Teens

Rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts are surging among U.S. teens. A recent report from the Center of Disease Control found that nearly one in three girls have seriously…

Khosla-backed Marble, built by former Headway founders, offers affordable group therapy for teens

YouTube’s comments section, historically, has had a bad reputation, but a change rolling out could prevent kids from wading into the comments cesspool. In an email to parents who supervise…

YouTube is switching to read-only comments for kids in supervised experiences

Less than a week after The Wall St. Journal reported on how a Snapchat feature dubbed “solar system” was adding to teens’ anxiety, the company has responded by adjusting how…

Snapchat turns off controversial ‘Solar System’ feature by default after bad press

Making a video game successful is already hard. Doing so while complying with the growing number of child safety laws and regulations around the world is an almost insurmountable task.…

k-ID launches a solution that helps game developers comply with ever-changing child safety regulations

An independent review of popular AI tools has found that many — including Snapchat’s My AI, DALLE, and Stable Diffusion, may not be safe for kids. The new reviews come…

Several popular AI products flagged as unsafe for kids by Common Sense Media

Two years after testifying before the U.S. Senate over child safety concerns, including teens’ exposure to eating disorder content, YouTube today announced additional product safeguards around its content recommendations aimed…

YouTube’s new teen safeguards limit repeated viewing of some video topics and more

Snapchat today is announcing a series of new safeguards for its app, aimed at better protecting teen users, similar to other efforts introduced earlier by other social apps, like Facebook…

Snapchat adds new teen safety features, cracks down on age-inappropriate content

Pinterest today introduced a series of new safety features aimed at better protecting teens using its service. The features — which include things like private profiles, more control over followers…

Pinterest rolls out new teen safety features, including wiping followers from users 15 and under

Following last month’s NBC News investigation into Pinterest that exposed how pedophiles had been using the service to curate image boards of young girls, the company on Tuesday announced further…

After an investigation exposes its dangers, Pinterest announces new safety tools and parental controls

In hopes of heading off concerns over the addictiveness of its app, TikTok earlier this month rolled out new screen time controls that limited minors under the age of 18…

TikTok questioned on ineffective teen time limits in congressional hearing

Anonymous social apps have a history of devolving into bullying and harassment, ultimately leading to their failure. But a new startup called Ghost believes that putting in extra guardrails around…

Ghost’s new anonymous group messaging app has ChatGPT baked in

For another year in a row, TikTok has found itself as the social app kids and teens are spending the most time using throughout the day, even outpacing YouTube. According…

TikTok is crushing YouTube in annual study of kids’ and teens’ app usage

Instagram announced today it’s expanding its selection of time management tools with the launch of a new feature called “Quiet Mode.” The feature aims to reduce users’ anxiety about taking…

Instagram’s new ‘Quiet Mode’ helps you take a break from the app

The teenage market for apps is a tough nut to crack and stay relevant in. Just ask Snapchat. Equally, teens are going through a stage in life where almost every…

German teens went crazy for this ‘compliments’ app, and now VCs are backing its next phase

A popular anonymous social app that was misleading its users with fake messages has been forced to change. The top-ranked app NGL, which became the No. 1 app on the…

Top anonymous social app NGL forced to stop tricking its users

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. Global app spending reached…

This Week in Apps: Elon wants out, TikTok’s content ratings, a new milestone for subscription revenue

The anonymous Q&A app NGL climbed to the top of the App Store by tricking its users with questions it claims are sent in by their friends and by charging…

Not gonna lie, this NGL lawsuit is kinda juicy

A popular anonymous social app called NGL has now topped 15 million global installs, according to new data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower, released today. The app, which is…

Anonymous social app NGL tops 15M installs, $2.4M in revenue as users complain about being scammed

TikTok users regularly complain of hours lost on the platform, thanks to the video app’s unmatched ability to distract, entertain and engage users by way of its advanced recommendation technology.…

Amid growing concerns around app addiction, TikTok rolls out more screen tools

A small handful of Snap Kit platform developers have not yet complied with the new guidelines around anonymous messaging and friend-finding apps announced in March. The Snapchat maker revamped its…

Snapchat’s stricter policies for anonymous apps and friend finders aren’t yet fully enforced

After a bullied teen died by suicide, a grieving mother last year sued the platform where the abuse had taken place — Snapchat — for not doing enough to protect…

Following suicides and lawsuits, Snapchat restricts apps building on its platform with new policies

Months after TikTok was hauled into its first-ever major congressional hearing over platform safety, the company is today announcing a series of policy updates and plans for new features and…

TikTok updates its policies with focus on minor and LGBTQ safety, age appropriate content and more

Snapchat is rolling out new tools and educational resources to prevent younger users from buying counterfeit pills and illicit drugs via the platform. The company said on Thursday that the…

Snapchat is launching new tools to crack down on illicit drug sales on its platform

Facebook is in the hot seat again. The Wall Street Journal published a powerful multi-part series on the company this week, drawing from internal documents on everything from the company’s…

Facebook knows Instagram harms teens. Now, its plan to open the app to kids looks worse than ever

TikTok is expanding its in-app parental controls feature, Family Pairing, with educational resources designed to help parents better support their teenage users, the company announced this morning. The pairing feature,…

TikTok adds educational resources for parents as part of its Family Pairing feature

Instagram will begin prodding users to share their birthday with the service, if they haven’t already done so. The company today announced it will now start popping up a notification…

Instagram will require users to provide their birthday

In May of this year, Snap suspended two Snapchat-integrated apps that allowed users to send anonymous messages, Yolo and LMK, following a lawsuit filed on behalf of a mother whose…

Sendit gains 3.5M downloads after Snapchat suspends top anonymous apps YOLO and LMK

Earlier this year, TikTok made an update to its privacy settings and defaults to further lock down the app for its teenage users. This morning, Instagram followed suit with teen-focused…

Instagram adds new teen safety tools as competition with TikTok heats up

Before kids graduate to the expansive virtual worlds in games like Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite, they often get their start in online social gaming with a game like Animal Jam.…

Makers of ‘kid’s first virtual world’ Animal Jam targets Gen Z teens with Fer.al debut

Featured Article

TikTok is being used by vape sellers marketing to teens

TikTok has a vaping problem. Although a 2019 U.S. law made it illegal to sell or market e-cigarettes to anyone under the age of 21, TikTok videos featuring top brands of disposable e-cigarettes and vapes for sale have been relatively easy to find on the app. These videos, set to…

8:40 am PST • January 26, 2021
TikTok is being used by vape sellers marketing to teens