Bottom line: While it's admirable that TikTok is doing more to make its platform a better place for younger users, some will still question whether or not they are doing enough and these latest changes may only add fuel to that fire. Many of these changes put the onus of responsibility on teens to essentially police themselves, and in practice, that's rarely effective. Ultimately, it's the parents' job to monitor what their kids are doing online and determine what age is appropriate to be using a platform like TikTok.

TikTok is doing more to protect the safety of teens on its platform with a new set of changes for kids aged 13-17.

For starters, when new teens aged 16-17 join TikTok, their direct messaging setting will default to "No One." In order to message others, they will need to first switch to a different sharing option. Existing users that have never used DMs, meanwhile, will receive a prompt asking them to review and confirm privacy settings the next time they do use the feature.

The DM changes are in addition to policies already in place, such as disabling messaging for users under the age of 16.

TikTok is also adding a pop-up that will appear when teens under the age of 16 are ready to publish their first video, asking them to select who can watch their creation. These users won't be able to publish their video until they make a selection.

"With each video going forward, creators can decide who can watch before they post. Accounts aged 13-15 are set to private by default, and private accounts can choose to share their content with Followers or Friends, as the 'Everyone' setting is turned off. Duet and Stitch are also disabled for accounts under 16."

Teens aged 16-17 will also have more control over downloads, allowing them to choose whether other users can download their videos. Notably, downloads are permanently disabled from accounts with users under the age of 16.

TikTok is also adjusting when teens can receive push notifications. Users aged 13-15 will no longer receive push notifications after 9pm, and users aged 16-17 will see push notifications cut off starting at 10pm daily.

All of these changes are rolling out now and will continue over the coming months, we're told.