An experiment conducted by the Wall Street Journal suggests Instagram is serving “risqué footage” of children and “overtly sexual adult videos” to minors. The report focused on the site’s “Reels” feature and found ads for high-profile brands, including Disney and Pizza Hut, placed next to sexually graphic content.
For their study, the Journal created a number of Instagram accounts in order to determine which ads they would receive after exclusively following “only young gymnasts, cheerleaders and other teen and preteen influencers.” The outlet ultimately found that Instagram “served jarring doses of salacious content to those test accounts.”
The sock accounts focused on the site’s Reels feature and were set up after “observing that the thousands of followers of such young people’s accounts often include large numbers of adult men, and that many of the accounts who followed those children also had demonstrated interest in sex content related to both children and adults,” according to the report.
One series of recommended Reels included an ad for the dating site Bumble sandwiched between a video of “someone stroking the face of a…
Read the full article here