It's inevitable and has been predicted. And when it finally comes, users can either be happy or sad, or both.
TikTok is among the most famous and popular social media platform the world has ever seen. While many of its users are young and minor, it has a growing number of adult users, many of which are long-term fans of the platform who have reached the age of consent.
To ensure a safer community, TikTok said in a blog post, that it is increasing the minimum age for hosting a LIVE, from 16 to 18. The company said that it is taking an approach in which it is limiting features based on users' age.
For example, younger teens need to be aged 16 or older to access Direct Messaging and 18 or older to send virtual gifts or access monetization features.
What's important to note here is that, TikTok’s 18+ restriction setting for livestreams is not a way for users to purposefully broadcast adult content, as the content is still subject to the app’s policies.
Instead, the restriction is just a way for creators to prevent minors from encountering content that’s aimed toward an adult audience or may be uninteresting to them.
In other words, the platform is aiming to graduate along with its primary user-base.
It's its way to embrace its growing number of users who matured.
"We believe these industry-leading updates can further protect the younger members of our community as they start and build their online presence."
The setting comes a few months after TikTok said it wanted to start identifying which content is appropriate for younger and older teens versus adults.
Due to the nature of social media and the fact that many of its users are minor, TikTok shouldn't tip the scale in one way or another.
This is why it needs to properly identify and restrict certain types of content from being accessed by teens, and that it would also start asking creators to specify when their content is more appropriate for an adult audience.
However, TikTok wouldn't go as far as having "displayable" ratings or labels on TikTok videos, which would clearly annoy users. Instead, it plans to rely on categorization on the backend of its systems, and then use creators' tags to help it identify which content is which.
In addition to this age restriction, TikTok is also rolling out a feature it calls 'Multi-Guest,' which allows hosts to go LIVE with up to 5 guests using a grid or panel layout.
TikTok also introduced an updated version of its keyword filtering tool that can send a reminder to people and suggest new keywords they may want to consider adding to their filter list.
"As always, we have a suite of safety features to help people stay in control throughout their live streaming and troubleshoot problems as they come up. We have a vibrant and inspiring community on TikTok, and it's important that our platform remains a safe, supportive, and joyful place for our community," TikTok said.