Musical.ly has joined the ranks of the social media apps that are bringing original show content to user’s feeds. The lip sync music video producing platform launched a couple of shows today. One of the shows is from MTV/Viacom and one is from Seventeen Magazine, with two more from the same companies coming out on Saturday. New shows are also coming from NBC, E!, and Telemundo. Musical.ly isn’t charging networks for this content or even selling ads for it, they’re really just using it as a test for future network deals. Whether or not this programming will provide value to the social media platform is yet to be seen. What is very apparent, however, is that there will be more content for your kid to watch than just the lip sync videos they’ve enjoyed thus far.
What Parents Should Know
Musical.ly is on my uninstall list because there is no age verification. Users can log in and watch other people’s videos without telling Musical.ly how old they are. This means you don’t know who’s watching you or sending you private messages. Most of the trending video sections are filled with tween and teen girls and boys acting out the different challenges or songs. The lack of age verification has brought some criticism to Musical.ly and many didn’t like their CEO’s response to such criticism. It seems they’re happy to allow people of any age to use the service without proving their age.
My advice is pretty obvious. I recommend you uninstall Musical.ly. Mostly because I wouldn’t allow my kids to use an app where they can be contacted by anyone and everyone regardless of age and gender. The addition of these new shows just strengthens my belief that Musical.ly can undermine your internet safety goals. Content on these shows can reach outside the boundaries of what is allowed on TV. Unless you’re watching every episode of the original shows Musical.ly puts on their trending feed, you have no real way of knowing what your kids are consuming. Musical.ly will stay on my uninstall list and if I had the list in any particular order it would probably move up the rankings as well.