At the height of the pandemic, Neveen Radwan said her teenage daughter started searching for workout videos on Instagram and TikTok to stay in shape.
“Initially, we had no idea what was going on until it was too late,” Radwan said.
But then she said things got better.
Radwan said her then 15-year-old daughter was diagnosed with anorexia later that year.
“It's a video about how to eat less than 500 calories a day, so-called 'what to eat a day,'” Radwan said. “For example…if you can't ride on a baby swing, you're not skinny.”
“There were times when I really didn't think she would make it,” she said. “The fact that she's going to college now, at one point we didn't really think she'd make it to college either. So we're grateful for that. But it's a work in progress. It’s a process.”
Now, Radwan and other parents are scared of a new trend: fake influencers created by artificial intelligence.
In an open letter, the national nonprofit Parents Together called on TikTok's CEO to clearly identify AI-generated influencers. Parents worry that these accounts are promoting unrealistic health and beauty standards.
“Mixing these virtual influencers into an environment that already exists, where influencers with perfect skin and perfect bodies and fitness routines to match are actually just code and real people. This environment is even more difficult for kids online because they can't tell when something is not,” said Shelby Knox, Campaign Director at ParentsTogether.
On TikTok's public explore page, most of the AI-generated influencer search results are people talking about trends.
A spokesperson told the Washington News Bureau that TikTok now requires creators to label all AI-generated content, including realistic images, audio and video. In September, it also released tools to help creators provide context to their viewers.
TikTok also told the station that it is working on technology that would automatically label content that it detects has been edited by artificial intelligence.
But Knox believes users should be able to easily identify these videos.
“You don’t have to go to a profile, you don’t have to look at hashtags. If that influencer shows up and you think, oh, this is an AI influencer, you can tell your kids how to interact with that account differently. We can talk,” Knox said.
Next week on Capitol Hill, five CEOs of major tech companies will face tough questions from Congress about their policies to protect children online.