A connection that needs Protection

"You wouldn't send a little kid out to cross the street with out explaining how to cross the street, and the digital world is a bunch of streets that kids don't know intuitively how to cross"

Video-sharing social media platform TikTok is an mobile application which is primarily a platform to create and watch entertaining videos - anything from pets to celebrities.

TikTok is often referred to as a “lip-syncing” app, which makes it sound like it’s some online karaoke experience. But a closer comparison would be Vine, Twitter’s still sorely missed short-form video app whose content lives on as YouTube compilations.

But the platform can be a little edgy, especially in the comments, which are open to all registered users identified only by screen names. Those registered users include adults, and the anonymity of screen names combined with the envelope-pushing nature of some of the content can lead to age-inappropriate comments. In fact, the comments can be downright gross.

There are half a billion active TikTok users around the world and 41% are between the ages of 16 to 24.

Natalia, a 21-year-old from Orange County, California put together a thread of TikTok abuse after someone pretended to hang themselves to one of her videos via the app’s Duet feature.

“Being gay and a furry, I’m used to this type of stuff and just let it roll off my shoulder, delete the comment, block the users,” she said.

“I try not to let the videos affect me personally, but when I have literally hundreds of videos of children pretending to drink bleach, hang themselves, shoot themselves, and telling me to commit suicide, it starts to get very disturbing.”