TikTok prepares to ban videos that encourage tanning and instead add educational content to the platform, following warnings issued by medical experts in Australia, where skin cancer, melanoma, is unfortunately widespread Melanoma Institute medical co-directors Australia's Georgina Long and Richard Scolyer sounded the alarm in Tik Tok's reference to its popular #sunburntchallenge hashtag challenge for the best tans, which encouraged dangerous levels of sun or lamp exposure, through specific hashtags and challenges.
Tik Tok's new campaign highlights that Australia has the highest incidence of melanoma in the world and users who search for words like 'beach', 'tan' or 'summer sun' and similar hashtags, will also see a banner pop -up for an anti-tan campaign.
The campaign also encourages users to create videos with personal stories about being safe under the sun.
"Hopefully we can save lives," said Tik Tok Australia's general manager, Lee Hunter, assuring that the company would evaluate tanning videos and remove any that contravene medical guidelines.