TikTok-Fail: Automatically activated filter made faces “prettier”

Beauty standards
No option to switch off: TikTok places filters on users’ faces without permission

TikTok is especially popular with teenagers and young adults.

© Tashatuvango / Shutterstock

Tori Dawn likes authenticity on social media. But she notices: TikTok puts a filter over her face that makes her look completely different – without asking and without the possibility of turning off the effect. And Dawn isn’t the only one with the problem.

“That’s not my face,” remarked Tori Dawn when she opened TikTok in late May and shared a video about the problem. Her jaw seemed wrong on the screen – the face was slimmer and more feminine. When she covered most of her face with her hand, her jaw seemed to be normal again, as shown in a video and reported by the MIT Technology Review.

It looked like her face was being adulterated by a beauty filter in the app. And that even though all filters were switched off. She couldn’t find a way to turn the effect off. TikTok seemed to permanently feminize Dawn’s features – without asking her permission.

Filters are part of everyday life on TikTok and Instagram

Beauty filters have become an integral part of online presentations. They allow users to change the face they present to the world on social media. Filters can enlarge eyes, plump lips, apply makeup, change the shape of the face, purify skin, and change colors.

Usually, however, this is something that users can choose from within. It’s not actually being forced on them – that’s why Dawn and others who had encountered this strange effect were so angry and worried about it.

Involuntarily “pimped up”

“My face is pretty androgynous and I like my jawline,” Dawn told Technology Review in an interview. When she noticed her jaw was tightening, she thought, “Why should you do this? Why?” It’s one of the few things she likes about her face. She couldn’t understand the beauty filter.

Dawn told her followers about it in a video and showed the effect popping up on the screen and then disappearing when she covered her eyes: “I don’t feel comfortable making videos because I don’t look like that, and I don’t know how to fix it. ” The video has been viewed more than 350,000 times and shared by other users who noticed the same thing.

Bug has been fixed

The “Technology Review” author Abby Ohlheiser tried it out with her own smartphone: a direct hit. A beauty filter was also placed over her face without being able to switch off or asking. Friends and acquaintances also noticed the problem: predominantly with Android phones.

The author turned to TikTok. Two days later the problem was resolved and the effect no longer existed. The company later confirmed in a brief statement, according to Technology Review, that there was a problem that it had fixed. The company did not provide any further details.

Psychological consequences of filter effects

PhD student Amy Niu is studying the psychological effects of beauty filters at the University of Wisconsin. Having beauty filters in an app isn’t necessarily a bad thing, she told Technology Review. App designers, however, should not ignore the fact that they have a responsibility to the users. How filters would be used could change people themselves.

Temporary errors could also affect how people see themselves. Such effects could, for example, intensify some users’ concerns about their own appearance. Furthermore, it contributes greatly to internalizing harmful standards of beauty, explains Niu.

For Dawn, the weird effect was just one more thing added to the list of frustrations with TikTok: “It reminded me a lot of a relationship with a narcissist because they bombard you with love in the minute they give you all of these Followers and all that attention and it feels so good, “she said. And then for some reason they’d just drop you, Dawn describes.

swell: “MIT Technology Review” / TikTok

https: // This article originally appeared on stern.de.

eli / star