Parents' Guide to Triller: Social Video Platform

This app's motto is "Post videos, make friends, be famous," which plays to its target teen audience, but in the end it's just another video-sharing platform without much concern for kids' safety. Triller: Social Video Platform has what most video creation apps have: simple recording and editing tools, a few filters and effects, and the ability to add text, emojis, and hand-drawn graphics to videos. If you want, you can use music from other people's videos and/or "collaborate" with them by altering their videos to create something new. There's nothing standout about the app's setup, and in fact, some of its functionality is hidden in strange places. Overall, though, the functionality is about what you'd expect.

Other than somewhat limited video editing tools, the app's main problem -- at least as far as kids go -- is safety. It's all too easy to find suggestive content (half-dressed young girls doing suggestive dances), which also happens on apps like TikTok. What's different, though, is that there's also content showing people smoking, drinking, and using drugs. Hashtags include things like "suicide," "porn," and "cutting," and user names and bios are often obscene. Also, built-in links to users' Instagram accounts could contain additional inappropriate imagery or content -- and offer more connection to strangers. If kids keep their profiles and projects public, there's the possibility they'll get mean comments or predatory messages. On the up side, you can make kids' accounts private. Making accounts private won't protect kids from this app's message, however: that everything in life is a performance that must be validated by followers and likes. All things considered, Triller: Social Video Platform isn't something kids really need, and for more impressionable and trusting kids, it could even be dangerous.