![]() ![]() According to the WSJ reporting, however, Facebook researchers acknowledged that “social comparison is worse on Instagram” than some other platforms because it focuses on the entire body and a person’s lifestyle.īlumenthal’s experiment goes a layer deeper, showing how quickly Instagram’s algorithm promotes harmful content to young users.ĬNN set up an account last week using the same methodology as the Senator’s office, also following some extreme dieting and pro-eating disorder accounts. Much of that reporting, and Facebook’s ensuing commentary, has centered on the negative impacts of social comparison to celebrities and popular figures on the app - a problem Facebook says is society-wide, and not exclusive to its apps. It follows reporting by the Wall Street Journal based on internal Facebook documents that show the company is aware of the “toxic” effects its platforms, especially Instagram, can have on young people. Speaking to CNN Monday, Blumenthal said: “This experience shows very graphically how claims to protect children or take down accounts that may be dangerous to them are absolute hogwash.”īlumenthal’s experiment is not an anomaly, and may come as little surprise to regular uses of Instagram who are familiar with how the platform’s algorithm recommends accounts that it has determined a user might be interested in. We’ll continue to follow expert advice from academics and mental health organizations, like the National Eating Disorder Association, to strike the difficult balance between allowing people to share their mental health experiences while protecting them from potentially harmful content.” ![]() “We use technology and reports from our community to find and remove this content as quickly as we can, and we’re always working to improve. “We do not allow content that promotes or encourages eating disorders and we removed the accounts shared with us for breaking these rules,” a spokesperson for Facebook, Instagram’s parent company told CNN. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Chip Somodevilla/Getty Imagesįacebook grilled by Senate over company's impact on kids In the first major policy push in her effort to combat cyberbullying, the first lady talked with tech giants including Amazon, Facebook, Google, Twitter and Snap about how they are combating online harassment and promoting Internet safety. first lady Melania Trump in the State Dining Room at the White House Main Washington, DC. WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 20: Facebook Head of Global Safety Antigone Davis speaks during a roundtable discussion on cyber safety and technology hosted by U.S. After CNN sent a sample from this list of five accounts to Instagram for comment, the company removed them, saying all of them broke its policies against encouraging eating disorders. Soon, Instagram’s algorithm began almost exclusively recommending the young teenage account should follow more and more extreme dieting accounts, the Senator told CNN.īlumenthal’s office shared with CNN a list of accounts Instagram’s algorithm had recommended. The Connecticut Senator’s team registered an account as a 13-year-old girl and proceeded to follow some dieting and pro-eating disorder accounts (the latter of which are supposed to be banned by Instagram). The extreme dieting accounts were promoted to an Instagram account set up by Sen. Instagram acknowledged to CNN this weekend that those accounts broke its rules against the promotion of extreme dieting, and that they shouldn’t have been allowed on the platform. (FB) are facing intense scrutiny over the impact they have on young people’s mental health. ![]() Proof that Instagram is not only failing to crack down on accounts promoting extreme dieting and eating disorders, but actively promotes those accounts, comes as Instagram and its parent company Facebook “I have to be thin,” “Eternally starved,” “I want to be perfect.” These are the names of accounts Instagram’s algorithms promoted to an account registered as belonging to a 13-year-old girl who expressed interest in weight loss and dieting. ![]()
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