How international cosmetic gurus are driving girls towards surgery on TikTok

‘Just 0.5mls of botox could change your whole face!’ These are the sorts of convincing messages inundating the phones of young women and driving them in droves to cosmetic surgery. Now experts say enough is enough.

Young women are being bombarded with ads for cosmetic surgery on social media platforms as experts call for an urgent intervention in marketing the procedures to impressionable young people.

Customers no longer need to walk past a salon window to be enticed down a rabbit hole of cosmetic changes with surgeons and specialists bombarding them through their phone screens.

Users from countries with lax advertising laws, like America, are being allowed to influence users in Australia who experts say then search for the procedures close to home.

The Daily Telegraph created a TikTok account to see how a simple search for lip fillers — the most common form of injectables being used by Australian women — would eventuate into a barrage of other cosmetic procedures an individual could undergo.

When the user searched and liked a few videos of people getting lip fillers, their TikTok feed slowly began being inundated with lip filler videos and reviews.

Young women are being bombarded with ads for cosmetic surgery on social media platforms. Picture: Supplied

TikTok has hundreds of videos of people documenting their cosmetic journey. Picture: Supplied

Alarmingly, the feed then slowly started showing videos of other cosmetic procedures including nose jobs, chin filler, thinning your jawline, surgery to remove under eye bags and eyebrow extensions without the user searching for any of these products.

The more videos a user liked, the more videos appeared showing all the other ways going under the knife could fix your appearance.

Mental health and cybersecurity experts say there is more the government can do to haul platforms into line and force both social media influencers.

“There are really clear guidelines about doctors around advertising and a lot of those TikTok videos would breach the AHPRA guidelines,” cybersecurity expert Susan McLean said.

“But the laws about advertising medical services are different in America. I can remember when I have been in the states, there are billboards everywhere advertising cosmetic doctors. We don‘t have that in Australia.

The trends have prompted calls from experts for the government to intervene. Picture: Supplied

“When the (American) content comes on your TikTok, you won‘t fly to America to have surgery but you will find someone here.”

Ms McLean said social media platforms should be subject to the same regulation as print media but a lot of cosmetic doctors were evading the rules by creating content instead of clear advertising.

“There should be tighter regulation on advertising. It should be mandated that that is a feature of the post,” she said.

The videos are not paid advertising but experts say are effective marketing anyway. Picture: Supplied

Psychiatrist Professor Ian Hickie said the next generation was growing up with a very distorted view of what is “normal”.

“We are being pushed to a very unusual and abnormal idea of a normal body, a normal face and you should be seeking to change,” he said.

“It‘s abnormal for an Anglo-Saxon to have very large lips … it’s a very dangerous movement.

Prof Hickie said research showed that people were increasingly engaging in cosmetic procedures at a younger age.

“Advertising does work. It creates the impression that everyone is doing it. Many of us assume that we aren’t influenced by such things but we are,” he said.

TikTok country policy manager Jed Horner said the platform does not allowed paid ads for invasive cosmetic procedures and unpaid ads, like those seen by the Telegraph, are not shown to those under 18.

“Our Community Guidelines state that, for all content, showing or promoting cosmetic surgery that does not include risk warnings, including before-and-after images, videos of surgical procedures, and messages discussing elective cosmetic surgery are ineligible for the For You Feed of all users under the age of 18.”

Earlier this year the federal government launched a national campaign across digital and social media urging them to use government resources to ensure their cosmetic procedures are safe.