Former Bigg Boss participant Vaishnavi called out an Instagram filter that allows people to do reel videos that romanticises fair skin and degrades people with dark skin. Vaishnavi wanted Instagram to ban the filter and requested her followers to report the filter under hate speech/bullying. She believed that the filter promotes racism and expressed her displeasure over the youths of the current generation normalizing it.

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Vaishnavi Prasath, granddaughter of Saavi’s Sa. Viswanathan, who is a senior journalist and the founder of the magazine Saavi, was working as a journalist and Radio jockey. She rose to fame among Tamil television and Internet audience for her participation in the popular reality show which was hosted by Kamal Haasan. After completing her participation, Vaishnavi ot married to her long time boyfriend and pilot Anjan during the mid June of 2019.

She who is pretty much active in the micro blogging social media site, on Saturday, came up with a series of tweets, calling out a particular filter that was provided by Instagram application. Reels is the latest feature added by Instagram as a replacement for the Tik Tok which got banned by the Indian government. The feature lets users of the photo/video posting app to sync their videos for the popular audios and is being widely used by the youngsters.

The latest filter that was provided by Instagram to reels, makes people to see the “dark skinned” version of them. Using the filter, many youngsters started doing videos, denoting that they are feeling low ehile being “dark” and feels proud with their “fair” skin as the filter allows the transformation few seconds before the end.

Sharing a couple of reel videos of Instagram users, Vaishnavi called out Instagram and demanded them to ban the filter. “There’s an actual blackface filter that ends up showing you differently towards the end when you shoot a reel on Instagram and Indian people are doing this like some Fair and lovely ad shit and glorifying it what is wrong with people!” Vaishnavi said in her tweet.

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She went on to add “In almost all the videos first the person looks sad that they are darker, and they touch their face and look at their hands. Then they turn back to their original “fair” color and look happy.” in her next tweet and expressed her frustration by concluding “No seriously what is this racist fair and lovely shit, @instagram please ban this goddamn filter and trend”. Vaishnavi also shared a girl’s video which garnered 2 million plus views and requested her followers to report the filter under bullying/ hate speech.

Check out her series of tweets below :

In almost all the videos first the person looks sad that they are darker, and they touch their face and look at their hands. Then they turn back to their original "fair" color and look happy. pic.twitter.com/0Y5ZzcyRO4

— Valia Babycats 🏳️‍🌈 (@Vaishnavioffl) July 24, 2021

This video has 2.2 million views. What the actual fuck. pic.twitter.com/Wkc0bBbkzf

— Valia Babycats 🏳️‍🌈 (@Vaishnavioffl) July 24, 2021

Two more filters by the same creator that do the same thing. Please report these also. Thanks for the info @primaveron pic.twitter.com/7XhVQCLT85

— Valia Babycats 🏳️‍🌈 (@Vaishnavioffl) July 24, 2021

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Many of her followers who felt the same way, dropped comments condemning the filter provided by Instagram.

I can't even. That they would allow this to trend 🤢🤢🤢

— Valia Babycats 🏳️‍🌈 (@Vaishnavioffl) July 24, 2021

Deep rooted racism that's what it is.

— Valia Babycats 🏳️‍🌈 (@Vaishnavioffl) July 24, 2021

It's impossible for a platform to regulate it's userbase to this level. I say screw these kids, we'd have better success if we educate these users rather than expecting Instagram to do something!

— jatin (@hendrix1690) July 24, 2021

Instagram should ban this feature in India , this feather will only make people uncomfortable against black or brown people , there should be no hatred or disgust against any race

— Jayesh Gandhi (@JayeshG61575020) July 24, 2021

Thanks for exposing this shit, sending you lots blessings 🤗🤗🙏🙏🙏

— Ritik Verma (@iaminclined) July 24, 2021