Effect Guidelines

General Submission Guidelines

Effects must comply with TikTok’s Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Community Guidelines, TikTok Effect House Beta Test Agreement, the below effect guidelines, and all future policies governing the use of our service. TikTok reserves the right to reject or remove any effects that do not comply with the above terms, policies, or guidelines.

Branded Effects

Community Effects may not include brand logos or any branding assets, unless given explicit permission by the brand or IP holder.

Unlike Branded Effects, Community Effects also may not include CTA links. However, Community Effects may be boosted to a wider audience with Spark Ads. Learn more about the differences between Community and Branded Effects. To learn more about the process for publishing a Branded Effect, please get in touch with your account manager or contact the TikTok for Business team.

Technical Requirements

Device	Loading Time	Package Size	Image Size	Image Dimension
iOS	Max 4 sec	Max 8 MB	Max 1024 KB	Max 1024 x 1024 px
Android	Max 4 sec	Max 8 MB	Max 1024 KB	Max 1024 x 1024 px

• Blank screen: The effect should not contain a blank screen (for example, black screen or white screen).
• Crash: The effect should be stable and run without crashing or lagging.

note

Even though an effect may pass QA, some effects may not work for lower-end devices (specifically Android devices). These effects will trigger the toast “This effect doesn’t work with this device” since they incorporate more technically demanding features like full body avatar, openGL ES, etc. Many effects are unable to be used by some Android phones due to their devices not supporting the WebGL used in Effect House. Community Effects work on most newer iOS and Android devices and do not currently work on devices equal to or lower than the following models: Samsung Galaxy J3, LG Leon H324, Huawei Honor 4X, and Cubot J3.

Effect Detail Requirements

• Name: Every effect submitted by a single user must have a different name. Names must adhere to the content requirements described above.
• Effect Icon: The effect icon must adhere to the content requirements described above and to the technical requirements outlined in our Effect Icon Creation guide (for example, rounded corners and transparent bleed zone).
• Demo video: The demo video should accurately demonstrate the effect’s features, and must adhere to the content requirements described above. See our Demo Video Creation guide for more info on creating a demo video.
• Category: The category selected should accurately reflect the effect’s content.
• Tags: Tags should accurately represent the effect’s content, and must adhere to the content requirements described above.

You may resubmit an effect up to 10 times.

Content Requirements

We’re excited to build TikTok into a place where creators can share, collaborate, and design effects and experiences that inspire our global community. To that end, TikTok is committed to maintaining a safe and welcoming environment for everyone. The following effect submission guidelines are intended to assist that effort and help creators understand what kind of effect content — the effects themselves, their name, icons, tags, and demo videos — is and is not allowed on our platform. Please see our Community Guidelines for more detail regarding content generally prohibited on the TikTok platform.

Violent Extremism

We do not allow effects that promote dangerous individuals or organizations who may attempt to use our platform to incite terrorism, crime, or other types of behavior that could cause harm. As per our Community Guidelines, to effectively protect our community, we may consider information available on other platforms and offline to identify violent and extremist individuals and organizations on our platform. If we identify such individuals or organizations on TikTok, we will close their accounts.

Threats and Incitement to Violence

Making threats of violence or incitement to violence that may result in significant harm violates both our Community Guidelines and submission guidelines, and such effect content will be rejected or removed from our platform.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your effect:

Statements of intent to inflict physical injuries on an individual or a group, or attempts to incite others to commit violence.

Dangerous Individuals and Groups

We do not want our platform to be used to enable violence. We consider content depicting and promoting terrorism, terrorist organizations, or terrorists a violation and will reject or remove such effects from our platform. Content depicting and promoting crime groups and their members are similarly also violative.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your effect:

Identifiers meant to represent terrorist organizations, crime groups, and their members.

Illegal Activities and Regulated Goods

We work to ensure that TikTok effects do not enable activities that violate laws or regulations. We prohibit the trade, sale, promotion, and use of certain regulated goods, as well as the depiction, promotion, or facilitation of criminal activities, including human exploitation. Submitted effects may be rejected or removed if they relate to activities or goods that are illegal or regulated in the majority of the region or world, even if the activities or goods in question are legal in the jurisdiction of posting.

Drugs, Controlled Substances, Alcohol, and Tobacco

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your effect:

• Depictions or promotion of drugs, other controlled substances, and related paraphernalia.
• The trade and promotion of alcohol and tobacco products.
• Admission of use or simulating the influence of drugs.

In certain cases, we may allow exceptions for the neutral depiction of alcohol and tobacco products (for example, the depiction of such products without visible branding, or such a depiction outside of a branded effect) without promoting them in regions where these products are allowed; however, we will avoid promoting these effects, particularly to younger users.

Firearms, Firearm Accessories, Ammunition, and Explosive Weapons

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your effect:

• We prohibit the realistic depiction and/or promotion of weapons, such as firearms, firearms accessories, ammunition, or explosive weapons.

In some cases, we may allow exceptions for effects depicting cartoon, sci-fi, or otherwise unrealistic firearms, accessories, ammunition, and/or explosive weapons that don’t aim at people, animals, and/or other living beings.

Criminal Activity

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your effect:

• Promotion of gambling, prostitution, poaching, and illegal trade of wildlife, human exploitation, and other criminal activities.

User Privacy, Fraud, and Scams

To protect the privacy of our users, we do not permit and will remove content that aims to reveal, solicit, or otherwise “dox” someone’s personal data or personally identifiable information, whether by threat or otherwise.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your effect:

• Frauds and scams: We do not permit anyone to harm others, which includes schemes to defraud others or steal assets. Content that deliberately deceives people in order to gain an unlawful financial advantage is not allowed on the platform.
• Depiction or solicitation of personal data or personally identifiable information.

Violent and Graphic Content

We do not allow content that is excessively gruesome or shocking, or that promotes or glorifies abject violence or suffering.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your effect:

• The depiction of especially vivid, brutal, and realistic acts of violence – whether real, simulated live action, or animated.
• Graphic descriptions or depictions of violence (for example, audio cues) involving humans and/or animals, whether in a realistic or fictional setting.

In certain cases, we may also avoid promoting other graphic effects that may upset or shock our users, or be otherwise disturbing.

Suicide, Self-Harm, and Dangerous Acts

We do not promote content depicting participation in activities that could lead to harm. We also do not permit content that encourages others to take part in dangerous activities (for example, the depiction and promotion of cosmetic surgery such as facelifts or rhinoplasty). While we do not allow content that promotes or normalizes self-harm, eating disorders or suicide, we may allow content that raise awareness about these issues.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your effect:

• The depiction, promotion, normalization, or incitation of suicide, self-harm, or eating disorders.
• The depiction or promotion of cosmetic surgery, including facelifts, rhinoplasty, lip augmentation (for example, lip fillers), liposuction, and double eyelid surgery. This includes providing instructions on cosmetic surgery, and depicting surgery lines.
• Effects that challenge users to repeat any tricks or acts, whether in a non-professional context, or without the necessary skills and safety precautions, that may lead to serious injury or death.

Hateful Behavior

TikTok values the diversity of our global community, and we work hard to foster a welcoming environment. We do not tolerate content that attacks or incites violence against an individual or a group of individuals on the basis of protected attributes. We do not allow content that includes hate speech, and we remove it from our platform. Forms of hateful behavior may include, but are not limited to, effect content that promotes discrimination on the basis of skin color and negative or racial stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your effect:

• Identifiers meant to represent and/or promote hateful ideology and their representatives.
• Effects that use or include slurs, or any disparaging terms intending to insult an individual or group based on protected attributes.

Racial and Negative Stereotypes Against Protected Groups

Effects depicting or promoting racial stereotypes, particularly those that form generalizations about an entire group, can cause social categorization, prejudice and discriminatory behavior and will be rejected or removed. We moreover prohibit content that promotes colorism, a practice of discrimination by which those with lighter skin are treated more favorably than those with darker skin.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your effect:

• Effects that negatively valence and over-generalize ideas, beliefs, behaviors, or traits attributed to a protected group, or culturally perceived as negative.
• Effects that disparage disabled people (for example, facial features, body changes, other attempts to change user’s appearances).

Harassment and Bullying

Users should feel safe to express themselves without fear of being shamed, humiliated, bullied, or harassed. We deeply understand the psychological distress that abusive content can have on individuals, and we do not tolerate abusive content or behavior on our platform.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your effect:

• Degrading statements – language used to disrespect, abuse, humiliate, or defame another person (for example, threats of attack or assault against a target or their property; wishing death, serious disease, or other serious harm).
• Digitally altered content with a malicious and/or degrading intent (for example, targeting other TikTok users with the purpose of damaging their reputation).
• Effect content that includes threats, insults, or abusive language of a sexual nature (for example, inciting others to make sexualized comments, commentary on sexual anatomy, orientation, sexual activity, threats regarding a person’s private sexual life).

Adult Nudity and Sexual Activities

We do not allow sexually explicit or gratifying content inside TikTok effects, including animated content of this nature. Sexualized content carries many risks, such as triggering legal penalties in some jurisdictions and causing harm to our users through sharing non-consensual imagery (for example, revenge porn). Also, overtly sexual content can be offensive within certain cultures. We may allow exceptions around nudity and sexually explicit content for educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic purposes.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your effect:

• Depictions of real or animated sexual activity, stimulation, or arousal. We moreover will reject or remove effects that depict, solicits, promotes, normalizes, or otherwise glorifies non-consensual sexual acts or non-consensual touching, including rape and sexual assault.
• Depictions that allude to sexual activity, stimulation, or arousal (for example, simulation, motions or imagery, imitation of sexual facial expressions or sounds).
• Depictions, whether explicit or implicit (for example, implied), of genitalia, female nipples or areola, pubic regions, or buttocks, whether real or animated.
• Sexually explicit and soliciting language (for example, depicting, offering, or requesting sexual acts, imagery, arousal, or stimulation, or language depicting genitalia, female nipples or areola, pubic regions, or buttocks).

Minor Safety

We are deeply committed to child safety and have zero tolerance for predatory or grooming behavior toward minors. We do not allow content that depicts or disseminates child abuse, child nudity, or sexual exploitation of children in both digital and real world format, and we report such content to relevant legal authorities. We also do not allow content depicting minors engaged in harmful or delinquent behavior. Please see our Community Guidelines for more detail regarding permissible content.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your effect:

• Sexually explicit, soliciting, and otherwise suggestive language involving minors.

Integrity and Authenticity

Content that is intended to deceive, defraud, or mislead any of our community members endangers our trust-based community. We do not allow such content on our platform. This includes, but is not limited to, activities such as spamming, impersonation, disinformation campaigns, and all other effect content that aims to artificially generate traffic and mimic platform functions to mislead viewers.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your effect:

• QR codes or links to external websites.
• Effects or effect content that presents methods to generate artificial traffic or mimic platform functions in a misleading way (for example, soliciting mutual interactions such as like-for-like or follow-for-follow, guiding or tricking users into clicking platform buttons).

Photosensitivity

People with photosensitive epilepsy may have seizures triggered by displays that flicker, flash, or blink. This is particularly the case if the flash has a high intensity and is within certain frequency ranges. Given our desire to protect vulnerable users, we will mark the effects that may trigger photosensitive epilepsy with a warning tag. These include effects that have flashing lights or contrasting patterns.

Intellectual Property Infringement

We do not allow content that infringes upon or violates any right of TikTok, its affiliates, or any other third parties, including, without limitation, copyrights, neighboring rights, patents, trademarks, industrial designs, trade secrets, privacy, publicity, or other personal or proprietary rights.

You must obtain rights, licenses, permissions, clearances and/or approvals necessary in connection with the content you submit. This includes obtaining all necessary rights for musical works and/or sound recording embodied in the content, and being solely liable to pay all applicable royalties for the musical works and/or sound recording.

Third parties that suspect copyright infringement can follow these instructions, and suspect trademark infringement can follow the instructions here.

Report an Effect

If you see an effect that violates our effect guidelines, you can report it here. Other issues, bugs or questions related to effects can be submitted here or in the TikTok app by going to your profile page, tapping the button on the top right, and choosing “Report a problem.”