TikTok has announced new features that allow users to have even more control over their TikTok experience. The new tools allow people to dial up content they want to see more of, dial down or prevent content they don’t want to see, and help them wind down at night with guided meditation exercises.
As TikTok continues to invest heavily in features, products, and tools that help people and families stay safe online, it also announced $375,000USD ($577,000 AUD) in donations to lead mental health organisations across Australia and New Zealand.
Manage Topics
The first new feature, Manage Topics, allows users to dial up, or down, how much content they see of a particular topic. These settings won’t eliminate topics entirely but can influence how often they’re recommended as peoples’ interests evolve over time.
It adds to the many ways people shape their feed every day—including liking or sharing videos, searching for topics, or simply watching videos for longer.
Smart Keyword Filters
To help people stop seeing certain content altogether, TikTok is doubling and improving Smart Keyword Filters. Put simply, filters allow the community to input words that they don’t want to see.
If someone has just been on a holiday to Japan, they can exclude travel content by inputting keywords like ‘Japan’ and ‘travel’.
People can now include up to 200 keywords as a filter and our new technology uses AI to capture additional videos featuring similar words, synonyms, and slang variations to prevent them from being shown to users. Our global community has used our existing keyword filters to exclude more than 200 million different words.
More tools, more control
“The For You feed is what makes TikTok a place like no other to discover your favourite new interests or grow a thriving community,” said Adam Presser, head of operations and trust and safety at TikTok. “With our new features, you can manage topics you want to see in your For You feed and limit keywords and hashtags you’d rather skip, so that it’s easier than ever to find creators, hobbies, and content you love.”
These new features will be launching for both adult and teen accounts, building on the tools and safeguards already available on TikTok including:
- Not interested: People can long press the screen and select ‘not interested’ if they don’t like a particular video, topic, or trend, and they won’t be shown similar content.
- Refresh your feed: If someone feels their feed is no longer relevant or isn’t providing enough variety, TikTok make it easy for them to completely reset their feed.
- Family Pairing: Parents and guardians can take control of their teens’ accounts, including how much time their teens spend online, the content they can see.
Helping people unwind at night
Research shows that mindful meditation can improve sleep quality. To harness this, TikTok has recently announced an in-app guided meditation feature that encourages people to switch off at 10pm.
During Sleep Hours, people will have their scrolling interrupted by a meditation exercise. Adults can choose to turn on this feature in their settings. For teens under 18, this feature is turned on by default after 10pm and if teens ignore the first reminder, we show a second, harder to dismiss, full-screen prompt.
These features are designed to reflect best practices in behavioural change theory by providing positive nudges that can help people develop balanced long-term habits. In the platforms testing, 98 per cent of teens kept the meditation experience switched on and parents who want to block their teens’ use of TikTok at night can use Family Pairing.
Support for leading mental health organisations
Research by youth mental health service ReachOut Australia shows 73 per cent of young Australians turn to social media to support their mental health. To help bolster the work of credible mental health organisations around the globe, TikTok is donating more than $2.3 million USD to assist them in making even more authoritative, engaging, and uplifting mental health content.
Six Australian and New Zealand mental health organisations are being supported through the 2025 Mental Health Media Education Fund including:
- ReachOut Australia: A free, digital mental health service for young people and their parents and carers, providing a safe online place to chat anonymously, get support, and feel better.
- The Man Cave: A preventative mental health and emotional literacy charity aiming for a world in which every man has healthy relationships, contributes to his community, and reaches his full potential.
- Australians for Mental Health: A community driven, national organisation fighting to make mental health a national top priority, all across Australia.
- PROJECT ROCKIT: Australia’s youth-driven movement against bullying, hate, and prejudice.
- #chatsafe: A suicide prevention program from Orygen that aims to empower and equip young people with skills to communicate safely online about self-harm and suicide.
- Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand: A charity that works towards creating a society free from discrimination, where all people enjoy positive mental health and wellbeing across New Zealand.
In combination with training provided by TikTok, each organisation will each receive $75,000USD ($115,000 AUD) in advertising credits, helping foster an environment where people can discuss emotionally complex topics in a supportive way.
