Plain Jane To Bold Glamor: TikTok Filter Takes Over Social Media, But Not For All The Good Reasons

A filter on ByteDance-owned video-sharing app TikTok is going viral on social media, but not without some heavy criticism. 

What Happened: The “Bold Glamor” filter basically transforms users’ plain, natural faces into glamorous ones — and while it may seem like any filter online designed to zhuzh up users’ looks, it’s receiving flak for messing with teenage girls’ “mental health.”

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The Bold Glamor filter sharpens users’ chin, airbrushes their skin, fills in eyebrows and brightens cheeks — creating a natural but not-so-natural impression of how someone would look with picture-perfect makeup. 

Netizens are calling out the filter on social media, saying it makes them feel they need to obtain “a certain standard of beauty.” Others say the filter increases the “chances of getting catfished” on Tinder, a popular online dating app. 

In a nutshell, netizens don’t seem to approve of a world where having an airbrushed face is perceived as perfection and anything less than that is just plain and not appealing. 

Why It’s Important: At first look, it appears that the Bold Glamor filter is based on AI-powered tools making the face transformations harder to detect. TikTok rolled out a new set of AI filter tools last month, but the company has not clarified whether AI is also behind the popularity of Bold Glamor, reported The Verge.  

Earlier this week, TikTok announced that it will now automatically limit the screen time for users under 18 to 60 minutes to mitigate the addictive nature of the app and to address concerns about its impact on minors. 

However, this social media app would need to pay attention to a few more concerns. 

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