TikTok is making some changes to the filters that are being used in videos on their platform.
The social media platform previously showcased videos that included an artificial intelligence (AI) filter called the “chubby filter” which was first created by a user on the editing app CapCut to make those using the filter look larger. The videos made using CapCut were then re-posted on TikTok.
CapCut and TikTok are both owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.
The filter was largely used by thinner influencers showing an unedited photo of themselves before the filter was slowly added as the song “Anxiety” by Doechii played in the background.
The “chubby filter” was quick to spark backlash amongst X users who felt the filter was being used to make fun of larger-sized people and to perpetuate the idea that the only way to be viewed as “pretty” or “beautiful” is to also be thin.
“The ‘chubby filter’ on tiktok should NOT be trending and the comments people are making when posting to it are so damaging. makes me so incredibly sad that ‘trends’ like this are still circulating???” one person wrote on X.
There’s an amaaazing new trend on TikTok where skinny girls use a filter to become “chubby” and laugh laugh at the results and everyone else laughs and it’s sooooooo funny and we definitely aren’t spiralling back down to pro ana death to fats era that damages every young woman pic.twitter.com/p2SsnmSNTb
— Bec Shaw (@Brocklesnitch) March 17, 2025
Another user agreed, writing, “There’s a new tiktok filter that makes you chubby. People are using it, laughing, comparing themselves to other fat people, saying how disgusting they look. So damaging. All fat people do is exist. We get made fun of everyday on some level for being ‘fat’. I’m just existing.”
One woman on TikTok named Sadie Bass went viral on the platform after her response to the trend prior to CapCut’s removal of the filter. “Why are you acting like being fat is the worst thing in the world?” she said in her video with over 600,000 views, adding that the filter made her “want to scream.”
“Literally when did we start body shaming again?” the caption added. “Why are we going backwards in 2025!!!”
A spokesperson for TikTok confirmed to The Independent that the filter had been removed from CapCut and the platform is currently reviewing videos uploaded to TikTok that use the filter making them ineligible for recommendation, and blocking them from teen accounts.
TikTok will also be removing any videos that violate their community guidelines such as those that promote harmful body idealization.
Following the filter’s removal, Bass posted a follow-up TikTok in which she mentioned how happy she was. “So important to recognize the damaging effects it can have, no one deserves to see their body being ridiculed,” she wrote in her TikTok’s caption.
“Thank you to every single person who spoke up & commented because we made this change happen.”
The news comes just a few months after TikTok announced it would restrict specific beauty filters for minors including the popular “Bold Glamor” filter, which bronzes the skin tone, gives your eyebrow a high arch, chisels your jawline, and makes your lips thicker.
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