“It also found that the “family pairing” scheme, which gives an adult control over a child’s account settings, did not check whether the adult “paired” with the child user was a parent or guardian.”
TikTok sold “family pairing” as a safety feature and never checked that the paired adult was family. Any adult could pair with a teen’s account and switch on direct messages for over-16s. Accounts for 13 to 17 year olds went public by default. The fine covers the second half of 2020, so Ireland took three years to bill for it, and TikTok’s defence is that the violations are old.