According to a study released by Fairplay, an American child welfare advocacy group, there are more than 88,000 pro-TCA accounts or Eating Disorders on Instagram (anorexia, bulimia). Nearly 20 million subscribers are thus exposed every day to content that directly or indirectly promotes anorexia in particular..
Exposure multiplied by the increased performance of the recommendation algorithm Social media: as soon as a user shows an interest in losing weight, Instagram quickly suggests numerous accounts that share the same interest.
This is all the more worrying when we consider that social media is favoured by 15-24 year olds (69% of daily Instagram visitors in France)… and that many under-13s (the minimum age) register by claiming to be older.
When questioned on this issue, Instagram stated that it wanted to «strike a balance and allow people to share their personal stories while removing any content that encourages or promotes eating disorders».
