Social media giant, TikTok, has recruited fifteen adolescents from around the globe to offer advice on how to make the site safer.
Val Richey, global head of outreach and partnerships in trust and safety at TikTok, disclosed this in a statement seen by News. ng on Monday.
As part of a larger initiative to strengthen safety features for the app’s younger users, TikTok said last summer that it wanted to establish a “youth council” of teenagers to provide advice to the firm.
The corporation announced that the organisation is now formally recognised and that they have begun holding meetings with the CEO, Shou Chew.
The news coincides with TikTok’s legal battle against a measure that would compel parent company ByteDance to either sell the app or risk being banned in the US.
The business has attempted to organise its users—many of whom are teenagers—to oppose the proposal as part of that endeavour.
One of the biggest concerns that TikTok’s detractors point to as one of the app’s biggest hazards is youth safety.
Val Richey, global head of outreach and partnerships in trust and safety at TikTok, said: “Listening to feedback from teens and parents is a huge part of our safety work at TikTok.
“We want to empower families to experience the joy of our platform, by making meaningful changes based on their feedback and by equipping them with tools such as Family Pairing.”
According to TikTok, the group also works with Praesidio Safeguarding, a UK internet safety organisation, which assisted in choosing the council’s adolescent members, all of whom are paid.
New. ng gathered that CEO Shou Chew was present at the most recent meeting, held in February, when the youth council requested TikTok to provide additional information regarding the functionality of reporting and banning on the app.
