Instagram ‘failed’ young people over suicide posts

I NSTAGRAM “f ailed” to meet i ts responsibilities during lockdown after staff absences meant posts depicting suicide were not taken down, the NSPCC has said.

The removal of graphic content related to suicide and self-harm fell by almost 80 per cent between April and June, according to records from Facebook, which owns the social network.

Coronavirus rules meant most of the moderation staff for the photo-sharing platform were sent home, though more moderators returned to work after restrictions were lifted in the summer.

The NSPCC said young people continued to receive exposure to “unacceptable” levels of harmful content.

“Young people who needed protection from damaging content were let down by Instagram’s steep reduction in takedowns,” said Andy Burrows, NSPCC head of child safety online policy.

Ministers should ensure the Online Harms Bill, which would create a new social media regulator, includes “the tools and sanctions necessary to hold big tech to account”, he added.

Earlier this year, statistics from the NHS showed that the number of children hospitalised for self-harm rose three-fold in the last decade.

Tara Hopkins, Instagram’s head of public policy, said the firm wanted to do “everything we can to keep people safe on Instagram” and moderators had acted on 1.3 million posts about suicide or selfharm between July and September.

“We’ve been clear about the impact of Covid-19 on our content-review capacity, so we’re encouraged that these latest numbers show we’re now taking action on even more content,” she added.