TikTok has announced plans to block beauty filters for teenage users in response to rising concerns about the mental health effects of social media on young people.
Under-18s will soon be blocked from artificially making their eyes bigger, plumping their lips, and changing their skin tone.
The announcement comes as TikTok plans a general crackdown on underage users, with children under 13 set to be booted off the platform in the coming months. Across the social media landscape, major platforms are enacting new measures to protect young people’s livelihoods, with Roblox and Meta making similar forays in recent months. With teenagers and adolescents forming a major part of their respective audiences, though, these reforms will always be tempered by commercial interests.
Teens To Be Banned From Using “Beauty Filters”
TikTok plans to block the use of so-called “beauty filters” among teenage users, it emerged this week. Over the next few weeks, users who are under the age of 18 will be blocked from artificially changing their eyes, lips and skin tone, as concern over adolescent’s spiraling mental health grows.
As per the guidelines, filters that change how a person looks in a way that cannot be recreated with makeup will be banned. This does not apply to filters that are “designed to be obvious and funny,” such as the bunny ears or dog nose, reads the press release.
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TikTok has not revealed specific plans to safeguard this new policy against people lying about their age. It does, however, plan to utilize machine learning to detect younger users from accessing the platform. The effectiveness of this remains to be seen.
Social Media Giants Seek to Curb Abusive Imagery
This announcement forms part of a general crackdown on teenagers accessing TikTok. The platform will also introduce machine learning to detect younger users who are lying about their age.
Teenagers’ safety is top of mind for several high-profile social media companies. Last week, Roblox, the gaming platform that boasts 90 million daily users, announced that younger users would be banned from accessing “violent, crude, and scary content” as concerns over child exploitation mount.
Meta, meanwhile, recently unveiled “teen accounts” for under-18s, which give parents more control over their children’s activities. Also this week, Australia announced a total social media ban for users under 16.
TikTok Walking The Tightrope
The matter of young people using social media continues to divide opinion. With AI-enabled “sexploitation” on the rise, major platforms are moving to curb the production of abusive imagery – while also limiting the time that teenagers spend on their platforms.
While promising, these measures could be interpreted as an admission of defeat on behalf of the major social networking sites. Generative AI, which is evolving at a scarcely believable rate, poses a unique risk for young people – and the workers tasked with inoculating them against the potential threat. A recent report by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) found that online child abuse rose by over 12% in 2023 compared with the previous year, with AI a significant driver.
Logically, this problem will only continue to unfold, with sites such as TikTok and Meta traversing a precarious line between safeguarding their younger users and turning people away from their platforms. With 25% of TikTok users in the 10-19 age bracket, the company can scarcely afford to dismiss its younger audience.
