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Two new reports have suggested these protections are flawed and adult strangers are still able to reach kids on the platform. Meta disputes the methodologies behind them.

Matthew Stevens didn't want to watch anyone die. Late one night in February, the 19-year-old was in bed, scrolling on Instagram. Amid his feed's usual mix of memes and movie clips, the app recommended a video of two men fighting -- a brutal, graphic brawl that left him shaken.

Golin referenced a report from Design It For Us, a Gen Z-led tech advocacy organization, which found that users were shown posts depicting sex acts and promoting eating disorders on teen accounts. Tests from our colleague Geoffrey A. Fowler also found that an Instagram teen account recommended posts about drinking, drugs and nicotine. Meta said the posts were outliers.

New reporting from Heat Initiative, ParentsTogether Action, and Design It For Us reveals the dark reality of the teen experience on Instagram Teen accounts. Surveying 800 users aged 13–15, the report found that nearly half encountered unsafe content or unwanted messages in just the past month.