TikTok is going through a big blow. The app has been roundly accused of being designed to create addiction and doing little to prevent it. It is also facing an investigation by the European Commission over its design and the apparent lack of transparency and effectiveness of its age verification tools.

This is a complex situation and in the face of such a storm, the app chose to take preventive measures. One of these has to do with a key part of the user experience: beauty filters, which will no longer be available to minors.

TikTok data. As the company announced, TikTok has 175 million monthly users in the European Union. At the European Security Forum event held at TikTok’s offices in Dublin these days, the company claimed to have invested €2 billion globally in efforts to “keep our community safe” and, coincidentally, announced a number of measures related to this. protection of the youngest.

13 years. This is the minimum age that the user must be to be able to use the application. According to TikTok, approximately six million accounts are deleted every month for not meeting this requirement. In this sense, the company is exploring “how new machine learning technology can improve our efforts to prevent children under 13 from being on our platform.”

Filters for adults. First of all, TikTok cited a study (commissioned by them) that stated that “teens and parents find it helpful to be authentic online and recognize the positive impact of belonging and connection online.” But the report also found that “teens and their parents are concerned about ‘appearance’ effects, such as viewers of content not realizing that the content has been modified.”

On TikTok, some are as innocent as a cat-shaped hat and others are, for example, making us look older, changing facial features, etc. There are all kinds of filters and effects that can completely transform our appearance, such as. Now TikTok will “limit the use of some skin effects to teens under 18.” The definition is vague (“some effects of appearance”), but it is at least a first step.

Likewise, TikTok will provide more information about how effects can change the appearance when applied and update its resources to let creators know the possible negative effects of their creations.

TikTok interface | Image: Xataka

Difficulty remains the same. And it is the early detection of minors. Knowing how old a potential user is and protecting their privacy is a technological challenge. While on paper you might think this would be as easy as uploading a picture of your ID card, the reality is much more complicated. A working group from the European Commission is working to develop a solution that respects privacy, but this solution will likely take some time to arrive.

The measures are good, but their correct implementation still depends on something that is not easy to achieve.

study. This revelation comes at the same time as a new study by Pompeu Fabra University in collaboration with the Open University of Catalonia. This study, published in the journal Nature, states that one in five young people spend more than two hours a day on TikTok, thus exceeding the threshold at which they may experience mental health problems.

The research is based on a survey of 1,043 young people aged 12 to 18 from all over Spain. 20.22% of men spend more than two hours on the app; For girls, this rate increases to 24.37%. “In this sense, many previous studies have confirmed that using social networks for more than two hours a day is associated with low self-confidence, negative perception of one’s own mental health or increased risk in terms of body image, “due to psychological stress or suicidal ideation,” explains the UOC.

Some of the Tiktok filters that change the appearance | Capture: Xataka

Filters. This study focuses on compulsive use of the app, but there are also interesting cases of the impact filters have or can have on our self-esteem and perception. One of these was the Bold Glamor filter, which changed the feminine appearance by adding thicker lips, a made-up look, eye shadow and raised eyebrows, giving an unreal and stereotypical appearance that triggered plastic surgery operations.

As cognitive behavioral psychologist and anxiety disorders expert Francisco Tabernero explained to Xataka, the problem with the image projected on social networks is that “it becomes a reference system for calculating your personal value.”

Dozens of new studies show that filters make users look unattractive and lead to greater distrust, worsening their psychological health. This researchfor example, when shown to girls ages 14 to 18, it found that: selfies They were less satisfied with themselves and their bodies because they were original and retouched. This other study by the aforementioned UOC determined that such filters can lead to body dysmorphic disorder (or BDD), a distorted perception of our own image, which can lead to the development of obsessive-compulsive behaviors.

Cover image | Xataka

in Xataka | If you can’t trust happiness to last very long, TikTok has a diagnosis: you’re seeing “strange lamps”