Over the years, there has been much controversy regarding the role of social media in people’s lives and how it affects mental health. This topic has been argued enough to the point that even the NCBI conducted an official study with the conclusion that individuals can have their anxiety and depression triggered by their social media activity – specifically their peers. As the saying goes, “comparison is the thief of joy.” To combat this issue, the UK has proposed a new bill that requires paid social media influencers/models to explicitly state if their photos have gone through Photoshop or other editing software.

This proposal is titled the Digitally Altered Image Bill. According to a report by HYPEBEAST, its provisions state that any influencer posting a photo on behalf of a paid advertisement must indicate whether the photo has been edited, if it has been. This is similar to rules to include the hashtag #paid or #sponsored, possibly to set realistic standards for the more lavish depictions of life.

Image courtesy of Youth Reporter

The brain behind this is Dr. Luke Evans, who had this to say in his Twitter thread: “These edited images do not represent reality, and are helping to perpetuate a warped sense of how we appear, with real consequences for people suffering with body confidence issues, which I’ve seen first-hand in my role as a GP.”

They aren’t the first ones to do this, as Norway implemented something similar fairly recently. There are hopes that this effort becomes a worldwide movement for the betterment of human society as a whole.

Despite this valiant effort by the UK to defend its citizens from photos that underwent some Photoshop editing, some issues still remain. Besides the fact that this bill is still being reviewed by the relevant authorities, it also doesn’t cover personal photos. It would also be ridiculously difficult to monitor anyone’s non-compliance with these regulations – it could possibly even lead to witch-hunting and cyberbullying of innocent people who look slightly different due to cameras or angles. If those situations arise as a result of this bill, then it would just have gone full circle back to its mental health issues.

*Featured image is entirely courtesy of Kirsten Ulve