Teenagers to be restricted from using beauty filters on TikTok over mental health concerns

To improve looks and artificially making their features look better, teenagers have been using filters on social media platforms to alter their real look. The billion-user social media company, TikTok, is now imposing several restrictions on the use of beauty filters due to rise in anxiety concerns and falling self-esteem. 

In the upcoming weeks, teenagers will be restricted from artificially making their eyes bigger, plumping their lips, and smoothing or changing their face tone. 

These restrictions will be applied to filters, including 'Bold Glamour' that changes people's features in a way that makeup cannot. 

However, comic filters that add dog's ears, noses, or bunny ears would not be affected. 

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TikTok announced this change during a safety forum at its European headquarters in Dublin. 

Moreover, the efficacy of these restrictions will depend on the people using the social media platform with their real age, which is not exactly the case always. 

These filters on such platforms, some provided by TikTok, meanwhile, others created by users, have caused pressure on teenagers, specifically girls, to adopt a polished physical appearance with negative emotional repercussions. 

Earlier, TikTok also announced that they were bringing changes in their systems to block users under 13 from the platform, which could potentially remove thousands of British children from accessing the platform. 

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Chloe Setter, TikTok’s lead on child safety public policy, said, “We’re hoping that this will give us the ability to detect and remove more and more quickly.”

However, people who are wrongly blocked would be able to raise queries and appeal. “It can obviously be annoying for some young people,” said Setter, but she added that the platform will take a “safety-first approach”.

Moreover, before the end of this year, it will also come up with a trial of new automated systems that use machine learning to identify people who are not abiding by the age restrictions. 

(With inputs from agencies)