TikTok has said it plans to ban so-called “beauty” filters for users under 18 worldwide, in line with upcoming UK and EU regulations. This measure aims to address concerns about the negative impact of unrealistic aesthetic standards on young people’s self-esteem.
The harms of unrealistic images
Research indicates that social media users often unknowingly compare their natural appearance to digitally manipulated images, leading to negative self-perceptions. France has notably launched a new campaign to warn of the damage pornography has on the mental health of adolescents.
A study published by doctor Jasmine Fardoulya body image specialist from the University of New South Wales, demonstrated the harmful effects of exposure to unattainable beauty ideals online. She said:
It promotes an ideal of beauty that is unattainable for you, or for anyone, really, because no one looks like that. Everyone’s faces are made to look exactly the same (editor’s note: those changed by filters). Making it more difficult to know that it is a filter can potentially harm the promotion of these ideals.
TikTok’s response
As reported The GuardianTikTok will soon block users aged 13 to 17 from using filters like “Bold Glamour,” which blatantly alter facial features in real-life videos. Even a Hollywood makeup artist couldn’t achieve such a result. The policy was revealed during a security forum at TikTok’s European headquarters in Dublin.
Additionally, TikTok is stepping up efforts to enforce its age restrictions, planning to implement new machine learning systems to better identify and block users under 13. Chloe Setter, TikTok’s public policy lead for child safety, expressed optimism, saying:
We hope this will give us the ability to detect and remove more and more quickly.
Although TikTok has always officially banned users under the age of 13, enforcement of the law is far from sufficient on the side of the giant ByteDance.
But with regulatory pressure from the EU and the United Kingdom, the parent company of TikTok no longer has a choice, especially since the USA is still threatening to block the platform on its soil. The competitor of Instagram and Snapchat cannot afford to lose such markets.
