What's actually on your kid's TikTok

Hey Friends!

We're officially in that wild stretch of the year where exam season is colliding with the unofficial start of summer, and our houses are somehow both quieter (kids studying) and louder (everyone losing their minds at the same time). The pool is open and the flowers are finally out. The weather has decided to participate. And our families have basically relocated outside until September.

There is something so good about this season. Dinner on the deck. Wet towels everywhere. That feeling when the kids come back inside sun-tired and a little sweaty and you remember oh right, this is the good part. We're trying to soak in every minute of it before the next thing on the calendar hits.

But while we're outside living our best lives, the digital world has been moving fast and there are two stories this week that we need to share with you. Here's the rundown...

A school got blackmailed with deepfake images made from their website photos

Recently, cybercriminals reached out to a UK secondary school with a chilling demand, essentially telling them to pay up, or they’d release the explicit images they had created of their students. The images were AI-generated deepfakes built from regular, innocent photos pulled straight off the school's public website. Kids on field trips, kids holding science fair ribbons, sports teams smiling in their uniforms. The UK's Internet Watch Foundation ended up classifying 150 of those manufactured images as child sexual abuse material and experts are saying it's only a matter of time before more schools face similar threats.

Here's what we want every parent reading this to really sit with. This is the new reality of what it means to share photos of our kids online. The age of consent piece alone is staggering when you think about it. Young kids aren't able to give knowledgeable consent about being shared online because they don't yet grasp the consequences.

Then layer on what we already knew was happening. Predators have always sought out images of children for sinister reasons. And total strangers can piece together the smaller details parents post (the school name in the team photo, the dance studio tagged in the recital video, the location of the weekly soccer game) to figure out where children physically are. And now we have to add this new layer: the same innocent photo from the school website can be turned into AI-generated CSAM, used as a blackmail tool.

What you can do:

1. Start with your own posting habits.

   1. Ask yourself before every share, does this photo include identifying info like the school name, the team name, the location of the activity? Is your child's face clearly identifiable? Could this image be lifted and reused in ways you'd never consent to?

2. Then audit the wider web like your child's school website, sports team rosters, dance studio social pages, extracurricular Facebook groups.

   1. Many of these post identifiable photos without you ever signing off, and in the US, schools often classify student photos as "directory information" under FERPA, which means they can publish them unless you specifically opt out.

3. Email the school, ask about their photo policy, and submit a written opt-out if you haven't already.

We know this feels like a lot. But the cost of doing nothing is now kind of terrifying.

TikTok is quietly becoming an entire universe

If you still think TikTok is just videos, this story is going to reframe everything. TikTok is making a full-court press to become a super app, basically the one app on the phone that does everything. We're talking TikTok Shop, an in-app travel booking tool called TikTok GO that lets you book hotels and experiences without ever leaving the app, a fintech license application in Brazil so users can store money and access credit, a built-in search and maps feature that's eating into Google, a microdramas section with bite-sized scripted shows, and a growing library of casual games kids can play with each other through DMs.

The app your kid opens to watch a few videos is now a shopping platform, a travel agency, a search engine, a bank-in-progress, a streaming service, and a gaming platform, all in one. And every single one of those features has its own set of risks, exposures, and ways for kids to spend money, share data, or interact with strangers that has nothing to do with the videos you might have already had a conversation about.

What you can do: 

The single most important thing right now is to actually open the app yourself and look around.

1. Tap into Shop.

2. Tap into search.

3. Tap into DMs and see what's available.

Find out what your kid is actually able to do inside an app you might have approved months ago thinking it was a video platform. Then have a real conversation about which features they use and which ones they didn't even know existed. This is exactly the kind of thing the Screen Sense Guide walks parents through app by app, because the apps our kids use shift so fast that what was true six months ago is already outdated. The biggest mistake we see parents make is assuming the app they approved is still the same app today. It isn't. Spotify is another great example of this. We cover that in the Screen Sense Guide too!

Okay, after all that, take a breath with us.

It can feel like a lot to follow along here as we try to keep up with the digital world. We’re always reminding ourselves that knowing is better than not knowing. You can't make different choices about what you post or what your kid has access to if nobody's telling you the truth about what's actually happening. So if you read this, audited a few things, and feel a little rattled, that's the protective instinct doing exactly what it's supposed to do. Being here is an awesome first step, as we’re do glad you’re in this with us.

Go outside this weekend. The pool, the park, the backyard, the porch. Watch your kids run around being kids. The whole reason we do any of this work is so they get to keep being kids, protected, present, and free to actually live their childhoods without the internet stealing pieces of it. We're right there with you, trying to figure it out one weekend at a time.

—Cat & Nat