Research carried out by the US research centre Cybersecurity for Democracy on behalf of child safety groups including the Molly Rose Foundation have reported that their investigations show that Instagram's tools designed to protect teenagers from harmful content are failing to stop them from seeing suicide and self-harm posts.
Researchers also said the social media platform, owned by Meta, encouraged children "to post content that received highly sexualised comments from adults".
The testing, by child safety groups and cyber researchers, found 30 out of 47 safety tools for teens on Instagram were "substantially ineffective or no longer exist".
Meta has disputed the research and its findings, saying its protections have led to teens seeing less harmful content on Instagram.
Read the full report here.
