Instagram failing on self-harm images

SOCIAL media sites are “still not safe” for children, the father of Molly Russell has said, as The Sunday Telegraph found graphic self-harm images on Instagram six months after it pledged to eradicate them.

Ian Russell said he was disappointed that harmful material was still available on the site after Adam Mosseri, its head, pledged in February to clean up the network.

Instagram told The Telegraph that it has created new technology to help clear the site of graphic self-harm and suicide images, but that the operation was complex.

It said its new programme had seen the number of harmful posts removed rise from 386,000 between January and March to 834,000 between April and June.

In January, Mr Russell accused Instagram of “helping to kill” his daughter Molly – who took her life six days before her 15th birthday – after he learnt she had been looking at self-harm posts on the site and other platforms.

Mr Mosseri then announced he was changing Instagram’s policy to remove all graphic self-harm images.

However, The Telegraph found graphic self-harm images were still available and that its recommendation algorithms were still promoting self-harm and depression accounts.

Mr Russell said: “I still don’t think that any social media platform … is a safe place for young and vulnerable people.

“It’s akin to tobacco companies selling tobacco to people when they knew it was causing lung cancer.

“They are pushing their product that is causing a different sort of cancer – it is an online cancer, but it is still killing people.”

Karina Newton, Instagram’s head of policy, said over time the new technology was becoming more accurate. “We are deeply invested in this but it is complicated for a number of reasons,” she said.