As research highlighting how beauty filters can have a damaging effect on mental health grows, calls for social media companies to makes changes are finally being heard. Last week, TikTok – which is owned by Chinese internet company ByteDance – announced that several beauty filters on the app will soon be banned for those who are under the age of 18.
The restrictions that will apply to filters such as the controversial “Bold Glamour” will stop teens from being able to dramatically change their facial features. Currently, beauty filters allow you to artificially increase their lip size, change eye shape and smooth or change skin tone. Comic filters that add animal ears or dog noses will be unaffected.
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Speaking about the changes at the brand’s recent European Safety Forum, Christine Grahn, Head of Public Policy & Government Relations, said; ‘This week in our newly opened Dublin Transparency & Accountability Centre, we welcomed media and external experts, and announced how we are rolling out new product updates, partnering with external experts and engaging in cross-industry dialogue to further strengthen the safety and security of our community, and their data.’
‘Keeping our community safe is our priority and by the end of 2024, we will have invested nearly €2bn globally in these efforts this year alone,’ Grahn wrote in the TikTok newsroom statement after the forum meet.
Studies highlighting the link between social media use and low body confidence have found that pressure to look a certain way from a young age can lead to long-term anxiety and unrealistic beauty expectations. Now, almost half of young girls expect to worry more about their appearance as they get older.
When it comes specifically to beauty filters, research undertaken by beauty brand Dove found that 38 percent of girls say they can’t live up to the beauty standards that influencers project on social media. 80 percent say they have already applied a filter or used a retouching app to change the way they look in their photos by age 13. The most worrying stat is that 48 percent of girls who distort their photos regularly have lower body esteem compared to 28 percent of girls who don’t.
5Rights, an international NGO that works with and for children for a rights-respecting digital world, also found that 34 percent of girls aged between 11 to 21 say they will not post a photo of themselves unless they edit their appearance.
Online Child Safety Expert Jessica Chalmers says the move is certainly a step a in the right direction, ‘Hopefully the absence of beauty filters will become the norm and teenage girls will get used to being on social media without them.’
However, she adds that TikTok need to be transparent about how its new age measures will work in terms of reducing the number of under-13s on the platform.
TikTok have announced it was increasing controls to block users aged 13 and under, which could mean that thousands of British children are forced off the app. Before 2025 hits, the platform will launch a trial of new automated systems that use AI to detect people cheating its age restrictions.
This article originally appeared on Women’s Health U.K.
