#Silhouettechallenge is a trend that went viral on TikTok recently and involves dancing provocatively as a silhouette while details of your body are obscured by a red filter. But beware: creeps are using software and editing techniques to remove this red filter, which means that your trendy video can reveal much more than you intended.
The Silhouette Challenge started as an idea to promote body positivity. Participants, most of whom appear to be women, first film themselves (usually at a door) fully dressed with a remix of Paul Anka’s classical music “Put Your Head on My Shoulder”. When the “fall” occurs in the remix, the video is cut and replaced by a red filtered view of the dancing person’s silhouette. To create a better silhouette, participants generally dance in various states of nudity, assuming that the red filter protects their privacy.
here’s a tutorial for anyone who wants to do the #silhouettechallenge pic.twitter.com/KnYuarZkBj
– and. (@eral__) January 27, 2021
When #silhouettechallenge took off on TikTok, some people found that the red filter could be reduced or removed by tweaking common image / video editing settings, such as color, saturation, contrast and brightness.
Tutorials on how to do this with #silhouettechallenge videos started to appear on YouTube and across the web.
Others have started to use social media to alert people to this risk. Here is a warning shared by photographer Kai Lee:
@lostvsnryshots PSA TO ALL THE QUEENS ✨ #silhouettechallenge #silhouette #PSA #queensupportqueens #tiktoktrends #fotografia # photoshoot #phototricks
♬ Put your head on my shoulder – Giulia Di Nicolantonio
“Be aware of what you’re wearing before actually editing the final product, because anyone can take these images and easily revert to the original,” said Lee.
Internet services, like Google and Reddit, are actively working to block the upload of edited videos #silhouettechallenge.
“TikTok videos that contain nudity cannot be uploaded to YouTube again as they violate our adult content policies,” said a Google spokesman Rolling Stone. “In addition, we will remove content uploaded to YouTube that has been altered to reveal the bodies of participants in a way that was not intended by the original uploader.”
If you are thinking of using smart editing techniques to obscure anything sensitive in a photo or video you post online, you should think twice and assume that your privacy is not as protected as you think.
(via Rolling Stone via DIYP)
Image credits: Header illustration based on Lantay77 image and licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0.