, the Venu 4 would be my gateway Garmin watch.
It’s a solid pick for anyone looking to cross over into the sports watch world for the first time, and it’s one of Garmin’s most well-rounded options. The Venu 4 has enough battery to get you through the week, training insights that feel genuinely helpful rather than overwhelming, and a design that’s polished enough to pass for date-night-ready.
Technologies
Marathon: Release Date, Open Preview Weekend and More
Bungie’s extraction shooter has a new release date, and it’s coming soon.
Marathon is the next game from Bungie, the acclaimed studio behind the Halo and Destiny franchises. The developer’s new game was originally set to come out last September, but the lukewarm reception it received from players who tried out the game’s alpha test led Bungie to delay the release to give it some fine-tuning.
It appears Bungie is ready to try again, as it confirmed that Marathon will be released this March. The company revealed the new release date on Jan. 19, when the pre-order trailer for the game was uploaded to YouTube.
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When does Marathon come out?
Marathon will be released on March 5 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles and will cost $40.
Will there be a Marathon playtest?
Yes. The official Marathon X account posted on Jan. 19 that there will be an open preview weekend before the game’s launch.
What is Marathon?
Marathon is an action first-person shooter series developed by Bungie, first released in 1994 for the Apple Macintosh. It and the following two games of the original Marathon trilogy are science fiction mysteries set in the 28th century, when humans travel across space in starships. One of them, the UESC Marathon, is attacked by aliens until only a lone security guard, the player, is left to fight them off. Players discover that the ship’s artificial intelligence, called Durandal, has gone sentient and evil, and even called aliens to attack the ship. The following games have players uncovering the mysteries behind Durandal and other ancient AIs that have been manipulating alien races.
The series was Bungie’s first hit, and it was innovative in its time for revealing story segments through computer terminals, where you could read messages from the different AI running the ship, as well as crew diaries.
In this new version of Marathon, players will visit Tau Ceti IV, the planet that humans from the UESC Marathon settled. The year is 2893, and something has caused many of the colonists to disappear. Survivors have formed different groups to savage what they can from the colony. The people doing the savaging are known as «Runners,» who are humans trained in combat and who use cybernetic modifications to survive on the planet. Players will create their own Runner to get loot and learn what happened to the colony as they fight off aliens as well as other Runners.
What is an extraction shooter?
An exaction shooter is a type of online multiplayer game where the focus isn’t just about killing enemies or other players. Instead, the objective revolves around scavenging loot and completing missions.
To make things exciting, players can only extract loot at designated locations in the game world. And to complicate things even further, the start of the extraction process will include some signal that alerts both enemies and players within the vicinity. This means you’ll have to defend yourself for a short period of time from what could be waves of computer-controlled enemies or human players who may or may not try to steal your loot.
Some of the most popular extraction shooters out right now are Arc Raiders, Escape from Tarkov and Helldivers 2.
How is Marathon related to Halo?
Marathon was Bungie’s first hit series, but it was Halo that made the developer a household name. While the two game franchises do not have any firm narrative connections, there have always been subtle references to the Marathon games in Halo. Bungie has said that Halo is more of a spiritual successor to Marathon, but there are fan theories connecting Marathon, Halo and even Bungie’s other major franchise, Destiny.
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