TikTok Bold Glamour filter

Occurred: March 2023

A TikTok filter was accused of distorting reality, reinforcing unattainable beauty standards, and causing anxiety, leading beauty professionals and others to call for it to be banned.

Luanched in March 2023, TikTok's Bold Glamour offered users a flawless complexion and irons out skin spots and was downloaded millions of times and embraced enthusiatically by teenage girls and others.

Beauty professionals railed against it, with some calling it 'profoundly disturbing' and warning it could easily impact users' mental health. Beauty brand Dove encouraged users to post videos turning their backs on the filter using hashtags such as #TurnYourBack and #NoDigitalDistortion.

TikTok had previously been found to have automatically touched up the videos of some users' faces without notifiying them or asking for their consent.

Operator: Bytedance/TikTok
Developer: Bytedance/TikTok
Country: USA; Global
Sector: Media/entertainment/sports/arts
Purpose: Create flawless complexion
Technology: Machine learning
Issue: Safety
Transparency: Marketing

Page info
Type: Incident
Published: March 2023