A TikTok glitch appears to be allowing some teens to access the TikTok Shop tab, even though TikTok's policies state that e-commerce offers should be limited to users over the age of 18. The issue occurs when teens lie about their age when signing up for TikTok by entering a date of birth that indicates they're already over 18, and then are prompted by their parent to pair their account using TikTok's built-in parental controls. Despite the pairing process, teens still have access to adult-only features.
TikTok's parental controls are called Family Pairing, and allow adults to manage the teen's account's screen time, content choices, and account privacy after connecting the two accounts within the app. To use Family Pairing, teens access the feature through the app's settings and select the “Teen” option when asked “Who is using this TikTok account?” on the setup screen. The final step is for the parent to follow the same steps and then scan the parent's QR code. They answer the question by identifying themselves as the “parent,” revealing a QR code to scan.
Setting parental controls, which effectively hands over a large portion of account management to a parent or guardian, should be a signal to TikTok that younger users must have previously lied about being over 18, but that's not the case. Instead, the “Shop” tab, which appears on the app's homepage next to TikTok's “Recommended” and “Following” feeds, remains accessible to minors even though the account is under parental controls.
Image credit: TikTok Screenshot
Because the store is aimed at people 18 and older, parents should be aware that their children may encounter adult products in the app, such as sex toys (including ones called “massagers” and ones disguised as makeup brushes), underwear, hemp products, other supplements, weight gainers, and e-cigarettes. TikTok has also struggled to remove a range of prohibited products from its marketplace, Business Insider previously reported.
With no place in the app to verify the birthdate associated with a TikTok account, TechCrunch tested a loophole in TikTok Shop's policy by creating a new TikTok account for a user over 18 and pairing it with an adult account through Family Pairing. This mimics a real-life situation in which teenagers lie about their age to create TikTok accounts, only to later be asked by their parents to enable parental controls.
As requested in the setup instructions, we specified that our test account was a “teen.” The adult account was able to pair with the teen's account and adjust various settings, except that the TikTok Shop tab appeared on the teen's screen with various settings unless Restricted Mode was on. But even here, we ran into problems.
Image credit: TikTok Screenshot
Using the parent's TikTok account, we tried tweaking settings with the Family Pairing feature, and to speed up the process of making changes, we rebooted the teen's phone to simulate the TikTok app “restarting” after applying each setting.
If you turn off the dedicated STEM feed for teens, you will still see notifications from your account even after applying the change.[ショップ]We discovered that the tab remained accessible because the user had parental controls enabled but initially indicated they were over 18, when parental controls should now indicate that they are not.
Unfortunately, you couldn't switch a teen's account into Restricted Mode without first completely uninstalling TikTok from the device and then logging back in with the teen's account details. (Similarly, you couldn't remove Restricted Mode from a teen's account without uninstalling the app.)
Image credit: TikTok Screenshot
The tests point to loopholes in TikTok's ability to effectively enforce parental controls and policies when teen users initially lie about their age, as many likely do. This could give parents a false sense of security, believing they are making decisions to make the app safer for teens, such as forcing teens to use Family Pairing or enabling Restricted Mode.
In some cases, the changes may be applied eventually, but not unless Restricted Mode is enabled.[ショップ]You can still access the tabs, and in our testing, turning on Restricted Mode was a more involved process.
When reached for comment, TikTok initially said it did not know how this loophole was possible and stressed that, according to its policies, shops are limited to users over the age of 18. Further investigation revealed that the age a user declared when signing up is not taken into account when determining when to display a TikTok shop. Instead, TikTok expects users to declare their correct age. The company noted that TikTok offers tools to report underage accounts suspected to be held by someone under the age of 13.
I was surprised to find that enabling parental controls on a teen account (one that has faked its age) did not remove access to Shop, even though it clearly indicates that the user is not an adult.
At the very least, TikTok should prompt parents to verify their child's age during the Family Pairing setup process, or warn them if a child enters a birthdate above 18. Failure to do so could affect other choices about the content they see in the app.
It's unclear whether TikTok will attempt to close this loophole. Even if it incurs losses in the short term, TikTok Shop may ultimately be the driving force behind the social app. The feature has the potential to especially appeal to younger shoppers and give sellers access to millions of users. In TikTok Shop, influencer videos are directly linked to the products they promote, creating more opportunities for impulse purchases while also providing a Gen Z-friendly alternative to Amazon, Temu and other e-commerce retailers.