*

Researchers say only 8 of 47 safety features they tested

were

fully effective

*

Meta disputes findings, says it is confident of its teen

account

protections

*

Internal Meta documents show company was aware of some

flaws in

safety features

By Jeff Horwitz

Sept 25 (Reuters) -

Numerous safety features that Meta has said it has

implemented to protect young users on Instagram over the years

do not work well or, in some cases, don't exist, according to a

report from child-safety advocacy groups that was corroborated

by researchers at Northeastern University.

The study, which Meta disputed as misleading, comes amid

renewed pressure on tech companies to protect children and other

vulnerable users of their social-media platforms.

Of 47 safety features tested, the groups judged only eight

to be completely effective. The rest were either flawed, "no

longer available or were substantially ineffective," the report

stated.

Features meant to prevent young users from surfacing

self-harm-related content by blocking search terms were easily

circumvented, the researchers reported. Anti-bullying message

filters also failed to activate, even when prompted with the

same harassing phrases Meta had used in a press release

promoting them. And a feature meant to redirect teens from

bingeing on self-harm-related content never triggered, the

researchers found.

Researchers did find that some of the teen account safety

features worked as advertised, such as a "quiet mode" meant to

temporarily disable notifications at night, and a feature

requiring parents to approve changes to a child's account

settings.

Titled "Teen Accounts, Broken Promises," the report compiled

and analyzed Instagram's publicly announced updates of youth

safety and well-being features going back more than a decade.

Two of the groups behind the report - Molly Rose Foundation in

the United Kingdom and Parents for Safe Online Spaces in the

U.S. - were founded by parents who allege their children died as

a result of bullying and self-harm content on the social-media

company's platforms.

The findings call into question Meta's efforts "to protect

teens from the worst parts of the platform," said Laura Edelson,

a professor at Northeastern University who oversaw a review of

the findings. "Using realistic testing scenarios, we can see

that many of Instagram's safety tools simply are not working."

Meta - which on Thursday said it was expanding teen accounts

to Facebook users internationally - called the findings

erroneous and misleading.

"This report repeatedly misrepresents our efforts to empower

parents and protect teens, misstating how our safety tools work

and how millions of parents and teens are using them today,"

said Meta spokesman Andy Stone. He disputed some of the report's

appraisals, calling them "dangerously misleading," and said the

company's approach to teen account features and parental

controls has changed over time.

"Teens who were placed into these protections saw less

sensitive content, experienced less unwanted contact, and spent

less time on Instagram at night," Stone said. "We'll continue

improving our tools, and we welcome constructive feedback - but

this report is not that."

The advocacy groups and the university researchers received

tips from Arturo Bejar, a former Meta safety executive,

indicating that the Instagram features were flawed. Bejar worked

at Meta until 2015, then came back in late 2019 as a consultant

for Instagram until 2021. During his second stint at the

company, he told Reuters, Meta failed to respond to data

indicating severe teen safety concerns on Instagram.

"I experienced firsthand how good safety ideas got whittled

down to ineffective features by management," Bejar said. "Seeing

Meta's claims about their safety tools made me realize it was

critical to do a vigorous review."

Meta spokesman Stone said the company responded to the

concerns Bejar raised while employed at Meta with actions to

make its products safer.

GETTING AROUND SEARCH-TERM BLOCKERS

Reuters confirmed some of the report's findings by running

tests of its own and reviewing internal Meta documents.

In one test, Reuters used simple variations of banned search

terms on Instagram to find content meant to be off limits for

teens. Meta had blocked the search term "skinny thighs" - a

hashtag long used by accounts promoting eating-disorder content.

But when a teen test account entered the words without a space

between them, the search surfaced anorexia-related content.

Meta documents seen by the news agency show that as the

company was promoting teen-safety features on Instagram last

year, it was aware that some had significant flaws.

For instance, safety employees warned in the last year that

Meta had failed to maintain its automated-detection systems for

eating-disorder and self-harm content, the documents seen by

Reuters show. As a result, Meta couldn't reliably avoid

promoting content that glorifies eating disorders and suicide to

teens as it had promised, or divert users who appeared to be

consuming large amounts of such material, according to the

documents.

Safety staffers also acknowledged that a system to block

search terms used by potential child predators wasn't being

updated in a timely fashion, according to internal documents and

people familiar with Meta's product development.

Stone said that the internal concerns raised about deficient

search term restrictions have since been addressed by combining

a newly automated system with human input.

Last month, U.S. senators began an investigation into Meta

after

Reuters reported on an internal policy document

that permitted the company's chatbots to "engage a child in

conversations that are romantic or sensual." This month, former

Meta employees told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing that

the company

had suppressed

research showing that preteen users of its virtual reality

products were being exposed to child predators. Stone called the

ex-employees' allegations "nonsense."

Meta is making a fresh push to demonstrate its steps to

protect children. On Thursday, it announced an expansion of its

teen accounts to Facebook users outside the United States and

said it would pursue new local partnerships with middle and high

schools.

"We want parents to feel good about their teens using social

media," Instagram head Adam Mosseri said.

(Reporting by Jeff Horwitz. Edited by Steve Stecklow and Michael

Williams.)