The 'sunburn challenge' is a new online trend that's alarming health advocates.
It involves people posting videos to the social platform TikTok, where users flaunt their sunburns, and it has grown in popularity among young Australians.
Matthew Browne, CEO of the Melanoma Institute Australia, says such videos can have devastating impacts.
"Tanning and over-exposure to the sun leads to Melanoma. Tanning is the skin cells in trauma. And so when we see things that are promoting that, we want to call that out because it needs to be stopped."
TikTok says it is also worried, and it has partnered with the Melanoma Institute for a campaign called 'Tanning: that's cooked', targeting Australia's youth while tackling the country's tanning culture.
General Manager for TikTok Australia, Lee Hunter, says the platform will be flooded with comedic content that promotes sun safety, and videos glamourising bad practices will be removed.
"Our number one priority is making sure that people stay safe on Tiktok. So where we see content that promotes harm to Australian users, we immediately take action. We take a firm stance around that, but more than that we want to promote the right behaviours. We want to change the perception around tanning and we want to make sure the right messages are out there so that we save lives and Australians stay safe."
