Chyung Eun-ju

Social media platforms have undoubtedly taken over almost every aspect of our lives, reaching every age group. Now, more than ever, they hold unprecedented influence over the lives of children and teenagers.

While, when used safely, social media platforms may be sources of creativity, learning and communication, they also present significant risks when not properly monitored and administered, especially when it comes to the exposure of minors to age-inappropriate content.

Recently, concerns have escalated over Instagram's algorithm recommending content, sometimes of a sexual nature, to teenagers based on their interactions within the platform. Earlier this year, Meta — Instagram's parent company — updated its privacy policy to protect younger users. Some of these updates include setting by default the most restrictive control settings for teenagers' accounts and automatic blurring of nude photos sent to teenagers via the integrated messaging function. With these new safeguards, the goal should be that users under 16 should not be exposed to sexually explicit content within the platform. However, tests carried out by the Wall Street Journal showed another reality. The account created in the test had the user age set at up to 13 and quickly started showing sexually explicit content to this supposedly teenage user. Comparable tests were conducted on Snapchat and TikTok, and they less frequently recommended sexually explicit content as compared to Instagram's Reels.

Joel Cho

According to data submitted by the Korea Communications Standards Commission to Rep. Park Chan-dae of the Democratic Party of Korea in September last year, 18,943 corrective actions were taken against illegal information related to pornography and prostitution on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter from 2019 to August 2023.

Twitter had the most cases with 10,292, followed by Google with 6,814, Instagram with 1,473, Facebook with 346, Naver with 17 and Kakao with 1.

Notably, Instagram saw a 56-fold increase in corrective actions,........

© The Korea Times