‘Highly concerning’: Solarium black market thrives on TikTok

Experts are calling for the social media giant to remove all videos promoting the use of solariums from its platform.

Experts are calling for the social media platform to remove all videos promoting the use of solariums from the platform.

The Melanoma Institute of Australia (MIA) has called for TikTok to scrap hundreds of videos spruiking solariums from the platform, claiming users “glamorising” tanning on social media is toxic to young Australians.

The social platform hosts videos promoting the use of commercially-owned solarium stores, which have been illegal in Australia since January 1, 2015.

Hundreds of videos of people using their personal sun beds have flooded the app, sparking concerns that young Australians will rush to buy them. It is not illegal to own a personal sun bed in Australia.

@byrokko

Works in tanning beds as well! #tanning#shinebrown #solarium #viral

♬ original sound - ByRokko | ShineBrown

MIA CEO Matthew Browne told The Oz he expects TikTok to remove all videos glorifying personal or commercial sun beds from its platform.

“We call for the removal of any promotion of a sun bed, on the basis they cause damage and can lead to melanoma,” Browne said.  “If there was any promotion of sun beds used for tanning we would ask for that to be removed.”

An illegal Melbourne-based solarium advertising on TikTok. Picture: Supplied

Browne said the MIA was “aware” the locations of illegal solariums “must be posted online”, but was also concerned about users promoting their privately owned sun beds.

“There is no question that sun beds and the UV coming from the sun beds cause sunburn which causes melanoma,” Browne said.

“Social media is big with a young age bracket, and that’s an area we want to target to stop them from tanning.”

When asked by The Oz whether they were working to remove videos promoting illegal solarium shops from the platform, a TikTok representative said the company was unable to “find any examples of Australian businesses advertising solariums.”

But when The Oz pointed the representative in the right direction, TikTok deleted one of the accounts promoting an illegal solarium business and said: “When content is brought to our attention we will assess it against our Community Guidelines, which is what we did in this case, and subsequently removed it.”

Earlier this year the MIA pleaded with influencers to stop glamorising sun tanning online and instead encourage sun safety, claiming casual references to sunburn and tanning on the internet normalise behaviours that “feed melanoma”.

QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute skin cancer specialist Ken Dutton-Regester told The Oz it was “highly concerning” that illegal solarium stores were advertised on social media.

@badbarbyy

#solarium #sunbed #tanned #fyp

♬ Love You So - The King Khan & BBQ Show

“Anything that increases your exposure to ultraviolet radiation is dangerous because it can increase the mutations in your skin, and with increased mutations that leads to increased rates of skin damage, including a range of different cancers - basal cell carcinomas, squamous cell carcinomas and also melanomas,” Dr Dutton-Regester said.

“The rise of TikTok promoting these is pretty concerning, because it’s just another path or avenue for people to over expose themselves to UV.

“What’s probably even more concerning is the fact these machines may not have been serviced because they’re out of commercial use, and so there’s some potential dangers there.