Screen Time not working on Tiktok, Snapchat, Instagram?

Unfortunately the only way to restrict at this moment is to to start an Account with tictok and link your own tiktoc Account to your child’s. The maximum restriction possible is 40 minutes a day (which is still beyond acceptable)

It looks like most of these responses were from earlier this year and someone had figured out a workaround. But that workaround isn’t working for me. Specifically I’m trying to block YouTube and one game in my sons phone. Everything else turns grey when he hits the limit except these 2 things. I tried the method of adding and then removing from Always Allowed but that didn’t work. I’m guessing these third party people figured out another way to bypass it. I spent an hour with Apple support for them to tell me to install the lates update and of course that didn’t work either. Anyone have a new trick here?

tried that, it still does not work! Apple is allowing TikTok to be used without any limits. I've called support, they told me I have to wipe all the devices and go back to factory settings.. ridiculous position given that we're talking about 2 MacBooks, 4 iPads, 4 iPhones and no guarantee that this wipe will work.

some of the apps work correctly with ScreenTime and App Limits, it's only a few that are allowed by Apple to bypass any restrictions: TikTok, Snapchat, Hulu seem to be the key ones.

We need a better solution. I don't want to use a draconian measure to remove all these apps, just want to limit the time my kids are spending on them.

100% same experience. we have lots of devices and this only happens on one of them. the others work as expected. in my case it's a 3rd gen iPad Air running the latest OS release, 16.2.

it's absurd to believe that R&R of the OS will rectify this. i'll back it up and give it a shot later, but this is so pervasive and so important (involves our kiddos) it's somewhat appalling this issue has persisted for so long. there are multiple threads and thousands of 'me too' replies.

this is the type of experience that would drive parents to a different device/ecosystem for the whole family.

This was coincedently broken around the same time TikTok decided to introduce their own “parental guidance” feature.

The purpose of Apple’s screen time to manage this centrally.

It’s obvious Apple have given into TikTok and no longer acting on the intereste of their users.

It’s disgusting but they will not do anything unless gov or legal action is taken.

i don't know that i'd go quite THAT far. it doesn't make sense why they would 'give in' to tik tok. still, it amazes me they allow it in the app store considering the security risk the app poses. the whole point of a curated app store for the customer was to protect us. oops...

anyway, the screen time feature does indeed block tik tok for all of our devices but one. pretty weird.

I would, it’s dangerous what they are doing…

It has not worked for a while on all our devices.

Was on the phone with them for 2hrs and they won’t even raise a ticket internally to investigate it. They are happy to blame the vendor, if it’s a vendor issue then they should have removed it app store till it’s fixed.

It’s really not hard to fix as apps don’t run in isolation and but under their IOS, I assume they just don’t want to for variety of reasons but they should stop marketing as screen time is broken.

We’ve got the exact same problem, tried apple support but they were next to useless. Only suggested everything we have already tried, we managed to briefly get it working again by setting up a new apple childs Apple ID but this lasted a day at most, Apple definately has an issue with screen time and it seems to be from approx when 16.1.2 was installed.

I don’t think it’s iOS related, I think it’s device related as screen time on our sons iPhone 8 still works, I noticed the issue when our daughter upgraded to iPhone 11, the phone refuses to abide by screen time rules.

Had the same issue with IOS 15 too.

It seems Apple's commitment to parental control over social media is not very committed, reckless and would say they have purposely lifted the rules to allow this.

They had power to ban Uber app almost for breaking rules regarding privacy but now strangely quiet....

Apple seems unwilling or unable to address this problem, screen time previously was a really good feature and worked well for us since it was introduced but now with the issues we are having it is now next to useless. Apple need to rectify the issue or at least admit a fault exists, the lack of support and communication from Apple on the issue is really frustrating.

I’ve been in touch with apple, they advised me to do a few things that I tried & at first I didn’t think it had worked, I’ve just got home & checked my daughters phone & amazingly the social media apps were locked by screentime. I toggled the time to force them ‘allowed’ & they were on, then reset the time & they locked again! It may have done it!

this is what I did, apple said to carry out a ‘force restart’ this is different to a shutdown & restart. So, ensure the phone is on the latest iOS (16.2 as of today) then:

1/ press & quick release volume up

2/ press & quick release volume down

3/ press & hold the side button until the apple symbol appears (ignore the slide button that comes up, hold for the apple).

then try screen time. As I said, mine didn’t seem though it had worked at first but this morning the phone was locked. I will be keeping an eye on it - I’ll know fairly soon as I’ll get a request for more screen time 🤣

We’ve tried this with no luck, strange thing with us is that apps disable after midnight but downtime is set at 8. Time and timezone is set correctly but it’s very odd, i’ve found a slight workaround though to disable apps. If you select no apps allowed or apps only up 9+ in content and privacy the apps disappear until you enable allow apps or change the age of the allowed apps. It’s a bit of a hassle but at least it allows us to turn the apps off at night or if she’s been on them too long.

This is super frustrating as I’ve tried all the different options and none of these options work I’ve tried removing everything I’ve tried adding things back in and nothing seems to set the screen time for the social media apps. All the apps or turn off and go to screen time mode except for the big three.

This is so bizarre, I’ve been on to apple, had 3 different senior techs call me - weirdly the calls keep dropping but I’m not giving up, I’ll try again later today.

Since I’ve carried out the force restart on the problem device, screen time/downtime has been half working. It doesn’t lock the social media apps at the time I have set but at some point over night they do lock because when I get up in the morning and check the phone, they’re locked and then they stay locked until the downtime clock allows them to open. (It’s currently 04:33 and they’re all locked).

as I said I’ve been on to apple, so far I’ve spent about 1.5hrs on the phone with them, screen sharing the device, going through all the settings - all of which checked out ok so I’m doing nothing obviously wrong - I knew this because I’ve got the exact same settings on our sons older model iPhone and screentime works perfectly on that device.

the second apple tech I spoke to was starting to conclude that it looks like a ‘glitch’ in iOS but then mysteriously the call dropped!

ill keep the thread updated with any new info as and when…