TikTok is entering the messaging services space with a new group chat feature that supports up to 32 participants, conversing and sharing content. TikTok users have taken to sharing the platform’s short-form videos on third-party apps such as Meta’s WhatsApp and Apple’s Messages, and this move aims to keep them doing so in-app, where people can also now view and comment together. The result takes TikTok into the realm of connecting with friends and community-building, as opposed to just passively viewing content. The group chats are only available for those over 15 years of age, as is the policy with DMs.

“Everyone,” including teens 16 and up, “can only be added to a group chat by a mutual follower,” TechCrunch writes, noting that “if a teen gets an invite to join a group chat, they can’t join unless the group has at least one mutual friend in it.”

TikTok rules also require group members to “review and approve new joiners,” reports TechCrunch, pointing out that at a time when regulators are pursuing child safety measures and a federal law has given ByteDance a deadline to divest of TikTok, the social platform “says it has added safety measures to protect teens between the ages of 16 and 17.”

Engadget instructs on ways to start a group chat: “From your inbox, you can tap the Chat button at the top of the screen or a name in the messages list and then the ‘More options…’ button. You can then choose which friends you want to include and then tap ‘Start group chat.’”

Another way to fire-up a group chat “is by sharing a post with a bunch of people,” Engadget writes, or to share and group chat about a video, “tap the Share button, then select ‘Create group chat.’”

TikTok has also added Stickers in DM, which allow users to “create and upload their own custom stickers for everyone to use,” the company explains in a newsroom post.

“TikTok isn’t just racing YouTube and Meta to be on every smartphone or mobile device. It has a plan for practically any screen you can imagine,” writes AdExchanger.

“There are billions of additional screens outside of mobile phones,” said Dan Page, TikTok’s global head of partnerships. “We want to be in all of them, in some way, shape or form.”