Meta rejects review findings, which claim two-thirds of new features designed to protect young people are ‘woefully ineffective’
Children and teenagers are still at risk from online harm on Instagram despite the rollout of “woefully ineffective” safety tools, according to research led by a Meta whistleblower.
Two-thirds (64%) of new safety tools on Instagram were found to be ineffective, according to a comprehensive review led by Arturo Béjar, a former senior engineer at Meta who testified against the company before US Congress, New York University and Northeastern University academics, the UK’s Molly Rose Foundation and other groups.
Meta – which owns and operates several prominent social media platforms and communication services that also include Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads – introduced mandatory teen accounts on Instagram in September 2024, amid growing regulatory and media pressure to tackle online harm in the US and the UK.
However, Béjar said although Meta “consistently makes promises” about how its teen accounts protect children from “sensitive or harmful content, inappropriate contact, harmful interactions” and give control over use, these safety tools are mostly “ineffective, unmaintained, quietly changed, or removed”.
He added: “Because of Meta’s lack of transparency, who knows how long this has been the case, and how many teens have experienced harm in the hands of Instagram as a result of Meta’s negligence and misleading promises of safety,...
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