Does Snapchat beauty filters really trigger colorism?

It’s good to play around Snapchat beauty filters and get a quick whitewash as well. But some others see it more like a form of body shaming!

It was not late when Snapchat got slammed for a Bob Marley filter where a few said it as a form of blackface, the platform is caught again. This time, Snapchat is in news for its filters, which some people says as whitewashing user’s skin tones.

As soon as Snapchat’s flower crown filters released during the time of Coachella, users who weren’t the part of Coachella found it as a great way and interesting idea to fake-join the fun. But just when people paid a closer look to the way the filter works – it was something more than a mere beauty-filter.

When observed from close, the crown filter not only adds a pretty flower crown to your photos, it also aims at improving or more exactly enhancing user’s specific facial features.

The feature includes lightening user’s skin and eyes as well. What fears some people is a sense of colorism triggered by such a filter. It forms a prejudice among people where a lighter skin tone is often taken as a more desirable one than the darker skin.

Given the Snapchat’s intent to only beautify the user experience with this filter, what’s interesting to find out becomes – are Snapchat beauty filters spreading a wrong message to people?