TikTok removes controversial ‘chubby’ filter after backlash
Screengrab from dennismccann_/TikTok
TikTok has removed a controversial “chubby” filter that sparked backlash, with users calling it “toxic,” “cruel” and a form of “body shaming.”
The filter, uploaded by CapCut, used artificial intelligence to edit a person’s appearance to simulate weight gain.
Although CapCut is a separate app, it shares the same parent company with TikTok, the Chinese tech giant ByteDance.
Following the online backlash over promoting weight-based stereotypes, TikTok told BBC that the filter has been pulled from CapCut.
The social media platform also said it “was reviewing videos uploaded to the app that used the effect, and was making them ineligible for recommendation and blocking them from teen accounts.”
TikTok’s ‘chubby filter’ is less about fun and more about fat-shaming with AI flair. Who knew progress meant inventing new ways to mock people? 2025: where filters evolve but empathy doesn’t pic.twitter.com/QedkQUDu0O
— Jeremy Martinus (@JeremyMartinus) March 21, 2025
“It’s definitely a step in the right direction,” said content creator Sadie Bass, who criticized the filter on social media.
“I’m happy that TikTok did that, because ultimately social media should be a fun, lighthearted place, not somewhere where you get bullied for how you look.”
Bass was among the many content creators who advocated for the “chubby” filter to be banned, calling it “mean.”
The 29-year-old content creator from Bristol with 66,000 followers has posted a video sharing her frustration.
“It made me want to scream,” she said in the clip, which has amassed over 650,000 views.
“Why are you acting like being fat is the worst thing in the world?”
Her clip resonated with TikTok users. One viewer commented, “It’s absolutely destroying me emotionally.”
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Another viewer wrote, “It does feel like we’ve gone backwards to the toxic late 90s – early 2000s.”
Experts also weighed in on the issue. Food and nutrition scientist Dr. Emma Beckett told BBC, “It’s just the same old false stereotypes and tropes about people in larger bodies being lazy and flawed, and something to be desperately avoided.”
Beckett said the filter’s impact goes beyond social media aesthetics, saying it was “a huge step backwards” in the battle against weight stigma.
