Tiktok: Recognizing AI and Enhancing Well-being

Inhale, exhale. Klooong. TikTok, actually known for its rapid switching of short videos, now has a new section called “Time and Well-being.” It is intended to help people relax. For a more relaxed use of the platform, improvements in AI prompts and the handling of AI are also intended to ensure this.

Journaling has been quite popular among teenagers and young adults for several years. In the past, one would have called it “writing a diary.” TikTok is picking up on the trend and offers a mindfulness journal. Behind this are 120 cards on which one can record their mood and feelings or goals for a day. In addition, the service's well-being section also features a calming sound generator. So, if needed, you can play sounds of rain or waves, or so-called white noise sounds, which are proven to be particularly calming. According to TikTok, TikTok users listen to music particularly often to fall asleep. So why not a bit of background noise instead? There are also breathing exercises in the app.

And TikTok wouldn't be the popular short video platform if it didn't also showcase how to use the tools in short videos. Creators talk about their screen times, customizing their feeds, and features for the guided mode. This is the mode that applies to teenagers. Parents can view and, to some extent, control their children's usage behavior—both content and screen time.

“The short, entertaining tasks are intended to support the community, especially teenagers, in using technology more purposefully and confidently,” writes TikTok. These ambitions are not entirely new, but they have recently gained momentum. All major social media providers are currently assuring that they care about the well-being of young people. Not least of all, there is increasing discussion about whether to introduce an age limit for social networks. Even now, it is actually 13 years old. However, control proves to be difficult.

AI is labeled on TikTok

Artificial intelligence also makes platforms hardly safer. Accordingly, TikTok is also adjusting and counteracting here. AI-generated content is to be labeled even better than before. This happens automatically. However, not all content can be recognized as AI-generated—that is in the nature of things. And not every edit immediately turns a video into an AI-generated video. Nevertheless, TikTok wants to try to improve the prompts. For this, the platform itself provides tools with which creators can label their videos, but the cross-industry standard C2PA is also used—this is information in the metadata. TikTok is also working on “invisible watermarks” – it doesn't get more specific in implementation here.

Users can also customize which content they want to see. TikTok gives the example that one can choose more or less of “AI-generated (pre-)historical content.” The fact of how a video was created is now part of the selection.

TikTok is investing two million US dollars in an educational fund to support experts in creating content on the responsible use of AI.

(emw)