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/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

Google’s New AI Features Are Trying to Make Data Entry a Thing of the Past

More Gemini AI features will come to Google Docs, Sheets and Slides.

The latest batch of Google updates to its workspace tools highlights AI’s promise to automate mundanity in the workplace. Google Docs, Slides, Sheets and Drive all have new AI-powered features, the company announced Tuesday. The one thing all these updates have in common? Gemini is using your files, emails and chats to give you relevant information, not random answers gleaned from the web.

These updates come as AI is playing a bigger role in our work lives, for better or worse. Agentic tools like Claude Cowork and coding assistants like Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex are more capable than chatbots and able to handle tasks announced independently. AI tools are also becoming more customized, with Google’s personalized intelligence rolling out across its platforms to help refine AI outputs to things that are relevant and useful for you. Google continues that trend with this new batch of Workspace updates.

New Gemini AI features in Google Workspace apps will cite their sources after each query. For example, if you ask Gemini in Google Docs to fill out an itinerary template, it will pull the information from your email, chats and files. The «sources» tab in the Gemini side panel will show you where it found the information it used, like your flight confirmation email and chats discussing dinner plans. Seeing where Gemini pulled its answers from is also how you’ll double-check Gemini’s work.

The most impressive new features are in Sheets, where AI can fill in the holes in your spreadsheets. You can describe what you want the AI to do with a simple prompt and avoid writing an exact formula. You can click on an empty cell, select the pop-up that says «Drag to fill with Gemini,» then highlight the cells you want Gemini to fill in. That deploys an AI agent to search the web to fill each cell with the necessary information.

For example, if you have a spreadsheet of the contact info for local companies, you can have Gemini search the web to fill in a the location, CEO and other publicly available information of each company. The tool aims to dramatically reduce the time needed for manual data entry. Gemini can also summarize, categorize and create charts with prompts alone.

You can also chat with Gemini in Sheets and have it scour your raw data to make custom reports and charts. No need for pivot tables if they confound you as much as they baffle me. One of the biggest uses of AI at work is helping create presentations.

In Google Slides, you can now tell Gemini in natural language what you want to appear on a slide, and it will create it, matching the style of your existing slides. You can also ask Gemini to edit your slides if you don’t want to waste time painstakingly moving design elements around the slide. The AI should fill the slides with relevant information based on your instructions and the work files it has access to, so you shouldn’t need to replace a bunch of filler text.

If you use Docs, Sheets and Slides through the Workspace account of your company, then you won’t be able to turn off AI features individually. The managing company is in control of AI access for users. Personal users can tweak their settings to limit Gemini. The new features are rolling out in beta now, in English only, to Google AI Ultra and Pro subscribers in the US, as well as some Google Workspace customers who are part of the Gemini Alpha testing program.

For more, check out the new cowork feature in Copilot and how to use Perplexity AI for deep research.

Technologies

Nintendo Switches Lanes, Sues US Over Tariffs

Mario wants his money back.

Tariffs implemented by President Donald Trump were struck down by the Supreme Court last month. Companies that were subjected to those fees, such as FedEx and Dollar General, have since sued the federal government, and Nintendo wants a piece of the action.

Nintendo filed a lawsuit against the federal government in the US Court of International Trade on Friday, as first spotted by Aftermath. The complaint seeks refunds of tariffs Nintendo paid, plus interest, and asks the court to declare the tariffs unlawful and stop the government from collecting them going forward.

«Since February 1, 2025, President Trump has executed the unlawful Executive Orders, imposing tariffs on imports from a vast swath of countries,» Nintendo said in the complaint.

When reached for comment, Nintendo of America confirmed the lawsuit.

«We can confirm that we filed a request. We have nothing else to share on this topic,» Nintendo of America said in an emailed statement on Friday, March 6.

It’s unclear how much Nintendo paid in tariffs, and it did not state an amount in the lawsuit. While the Switch 2 was priced at $450 when it launched last year, and has stayed at that amount, Nintendo did increase the price of the original Switch and accessories for both consoles. Microsoft and Sony also increased the prices of their hardware and accessories last year due to tariffs.

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Feb. 20, the Supreme Court ruled by a vote of 6 to 3 that the sweeping tariffs Trump instituted last year exceeded his executive powers. Following the ruling, on the same day, Trump announced a new set of tariffs of 10% on imported goods that would last for 150 days, starting Feb. 24.

The decision on what to do with the collected tariffs — a reported $166 billion — has been left to the US Court of International Trade. Judge Richard Eaton told the US Customs and Border Protection on Wednesday, March 4, to refund the importers that were forced to pay tariffs, which is more than 330,000. On Friday, the CBP said it couldn’t easily issue tariff refunds because its system requires duties to be recalculated and refunds processed entry by entry. This process would involve tens of millions of transactions. The agency said it’s updating its systems and could start providing refunds by late April.