Parents Guide to Blocking TikTok on a Child's iPhone
Prevent a child from using TikTok on an iPhone either permanently or temporarily
If you are trying to prevent your child from accessing TikTok on an iPhone, you might have noticed that this process is not straightforward.
In this guide, we'll walk you through the iPhone-specific instructions for blocking TikTok using approaches that work for parents managing a child's iPhone device. We'll also go through strategies for permanent or temporary TikTok restriction.
Is it worth completely restricting your child from accessing TikTok on an iPhone?
Here are a few of our top reasons why you might block TikTok, restricting your child from accessing it entirely on an iPhone:
Inappropriate TikTok profiles can be difficult to filter out
TikTok profiles are often used to advertise adult content either subtly or blatantly. This can be a particular problem if you are trying to prevent your child from seeking out or accidentally finding adult content.
TikTok might suggest inappropriate content
TikTok might suggest images or videos that you'd rather prevent your child from seeing. Even if parental control preferences are adjusted to hide obvious explicit content, TikTok might still suggest content that can be a "stumbling block" for your child.
Connecting strangers
The TikTok feed includes posts and reels from strangers, not just friends and connections. It's possible for strangers on TikTok to private message your child.
Alternatives to completely blocking TikTok for your child on an iPhone
Depending on your reasons for wanting to block TikTok for your child, you might find that there are alternative approaches to considerso that your child can still use TikTok on an iPhone:
Increase transparency around TikTok use
Many of the issues surrounding TikTok can be addressed by increasing transparency around a person's use of it by using a screen monitoring app. With this approach, a person can have some additional freedom to use platforms that might be problematic without transparency.
Customize preferences for problematic TikTok features
It's possible to customize the TikTok account preferences to minimize the impact of some of the most problematic features of the app. For example, you can customize profile visibility, and content & communication preferences.
Schedule TikTok use
Another approach is to schedule when TikTok is blocked so that your child can still use it sometimes on an iPhone. You can limit access to the app to specific times of the day where you are able to supervise their use of TikTok. For example, you might choose to only allow TikTok in the morning before school, but block it at night.
Recommended approach for restricting a Child from using TikTok on an iPhone
Here's a summary of the most effective way to block TikTok on an iPhone so you can control when your child has access to it. We'll go into each step in detail in the sections below.
Prepare your child's iPhone for maximum control
To ensure that you can completely control access to TikTok on your child's iPhone, make sure that the device is set up with an Apple ID with an age that matches your child's age. We also recommend configuring Apple Family so you can remotely control access to TikTok. Learn more here: Parent's guide to setting up an iPhone or iPad for a child
Use Apple Family to block TikTok
You'll then use Apple Family to prevent TikTok from being downloaded from the App Store and also block tiktok.com so that TikTok can't be opened in Safari. Optionally, you can set up app time limits if you want to limit how long your child can use TikTok without blocking it permanently.
Enable a DNS Content Policy
We recommend setting up a DNS Content Policy on the iPhone, which gives you more control over TikTok and other content. For example, you can use a default-deny approach to block all social media apps other than the ones you know to be safe. You can also schedule access to TikTok so that it's only available during certain times of the day.
How to block TikTok with Apple Family
If you are using Apple Family (managed Screen Time) to manage your child's iPhone, there are a few ways to block TikTok.
First, you need to prevent your child from accessing the app in Safari and any other web browsers installed on an iPhone.
Go to Web Content Restrictions
Open Screen Time on your iPhone and navigate to Content & Privacy Restrictions > Content Restrictions > Web Content.
Block the TikTok domain
If not already selected, check "limit adult websites" then add tiktok.com to the 'never allow' list
Next, you need to prevent your child from downloading TikTok from the App Store.
The App Store age rating designated for TikTok is 12. One way to block TikTok is to set the maximum age rating to 12 in the App Store. Here's how to do that:
Go to App Content Restrictions
Open Screen Time on your iPhone and navigate to Content & Privacy Restrictions > Content Restrictions > Apps.
Set the App Store age rating to 12
Instead of 'allow all', you can set the age rating to 12. Your child will see a message like this once this restriction is enabled:
A universal approach that can be used to restrict access to TikTok on a child's iPhone is to use a DNS Content Policy
This approach disables the internet access for TikTok so that it can't function. The app can still be downloaded, but it will not work.
Here's how it works:
Add a new block rule
In the Tech Lockdown dashboard, go to the Content Policy section and add a new block rule with TikTok selected
Customize the schedule
Select a schedule if you want to only block TikTok on specific recurring days and times. Otherwise, leave the schedule blank to block TikTok 24/7.
Specify who the rule applies to
Select an audience if you want to only block TikTok from specific people. Otherwise, leave the audience blank to block TikTok from everyone.
Connect Devices
Go to the Devices section of the Tech Lockdown dashboard and follow the setup instructions to connect devices to the Content Policy
Optional: Lock your Tech Lockdown Profile
If you are self-restricting access to TikTok, you can lock your Tech Lockdown profile so that you have to wait a certain amount of time before you can unblock TikTok.