Instagram accused of recommending sexual content to 13-year olds
Instagram has been accused of recommending sexual content to users as young as 13. This alarming revelation was uncovered through independent tests conducted by The Wall Street Journal and Laura Edelson, a professor at Northeastern University. The tests involved creating new Instagram accounts set to the age of 13, and were carried out primarily between January and April of this year. The investigators found that Instagram began suggesting moderately sexual videos from the start.
The platform's algorithm escalates explicit content
The test accounts that viewed these sexual videos and skipped other content, began receiving recommendations for more explicit material. Some of the suggested Reels featured women miming sexual acts, and others offered to send explicit photos to users who commented on their posts. The test users were also reportedly shown videos of individuals exposing their genitalia. In one instance, a supposed teen user was shown "video after video about anal s*x."
It dominates recommendations within minutes
The accounts began receiving sexual Reels within three minutes of creation. Within 20 minutes of seeing them, their recommended Reels section was dominated by creators producing sexual content. In contrast, when similar tests were conducted on TikTok and Snapchat, neither platform recommended sexual clips to the teen accounts created. This was the case even after actively searching for such content and following creators who produce it.
Meta dismisses allegations, cites 'artificial experiment'
WSJ reported that Meta's employees had previously identified similar issues, based on undisclosed documents detailing internal research on harmful experiences on Instagram for teenagers. Despite this, company spokesperson Andy Stone dismissed the report as an "artificial experiment that doesn't match the reality of how teens use Instagram." He further stated that Meta has "established an effort to further reduce volume of sensitive content teens might see on Instagram, and have meaningfully reduced these numbers in the past few months."
