TikTok Expands Online Safety Education Program With PTA

TikTok has announced that it’s expanding its partnership with the National PTA in the U.S., in order to empower parents to help their teens understand digital safety, and how to spot potentially risky and dangerous behaviors online.

TikTok’s latest initiative on this front will see it contribute funding to bring the PTA’s “Create with Kindness” program to more high schools across the U.S., which aims to facilitate conversations between teens and their families about online safety.

As per TikTok:

“As a longtime PTA Connected sponsor, we're proud to support National PTA's initiative focused on digital safety and well-being, access and equity, and digital literacy. For this school year, TikTok is making it possible for National PTA to award over $300,000 in funding to 100 local and regional PTSAs at high school campuses across America to help them implement Create with Kindness, an interactive program aimed at facilitating conversations between teens and their families about online safety and civility, and how to create positive digital boundaries together.”

The program provides access to a range of guides on online safety, which schools can use to facilitate local events to help raise awareness, and answer questions about key concerns.

PTA has already run various events of this type, with the added funding enabling it to expand the program to more regions.

And TikTok will also be directly involved in these events.

“This school year, National PTA and TikTok, along with the applicable state PTA and local PTSA, will co-host five Create with Kindness marquee events with PTSA high school students, their parents and caregivers, and faculty. These events will explore their experiences and expectations when navigating the online world and deepen their knowledge of TikTok's safety features.”

Finally, TikTok is also updating its Parents Guide to include new insights into how to best communicate online safety, and ensure teens are aware of what to look out for, particularly in social apps.

“The guide, which was produced in consultation with National PTA, explains TikTok's parenting tools called Family Pairing, where caregivers can customize various content and privacy settings for their teens. It also gives an overview of TikTok's age-appropriate settings that are turned on automatically for younger and older teens.”

This is an important area of focus for TikTok in particular, as the app continues to come under scrutiny for its influence on teens, and the potential harmful impacts of its addictive elements. Indeed, several regions are now considering bans on social media for younger teens, based on a range of concerns, with harmful exposure and addictiveness being among the primary issues, and as such, it’s important that the apps themselves demonstrate a desire to address such as best they can.

This could be another helpful step in ensuring broader understanding, as opposed to using blanket bans that could raise even more risk.