Before joining the military in 2023, Jung Kook, BTS’ main vocalist and a chart-topping soloist in his own right, received a tough lesson about TikTok’s default account privacy settings when he accidentally exposed his private account name to his over 19 million fans on social media.
As PCMag reports, Jeon Jungkook, whose stage name is Jung Kook but is often referred to as “JK” or “Kookie” by fans, also apparently goes by “Ian.” We know this because the “Seven” singer posted a link to a TikTok dance challenge video to his profile on Weverse, a social media platform. Unfortunately, the 25-year-old entertainer shared more information than he intended. When fans clicked on the link, a banner appeared, broadcasting the account owner’s name for all to see.
Even if you’re not a big K-Pop fan, Jung Kook’s public embarrassment is a lesson to all of the rest of us who may need a refresher in how to keep what we want private… to stay private. If you want to avoid exposing a lot of personal information while browsing TikTok, you need to lock down your account. Here’s PCMag‘s advice on how to do it:
- Don’t share links from your private or secret accounts. You can’t stop TikTok from broadcasting your screenname whenever you share a link, so avoid sharing a link from an account you’d like to keep to yourself.
- Update your privacy settings. While using the app, navigate to Settings and Privacy and tap Privacy. From that menu, you can toggle your private account on and off. If you have a private TikTok account, only approved users and followers can watch your videos. You can switch the account back to Public by tapping the toggle again.
- Turn off account suggestions and contact syncing. If you don’t want nosy colleagues from four jobs ago sending you follow requests or viewing your content, tap “Suggest your account to others” in the Privacy menu and toggle off all suggestion options.
- Revoke TikTok’s access to your information. The privacy menu has an option to revoke TikTok’s access to your phone’s contact list. This will prevent TikTok from seeing who you are friends with IRL and instantly improve your privacy on the platform.
- Change your interaction settings. You can also change how others interact with you and your content within the Privacy menu. You can change the comments and messaging options, but to deter online creeping, you’ll want to keep your Liked videos, Post view history, and Profile view history turned off. These options are inactive by default. You can also keep people from seeing who you follow in the same menu.
- Secure your TikTok account. Make sure no one else has access by enabling multi-factor authentication on your account via the Security menu. You can use an authenticator app on your phone to secure your account—which we recommend—or other, less secure authentication methods, such as email verification or SMS. You can see what other devices are logged into your TikTok account by tapping the Manage Devices tab. If you see devices you don’t use or don’t recognize, remove them. You should also stop by the Browser Settings section and toggle off the options to autofill payment or contact information in TikTok’s in-app browser.
- Change your password. You shouldn’t be using the same password everywhere online, but if you are, this is your sign to switch things up. Download and use a password manager, and then not only will you never have to create or remember your passwords, you won’t even have to type them ever again. Apple just released a capable and free password management app for iOS devices and Macs, while Android fans can use Google’s free password manager app.
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