TikTok has become the go-to platform for users who want to share or view short-form videos with their friends, family, and fans. The app has been a sensation to young people who enjoy lip-syncing to songs, remaking catchy dance moves, make funny clips, or play dramatic scenes.

If you’ve come to use TikTok for a while now, you’d know that the For You is what you come across when opening the app. ‘For you’ will show you an endless stream of vertical videos of people you follow or whose videos you have watched in the past. TikTok appears to now be testing a new feature inside the ‘For you’ page – Connected To You.

Related: What side of TikTok are you on between Alt and Straight TikTok?

What is ‘Connected To You’ on TikTok?

Several users are reporting that TikTok videos on their ‘For You’ page have started showing with a ‘Connected To You’ tag at the bottom left. ‘Connected To You’ will show you videos of people who are in your contacts or if they have your contact information on their phone.

https://twitter.com/BookerCbooker/status/1265887869178183680

Related: What is Elite TikTok?

How does ‘Connected To You’ work?

While there has been no official word on what it is, we believe the ‘Connected To You’ tag shows up when you have shared your phone’s contact details to TikTok or if you have signed up on TikTok using your primary phone number.

The feature seems to be rolling out in batches across the world but if the following tweet is anything to be believed, the TikTok app on iOS shows ‘Connected To You’ as ‘From your contacts’.

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This means TikTok is using data from both your phone number that’s linked to your account and the contact information of all the people in your phone’s contact list to compile a list of videos from people “you may know”.

Some users (on Reddit) say they see similar videos but with a ‘Suggested account’ tag instead. This means, TikTok is currently testing the feature and you might see it with some other tag on your phone.

Related: Elite TikTok vs Straight TikTok

Is the Family pairing feature behind it?

Recently, TikTok announced a new feature called ‘Family pairing’ allowing parents to “connect” to their children with regard to safety on TikTok. But that’s about setting controls on the child’s TikTok account related to the app’s usage, content viewability, and even messaging on the platform.

We really don’t think that has got to anything with the ‘Connected To You’ labeled videos TikTok is suggesting to you on your FYP.

Why do certain videos show the ‘Connected To You’ tag?

If you’re scrolling through your For You’ page (FYP) and come across the ‘Connected To You’ tag at the bottom of the screen (above the account’s username), then chances are that you have this person’s phone number in your contacts.

Since there’s no clarity at the moment, videos with the ‘Connected To You’ tab could also show up on FYP feed if that particular user had shared their contacts list (with your number on it) on TikTok. For some other users, the tag appears even if they have absolutely no connection with the other person, which contradicts everything we’ve come to know about the feature but at the same time, could be an error in TikTok’s algorithm.

https://twitter.com/buuushraa/status/1270907629594980352

Related: ‘Where is your soulmate’ filter on TikTok

What do users have to say about it?

Many users have felt overwhelmed by the addition of the ‘Connected To You’ tag on TikTok.  Initial reactions indicate that the feature seems to show videos of friends, family, or people you may have known in the past, like from your highschool.

https://twitter.com/Jenna_Bloom/status/1261083136584286208

For some, Connected To You has become yet another haunting reason to step onto TikTok as, like many of us, you would now want someone you no longer talk to be able to see you in their For you feed.

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How to disable ‘Connected To You’ on TikTok?

It’s believed that the ‘Connected To You’ tag appears when you allow others to see you when they have your contact details and share them with TikTok. In case you no longer want to watch videos with the ‘Connected To You’ tag on TikTok, you can do so by following the instructions below:

Note: The following method doesn’t guarantee that the ‘Connected To You’ tag will stop appearing on your For You page but will almost certainly prevent your contacts (unless they follow you) from viewing your content on TikTok. 

Step 1: Open TikTok on your phone and tap on your profile tab at the bottom-right corner.

Step 2: Inside your profile screen, tap on the three-dot menu button at the top right and select the ‘Privacy and Safety’ option under Account.

Step 3: Under Discoverability, toggle OFF the switch adjacent to ‘Allow others to find me’.

What do you have to say about the new ‘Connected To You’ feature TikTok?

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