TikTok Silhouette Challenge Red Filter Being Monetized by Youtube? [Report]

Urian B., Tech Times 03 February 2021, 09:02 pm

For a couple of weeks now, a new trend that is called the #silhouettechallenge has widely been going viral on the app TikTok. This challenge uses a remix to Paul Anka's song "Put Your Head on My Shoulder." The participants of this trend (mostly women but not all of them) would stand in front of the camera where they are fully clothed, then change and stand in their doorway with a silhouette red filter while dancing provocatively and also showing off their own body parts.

TikTok Silhouette Challenge

According to the story by RollingStones, this particular trend was originally intended to be some sort of sexy and body-positive challenge. However, the trend was then hijacked by certain individuals who ended up using a particular software or softwares in order to remove the red filter from the trending videos in order to reveal the women's exposed body in full whether they are clothed or not.

Although the original subreddit that featured how to edit the TikTok videos has been officially banned on Reddit, there are now a lot of videos on YouTube providing instructionals teaching people how they should edit the said videos. Some of the said videos already have hundreds of thousands of views with at least six of those videos being feature ads.

Silhouette Challenge no filter

This indicates just how much the videos are monetized, per a recent review that was shared with the Rolling Stone by Media Matters. The most popular of the controversial videos now has over 468,000 views uploaded by HowTo Do It on YouTube and most of those videos are uploaded by particular tech product review and hack channels.

The search query shows that people are now apparently searching for the particular term "how to remove red light silhouette" more frequently. As the tutorials have started piling up, a lot of creators have now started taking it to TikTok to warn other women against trying to participate in this challenge while also urging them to pay even more attention to what they are wearing should they choose to participate in this challenge.

Silhouette Challenge filter removed

Over on social media,. A number of people have started to adopt the new victim-blaming reasoning that if a certain person is featured in the given video either dancing nude or partially closed, even if the user has decided to edit them as to not expose their own bodies, they still do not have a reasonable expectation towards privacy if there is someone else taking the initiative to remove the TikTok filter then proceed to repost the given images.

Danielle Citron, a particular professor of law at the Boston University Law School, disagrees with this statement. She stated that the participants in the particular #SilhouetteChallenge who have now been violated in this way could have a particular legal recourse under the said public disclosure of the private fact tort. This addresses the publication of an individual's own private information that is said to be not a legitimate concern towards the public.