Instagram actively helping spread of self-harm among teenagers, study finds

Original publication (PDF, Danish, Google Drive link from the NGO):

https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=1MZrFRii_nJ...

via their Google Drive link at:

https://www.digitaltansvar.dk/viden/analyser

The article left me wondering whether they actually cultivated a network of kids interested in self-harm. It sounds from the study (such as it is) that they in fact just simulated vulnerable 13-year-olds’ accounts.

Which comes as something of a relief from an ethical point of view.

I wonder, though, if that method may have confounded their findings. I could imagine Instagram’s recommenders linking their simulated 13-year-olds’ accounts based on signals indicating their common association with the research organization (rather than purely on the basis of their shared interest in self-harm).

Maybe somebody with stronger Danish than mine could shed light?

There's been another recent push in certain countries for authoritarian-like policies, and so I would be skeptical and criticize such articles as potentially being propaganda to try to manufacture consent towards acceptance of implementing policies such as "everyone will need to register and be known to the [authoritarian] state, so we know if you are 16 years old or not;" rather than putting that responsibility on the parents and creating laws to require technology to make that easier for the parents to manage vs. abdicating that responsibility to a so-called nanny state [which even if well intentioned then is a single point of failure-capture for bad actors].

> Meta is actively helping self-harm content to flourish on Instagram by failing to remove explicit images

That's like an oxymoron. "Actively" implies taking action.

Instagram is passively helping the spread of self-harm among teenagers.

Maybe they mean it's current and on-going.

>Instagram actively helping spread of self-harm among teenagers, study finds Researchers say parent company Meta is failing to remove explicit images on the social media site

Actively? No, failing to remove is not actively.

Instagram is an anxiety fountain.