Safer Internet Day: TikTok’s tips to help its community stay scam-savvy online

By Giles Derrington, senior government relations and public policy manager at TikTok.

TikTok takes the issue of fraud incredibly seriously. TikTok is able to inspire and entertain millions of people in the UK because of the work we do to safeguard our community, including against the risk of seeing fraudulent content.

That is why we invest billions and employ tens of thousands of trust and safety professionals to keep our platform safe by looking for and proactively removing harmful content, including fraud and scams.

However, keeping up with scammers is an ever evolving challenge, not just for platforms like TikTok, but for banks, the Government and the police as well. That’s why making sure our users are armed with the tips they need to know to stay safe online is an equally important part of our work to stop scammers.

So here are our top four tips to help our community stay scam-savvy online:

• Be wary of private spaces: Fraudsters succeed when they can take their victims away from the eyes of law enforcement or safety teams. For example, often scammers will try to persuade you away from a platform like TikTok to other private messaging apps or websites. If someone asks you to do this, that can be an important sign that things aren’t quite right.
• Make it harder to get access to your account: Many scammers will endeavour to access your account, either to get your information or to trick others. We encourage people to protect their account from unauthorised access by enabling two-factor authentication. This extra layer of security helps keep your personal information safe in case your password is compromised.
• Control who can comment on your posts: Adjusting who can comment on your content can help protect your peace of mind and prevents unwanted comments from appearing on your posts.
• Enable family pairing & device-level controls: For parents, enabling TikTok’s parenting tool, Family Pairing, offers additional safeguards over your teen’s experience. You can manage their screen time, set restrictions on their content, and limit who can interact with your teen’s account.

You can also get more information on how to stay safe both on and offline from the Government’s Stop. Think. Fraud. Campaign here.

We know that fraud isn’t just a financial crime. It can seriously damage people’s trust in others and has the potential to ruin lives. Staying ahead of fraudsters is a joint effort between platforms like TikTok, the Government, banks, the police and individual members of the public taking steps to make themselves unwelcoming targets for scammers.

At TikTok, we will continue to play our part in looking for new ways to both take down the scammers and educate our users so they have the tools at their disposal to stay safe online.

Check out other tips and guidance this Safer Internet Day!