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Meta has announced third-party augmented reality (AR) filters will no longer be available on its apps as of January 2025. This means more than 2 million user-made filters offered across WhatsApp, Facebook and, most notably, Instagram will disappear.

Filters have become a mainstay feature on Instagram. The most viral of these—which often involve beautifying the user's appearance—are created by users themselves via the Meta Spark Studio.

But the use of beautifying AR filters has long been connected to worsened mental health and body image problems in young women.

In theory, the removal of the vast majority of Instagram filters should signal a turning point for unrealistic beauty standards. However, the removal comes far too late, and the move is more likely to instead push filter use underground.

Much like the newly announced teen accounts for Instagram, retracting and altering technologies years after the use has been encouraged offers little more than a band-aid approach.

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