Video streaming platform TikTok is finally introducing community fact-checking, in the form of TikTok Footnotes – the equivalent to X’s Community Notes. This is initially available in the US only. The company has also announced new parental controls, aimed at giving oversight of both TikTok consumption and uploads by teens … Community Notes have played a valuable role on the social network formerly known as Twitter. Hoaxes and disinformation has been a growing problem on X, and the Community Notes feature allows this to be controlled to some degree by allowing other users to link to reputable sources to contradict some of the wild claims made. TikTok has suffered from exactly the same problem, with conspiracy theories and often dangerous nonsense being promoted in short videos. TikTok Footnotes is designed to help address the problem, the company said today. Footnotes draws on the collective knowledge of the TikTok community by allowing people to add relevant information to content on our platform. Starting today, U.S. users in the Footnotes pilot program can start to write and rate footnotes on short videos, and our U.S. community will begin to see the ones rated as helpful – and rate them, too. The company issued an invitation earlier this year to apply to become a Footnotes contributor, and says it has so far approved almost 80,000 US users. Footnotes are initially visible only to other contributors, but become publicly visible once marked as helpful by enough people. Users can also report Footnotes they believe to be breaking the rules. TikTok parental controls The company also announced the launch of Family Pairing, intended to help parents and guardians monitor both consumption and upload of videos by teens. Family Pairing will include features that: Automatically notify a parent when their teen uploads a video, story, or photo that’s visible to others on TikTok. This helps parents stay informed and start open conversations about what their teen is posting, without disrupting a teen’s creativity or independence. Provide greater insight into the privacy settings their teen selects. For instance, parents will see if their teen (ages 16-17) has enabled downloads for their content, or if their following list is visible to others. They can also see which topics in our Manage Topics feature their teen has chosen to shape their feed. Creators also get a number of additional tools, including two intended to block offensive and unwanted comments on their videos. Highlighted accessories Images: TikTok