Instagram still posing serious risks to children, campaigners say

Young Instagram users can still be exposed to “serious risk”, even though they use new adolescent accounts brought to provide more protection and control, suggest research by campaigners.

Researchers behind a new report stated that they were able to install accounts using fake birthdays and were then recommended to follow sexual materials, disgusting comments and adult accounts.

Meta, who owns Instagram, states that the report is “filled with impurities and demonstrates misunderstandings of adolescent accounts, and that parents” find these new protection help “.

Online Child Safety Charity 5 Rights Foundation has been released as a regulator of UK, publishing its children’s safety code.

Those rules platforms will have to follow under the online security act. The platforms will have three months to show that they have systems that protect children.

This includes strong age checks, safe algorithms that do not recommend harmful materials and effective material moderation.

Instagram Teen Accounts were established in September 2024 to provide new security for children and to create a meta called “Paris for Minor for Parents”.

The new accounts were designed to limit that users can contact and reduce the amount of materials that the youth can see.

Existing users will be transferred to new accounts and people who first sign up will be automatically one.

But with the researchers of 5 Rights Foundation, there were no additional checks by the platform, fake adolescent accounts were able to establish a series of teenage accounts using false birthdays.

He found that immediately on sign up, he was offered to follow adult accounts and convey a message.

The algorithms of the Instagram, they claim, “still promote sexual imagination, harmful beauty ideals and other negative stereotypes”.

Researchers stated that his adolescent accounts were recommended to “significantly hateful comments filled with significant amounts”.

There was also a concern about the addiction nature of the app in charity and exposure to commercial materials, sponsored.

The founder of the Baronic Biban Kidron, the 5 Rights Foundation, said: “This is not a teenage environment.”

“They are not examining age, they are recommending adults, they are putting them in commercial conditions, which without telling them and it is deeply sexually sexually sexually sexually sexually sexually sexually sexually sexually told to.”

Meta said the report was “filled with impurities and demonstrates misunderstandings of how adolescent accounts work, which we could clarify whether (5 Rights Foundation) shared the report with us”.

A spokesperson said: “We developed adolescent accounts after a response from the parents, and a recent survey showed that 94% of the parents find these new protections helpful.

“It is a big undertaking for millions of teenagers around the world to change the Instagram fundamentally, and we know that we will need to get it properly and to make tireless efforts to the parents to bring peace of mind.”

In a separate development, BBC News has also learned about the existence of groups dedicated to self-loss on X.

Groups or “communities”, as they are known on stage, have tens of thousand members who share graphic images and videos of self-loss.

Some users involved in groups appear.

Bika Spinks, an American researcher who discovered groups, said: “I was completely floating to see 65,000 members of a community.”

“It was very graphic, there were people where they should cut further.”

The X was approached for comment, but did not respond.

But in presenting one for excom consultation last year, X said: “We have clear rules for safety of service and safety of people using it.”

“In the UK, the X is committed to compliance with the Online Safety Act,” it said.

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