TikTok is one of the fashionable social networks with billions of users around the world who use short videos to do humor and dances but also to learn from experiments, science, advice, and curiosities.
We may not pay as much attention to your security as a bank or email security, but we explain what to do if someone breaks into your TikTok account without your permission. How we should act and how we can know what is happening.
One of the main dangers of TikTok is that it is a frequent application or social network among teenagers and minors and they do not always pay the necessary attention to the security or privacy of their data.
Therefore, it may be that we put simple or easy passwords, that we give them to friends, that we think is not important. Until someone enters our account.
To avoid privacy problems or someone uploading videos on our behalf, we review what are the basic rules to solve it but also to prevent it.
TikTok rules
If you are on TikTok, you must comply with a series of rules that you will find continuously updated. Among them, that of account spoofing.
If you do not comply, you can be banned or expelled from the application or the social network.
Obviously, you cannot steal the accounts of other users, but it is also forbidden to publish content posing as someone else or impersonating. In the section "Integrity and authenticity" we read everything about it:
“Content should not be published impersonating another person or organization by misleading name, biographical information or profile image, or by intentionally using a username similar to that of another user for misleading purposes.
We allow exceptions for parody purposes, comments or follower accounts, as long as the account does not mislead other users regarding their identity or purpose "
Prevent your account from being stolen
Before it happens, we can prevent this from happening by protecting ourselves by using common sense or passing the advice on to children if they are the owners.
There are some basic things you can do. For example, do not download applications that promise to unlock extra options or mods for TikTok because in most cases it will be a scam, and not only will you not get these extras but they can also steal your account and access all your personal data.
It is also essential to choose a good password that does not have your data or that is as obvious as 123456. It may seem quite basic but it will be enough so that no one you know can steal your account.
Avoid using easy-to-guess names or dates like your birthday or your anniversary date, for example. Do not use the same password as in other social networks or apps.
Another of the tips that you can follow and that they explain from the TikTok help website itself is to be wary of pages that promise likes, fans or free hearts.
Most of these pages install malware on your phone or steal your information and it is generally a scam with which you will not get anything.
It is also important that if the account is used by a minor, the parental control systems that we will explain at the end of this article are used so that you do not see inappropriate content or that you cannot speak with strangers.
Under no circumstances should we give our data to strangers who contact us through this social application or any other, neither our password nor our email.
Private account
Put your Private account. This will not prevent your account from being stolen but it will improve its security because you can reject followers or choose who sees it.
Of course, you must bear in mind that the profile information, the username or the description will be visible to everyone, so be careful with what we write.
To make your account private, follow these steps:
- Open TikTok
- Go to your profile page
- Press the three points that you will see in the upper right part
- Choose the option "Privacy and settings"
- Find "Private account"
- Check this option so that no one follows you
Detect that your account is being stolen
The first thing we must do is find out if someone is stealing our TikTok account or accessing it without our permission, even if you still have the power.
In that case, we should look at some “strange” activities and take a few steps. How can we detect it? There are mainly four ways:
Your personal data such as your password, your email or your phone number associated with the TikTok account you are using have changed.
The username or nickname in the app has changed
Videos that you had have disappeared or some have been published and it was not you nor do you know who the people in those videos are.
Messages have been sent that you have not written
Another recommended option is that you check the devices from which you have logged in because that way you will detect if there is a phone or tablet model that does not belong to you, for example. To see this data, the steps you must follow are:
- Open TikTok
- Go to your profile and tap on the dots in the upper right corner
- Go to Settings and privacy
- Tap on the Security menu
- From here go to Your devices
- You will see the devices that have been logged in, the date and time
Recover your account
If all this is true, logically there is someone who is trying to access your account or who has already done so. In that case, you will have to follow a few basic steps to keep your account secure or recover it if it has been stolen.
Change password
You can change the password on TikTok if you think someone has had access to it. Of course, keep in mind that if the associated phone number or email has changed, it will be more complicated for us to recover our account.
If they haven't, it will be easy and there are two ways depending on whether you have logged out or not.
If you haven't signed out:
- Go to the TikTok profile page
- Click on the three dots in the upper right corner
- Tap on "Privacy and Settings"
- Go to "Manage account"
- Look for the option "Password"
- Enter your current password
- Enter a new password
- Confirm with the "Confirm" button
Instead, if you have logged out or have changed the password, go to:
- Select "Login" on TikTok
- Go to the option " Forgot your password ?"
- Choose "Email" or "Telephone" depending on what you have linked
- Write email
- You will receive an email with a link
- From this link you will have a temporary password
Change other passwords
It is also recommended that you change your email password in case someone has used this method to steal your account. Or that you change the authentication form of other social networks if you used the same as in TikTok.
Manage your account
IF you still have access to your account, you can go to the settings and "Manage account" to change the phone number and email. If someone has entered but you can still enter, you can change everything from here. Put your associated phone number, write your email and change the password. To do this, follow these steps:
Go to TikTok
- Open your profile and tap on "Me" at the bottom
- Go to the three points in the upper right corner
- Tap on the Manage account option
- You will see three options
- Phone number
- Password
- Change the three options so that no one can access
- Privacy settings
Activate 2-step verification
This will help ensure that your account will never be stolen again since it will be necessary to have access to your mobile phone for someone to access your TikTok profile. You can configure it and what it will do is that if the application detects that someone is logging in from an unrecognized device, it will ask you for a security code that you will receive by SMS on your mobile phone. Without having your phone they will not be able to access.
Go to the TikTok app
- Tap on your profile icon and on the three dots in the upper corner
- Open the Settings and privacy section
- From there, go to Security
- Tap on "Two-Step Verification"
- Choose the option "SMS" and click on "Enable"
You will see on a screen that it is enabled and the associated phone
At the bottom, choose the trusted devices (choose only your mobile phone and do not add that of a friend or acquaintance, no matter how confident you are)
Once you have two-step verification enabled, it will be difficult for them to steal your account or have your password to access it.
Detox and parental control
Beyond the basic privacy options above, we can prevent any issues by using TikTok's Restricted Mode. It is an application mainly focused on children and adolescents and that means that they can take many risks. For this reason, TikTok has the parental control section "Digital Detoxification". From this section you can access three tools:
- Screen time management
- Restricted mode
- Family synchronization
The first two will allow us to choose what the child or minor sees and when they see it from the TikTok account. The third allows us to choose who he talks to, so we can prevent him from giving the password to someone. You can activate or deactivate whenever you want with a security code. You do not necessarily have to be minor to use it, it also works if you are an adult and considers that you spend too much time in the application and waste your time:
- Open TikTok on your mobile and tap on the "I" icon
- From here, tap on the three dots in the upper right
- Open the settings and privacy options
- Access "Digital detox on TikTok"
- Open "Screen time management"
- Choose the daily time limit
- 40 minutes
- 60 minutes
- 90 minutes
- 120 minutes
- Choose the option "Activate Screen Time Management"
- Choose a password or access code
- Confirm and click on the "Next" button
For its part, the Restricted Mode allows you to limit the contents to improve privacy in the case of minors who use the application:
- Go to "I" and the three dots in the upper right
- Under Privacy and Security, go to Digital Detox
- Open the option "Restricted mode"
- Enable this mode and choose a four-digit password
- Confirm the password
- The mode will be activated
What the restricted mode does is limit the appearance of “inappropriate content for some audiences”. You cannot choose what you see or what you do not see but you will use a TikTok filter that considers that you cannot access what is not recommended.
Family synchronization
Perhaps one of the ways to steal the TikTok account is to take advantage of the innocence of the little ones by asking them the password they use in the application or by posing as their friends. That's why family synchronization not only allows all of the above (choosing a time or excluding inappropriate content) but also allows you to limit which users can send you messages and which users cannot.
To configure it, the steps are as follows:
- Tap on your profile icon in the lower right
- Go to the three points in the upper right
- Open settings and privacy options
- Choose Digital Detox on TikTok
- Go to "Family Synchronization"
- Choose Guardian / Parent on the adult's mobile
- Choose "Minor" on the child's mobile
- Scan the QR code from the minor's phone to the adult's
- You will link both accounts and you can control the use
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