TikTok introduces a new feature, only people over the age of 18 can watch live

Chi­nese short video-mak­ing app Tik­Tok is report­ed­ly restrict­ing live streams to view­ers over the age of 18 to pre­vent under­age encoun­ters with adult con­tent. The new set­ting for users is cur­rent­ly under­go­ing lim­it­ed test­ing with select users, TechCrunch reports. The select­ed users in the tri­al peri­od can tog­gle the “Adult Themes” but­ton to lim­it their live stream­ing to adults only.

The plat­form said that “only view­ers 18+ can watch your LIVE” if you turn it on. Once a user enables the set­ting, Tik­Tok will noti­fy them that LIVE videos marked 18+ will still be removed if they vio­late the com­mu­ni­ty guide­lines. Tik­Tok recent­ly said it was devel­op­ing a sys­tem to iden­ti­fy and restrict cer­tain types of con­tent that teens can’t access. (Also read: Tik­Tok pro­vid­ed Chi­na with the data of US cit­i­zens? That’s what the CEO said)

“We’ve heard direct­ly from our cre­ators that some­times they have a desire to only reach a cer­tain old­er audi­ence. For exam­ple, maybe they cre­ate com­e­dy with adult humor or offer bor­ing work­place tips that are rel­e­vant only to adults. Or maybe they’re talk­ing about very dif­fi­cult life expe­ri­ences,” said Tra­cy Eliz­a­beth, US Head of Issue Pol­i­cy at TikTok.

“We’re test­ing ways to bet­ter empow­er cre­ators to reach the intend­ed audi­ence for their spe­cif­ic con­tent,” she added. (Also read: Android Users Warn­ing! New Mal­ware Sub­scribes Unknow­ing Users to Pre­mi­um Services)

How­ev­er, the new 18+ restric­tion set­ting for live streams is not intend­ed to pro­mote adult con­tent on the plat­form and will be sub­ject to strict scruti­ny, the com­pa­ny said.