TikTok will block beauty filters for teens over mental health concerns

TikTok is placing age restrictions on some of its beauty filters to address concerns about how they impact the mental health of its teenage users. Some of the changes rolling out “in the coming weeks” include preventing under-18s from using certain appearance-altering effects, and expanding filter descriptions to specify what the filters adjust when applied.

The press release says that age restrictions won’t apply to filter effects that are “designed to be obvious and funny,” such as adding animal ears or comically exaggerating certain features. The change likely aims to address beautifying effects like Bold Glamour that give users smoother skin, longer eyelashes, and slimmer faces — which can be more difficult to detect.

As the announcement was made at TikTok’s European Safety Forum in Dublin and published on TikTok’s European newsroom, it’s unclear if these updates will be rolling out globally. We’ve asked TikTok to clarify where the new restrictions will be applied.

The changes are being introduced in response to a report from the children’s online safety non-profit Internet Matters, which found that “beautifying filters contributed to a distorted worldview in which perfected images are normalized.” Children were often unable to tell when images had been altered, according to the report, and faced “significant social pressure” to look a certain way online.

New resources will also be introduced to 13 unspecified European countries “in the coming weeks” that will connect users who report content for suicide, self-harm, hate, and harassment concerns to relevant local helplines. According to TikTok, the platform now has over 175 million monthly active users in Europe.

“There’s no finish line when it comes to safety and security, and we will continue to learn from our community, partner with experts and strive to do even better,” Christine Grahn, TikTok’s European public policy head, said on LinkedIn. “If our users don’t feel safe, they won’t bring their true selves to TikTok and the platform just wouldn’t be the same.”

TikTok is also exploring new machine-learning technologies that can detect accounts made by users who are under 13 — the minimum age permitted to use the platform. The company says that users who have their accounts deleted will be able to appeal “if they think we’ve made a mistake,” and that it removes around six million accounts globally each year that don’t meet its minimum age requirements.