Over the past decade, social media has gone from crazy dog ​​lenses to over-the-top beauty filters. The latter is at the heart of a new initiative from TikTok – the company that is currently being sued in 14 US states for negatively affecting the mental health of young people. TikTok is now taking a step to reduce young people’s access to these appearance-altering effects, with the platform announcing new restrictions on Tuesday around which filters will be available to users under 18 years old.

TikTok limits anyone in this age group’s use of “some appearance effects,” a vague promise whose scope will determine whether it actually helps young people or just TikTok’s image. The company also plans to expand how much information each filter should have about changes in a person’s appearance. Additionally, TikTok is “refreshing” its guidelines for creators in its TikTok Effects House on the impact certain filters can have – again vague, so we’ll have to see if it’s just talk or actually useful.

Then there’s the matter of finding and banning users under the age of 13. The company claims to delete six million accounts worldwide every month of users it suspects are underage. Now TikTok is also “exploring” how to use machine learning for technology to detect accounts operated by those under 13 years old, then sent to a moderator for confirmation. A TikTok spokesperson confirmed to Engadget that the company will initially test this in Britain, while the filtering restrictions and guidelines should be rolled out globally in the coming weeks and months.