All language subtitles for The.Instagram.Effect.2022.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

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- I have, like,

some notes on my leaving
speech at Instagram.

Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

It says,
"I joined three years ago

"as the first international
employee based out of London.

"I couldn't imagine
leaving our community

"in better hands.

"I've met
so many amazing people

"and had the chance
to change lives.

"Learning to laugh
at yourself, humility,

"and always thank
the little people."

Kind of crazy that you have
all these things in here,

you know,
like a trip down memory lane.

My name is Hannah Ray.

I worked at Instagram
as a community manager

for Europe,
Middle East and Africa.

I'm Greg Hochmuth.

I was one of the first
engineers at Instagram.

My name is Andy Warr.

I was
the Head of Research there.

My name is Chris Messina.

And I am best known

for inventing the hashtag.

It's a little hard to see,

but I've got
a little hashtag tattoo

right here on my wrist.

So...yeah.

Instagram was this place

where you posted
your best self,

the digital representation
of you

that you wanted to portray
to your friends.

Now follower counts have like
a certain social currency.

Maybe we weren't quite aware

that we were kind of
kingmaking in that way.

I think comes a point

when you just aren't in
control of it anymore.

And then it, like,
took on a life of its own.

- Facebook's Instagram app...

..can be toxic
for teenagers...

..and Facebook knows it.

She's the former
Facebook employee

turned whistleblower,

whose revelations
are reverberating

around the world.

- "The company's leadership

"knows how to make Facebook
and Instagram safer.

"They have put their
astronomical profits

"before people."

My name is Frances Haugen.

We're facing one of the
fundamental conflicts

of our civilization -

which is are we going
to let algorithms rule us,

or will people rule
algorithms?

How do
we increase engagement,

how do we increase
time spent?

I didn't feel like
that was the best use

of people's time.

We don't fully understand
what the consequences

of this period will be.

This is just the beginning.

And the thing that
I think young people see,

that maybe people a little
bit older than them don't,

is how intense
the problems are,

because teenagers
are killing themselves

because of Instagram.

This challenge of, like,

making Instagram
feel less pressurised

I think is very difficult,
if not impossible.

Could we predict?

I don't even know.

I don't know how to answer
that question, really.

I'm gonna go with no...?

- My name is Lauren Black
and I'm an influencer.

I have 123,000 followers.

One of my ex-boyfriends'
sisters

actually bought me a book for
Christmas about blogging,

and that was when
I started my Instagram.

I was posting about fashion,
every day,

like, what I was wearing,

like,
outfit of the day posts.

I went full time about
six months after starting.

I took a massive risk by,
like, leaving uni

and not having any savings.

And I just threw everything
that I had into it.

Hi! Oh!

- She loves beautiful ladies.
- Aw, thank you.

I started posting
IGTV videos.

And that took me from about
30,000 followers

to over 100,000 followers.

It was quite a jump,

it was something that

I wasn't really mentally
prepared for.

I was quite anxious
because every day

I had to then please

thousands more
people than usual.

I was on Instagram
all the time,

like my screentime
was like 13 hours a day.

It was, like,
from the moment I woke up

until the moment
I went to sleep.

I'd literally
just be scrolling.

And, like, liking other
people's pictures,

and, like...yeah,
just scrolling.

- I'm Manish Raghavan.

I worked for
the Responsible AI team.

We served to try to help
other teams within Facebook

better understand
how to build

and deploy AI responsibly.

If you want to understand why
Instagram is the way it is,

you have to understand how
the algorithms have shaped it

to be that way.

They are the result
of people's choices.

- The goal of any
social media company

is to make sure that
you spend as much time

on that platform as possible,

and engage as much
with content

on that platform as possible.

Different algorithms underpin
platforms like Instagram.

It's a way of ordering
things.

It's a way of saying
yes or no to something.

What people often think

about how social media
feed systems work

is that
they're one algorithm,

and that somebody sits down
and writes that algorithm

and says,
"If you have two photos,

"one of them is a person
and one of them is a cat,

"people are more
important than cats,

"so we're gonna rank
the person above the cat."

But there is no one algorithm

that is written down
that determines

the order in which
you see things

on your Instagram feed,
on your Facebook News Feed

or on your Google search.

The crucial thing about
those algorithms

is that they use hundreds
of machine learning models.

The way that the hundreds
of machine learning models

interact with each other

is determined by
the overarching metric

that guides the feed
ranking system.

In Instagram,

that overriding metric

that orients
the machine learning models

is meaningful
social interactions.

The meaningful bit cannot
just be about the people

that are close to you,
like friends and family.

It can be about stuff
that you're interested in.

Instagram figures out
who is meaningful to you

and who tends to engage often
with the content you produce.

They predict whether
you're likely to like a post,

whether you're likely
to share a post

or whether you're likely to
comment underneath the post.

And so interactions from
the people closer to you

tend to be prioritised
above interactions

from people
who are further out

in that network from you.

- What Instagram
is looking to do

is keep you engaged
in some way.

This is slightly different
from asking

what do you actually
want to see?

The algorithms are
the most opaque part

of this whole system.

You can see
the user behaviour,

you can see sort of like
the consequences

of what happens
as a result of being exposed

to certain content,

especially over
and over again.

But we don't necessarily
understand,

and some of the companies
don't even understand,

how content is targeted
to different individuals,

what choices they made
to go down certain paths.

And that lack of awareness

is where
we're the most vulnerable.

I've always had problems
with food

since I was a teenager.

I used to collect 'Vogue'

and all fashion magazines
anyway.

So, I already was aspiring

to be model-like.

When I started this job,

I didn't realise, like,

the impact of looking
and comparing myself

to other people
had on my mental health.

And my eating disorder
got worse over the years.

- I think the thing
that's really important

for people to understand
is how Instagram

differs from other
social media platforms.

Tik Tok is about performance.

It's about doing fun things
with your friends.

Snapchat is about faces
and augmented reality.

You know,
it's not actually you.

It's you with a mask on.

Facebook's internal research

says that Instagram
is about bodies

and about social comparison.

You know, it's about seeing

these little windows into
other people's lives

and comparing, like,

what is your life
like to theirs?

The human brain
is not evolved

to deal with social media.

It isn't evolved to look
at a screen all day

and be able to understand,
let's say,

that the thing that

you're seeing on the other
side of the screen

isn't someone's real life.

- Everyone that I followed on
Instagram then

would have been probably
like from sizes four to six.

And that was kind of what
I was trying to achieve.

- The algorithms are
looking for the content

that will lure you in.

These algorithms are always
looking for the rabbit hole

that you are most
vulnerable to.

You can start with quite
innocuous interests,

you know, you can search
for healthy eating.

These rabbit holes
normalise the idea

that you should be
extremely thin

and is it your fault
if you're not.

- So, I used to see myself

as bigger than what I was.

Yeah, it was kind of
unconsciously...

..it started getting bad.

I basically just ignored
when I was hungry.

And when I did eat,

it would just be
the tiniest amount.

I woke up
and I was so busy with work

that I just put it off
for as long as possible.

And I feel like
that's kind of like

the sense of self harm

of having an eating disorder.

It's just basically starving
yourself.

When I look back on
pictures now,

you can clearly see
that I was ill.

But when I was in
the middle of it all

I just didn't really know.

I think I thought
if I changed myself

then I would
gain more followers

and get all these
new opportunities.

I just created this,

like, like, vision in my mind
that if I went and did this

then this would be
the outcome.

And it just...it was a lie.

- There were things
that we were aware of

that we would feed back.

The hashtag 'thinspo'
has just popped up

and it should probably
be banned.

So,
those things would come up

and then we'd kind of jump
on them

and quickly figure out, like,

the best policy
to do that.

But you have to remember,
that's alongside, like,

loads of other kind of
firefighting issues

that were popping up.

I mean, daily,

there were, like,
new things coming up

that I think are just part
of, like, just how huge

the platform was growing
so quickly.

At the time I joined,

Instagram had celebrated
its third birthday.

So, I remember that month
I was in California training.

And the whole sky was pink.

And it just felt like being
in an Instagram filter.

You know, and then the cab

was going down places
like Valencia and Dogpatch,

and those were names
of filters,

you know, on Instagram.

So, I really felt like
I'd somehow descended into,

you know,
the world of Instagram.

- At the time, we honestly
didn't really have a clue

how big it was,
how much it was growing.

I would go to many concerts.

As people were taking photos

of their time at the show,

I would look over and I would
see on their phone,

"Oh, like, that's Instagram,
that's the filter screen."

- So, I was friends with
the creators of Instagram.

I ended up being invited
to a beta of this product.

We were certainly
plenty naive,

and I think we had ideas

about the world
and about how technology

could improve the world.

Priorities were basically,
like,

make a very simple app

whose main goal is to help
you share a photo,

make it look beautiful.

It did create
this very nice feedback loop

people really enjoyed.

I post the photo,
I get these likes.

- My name is Cole Rise,

and I designed
the original icon

and seven of the filters.

Instagram's brand
was about covering

how bad the cameras were
in the phones of the day.

They were very pixely.

So how do you make
a great photo?

You put a nice,
heavy filter on it

that makes it something else.

It's not supposed to be
true to life.

There was probably, like,

a certain je ne sais quoi
about Instagram

that we would call, like,

the Instagrammy-ness.

The vibe that we had tried
to cultivate and create

on the community team.

I found these postcards.

These are, like...

..the brand values that
we had at the time.

Simplicity matters,

and inspire creativity,

and, my favourite,

community first.

I still say that a lot today,
actually.

- I think so many
of the essence

of how we built the product
were around, like,

what's going to be good
for a person?

Like, what's the next
most important thing

that we can work on

that's going to make
someone's life better?

The biggest team, actually,
at least in my mind,

was the community team,

who were all focused
on looking

at what's happening
on Instagram,

engaging with active users,

starting conversations,

highlighting interesting
users,

picking who was featured
and things like that.

We had a number
of different ways

that we would feature people.

The main Instagram account,

which was just @Instagram.

It was, like,
the most followed account

in the world.

I think it still
has a bigger circulation

than 'The New York Times'.

Like, it was a hugely kind of
impactful real estate

to share someone's story.

And whenever we would share

someone's story on there,

quite often, you would see

their kind of follower count

and everything blow up
for them.

It felt kind of worrying,
you know,

to kind of be making those
editorial decisions.

Partly because of the
huge influence and impact

it could have
on someone's life.

I think we knew we were on,
like,

the cusp of something big
that was happening

and powerful and impactful.

I don't think we were aware,
on the Community Team,

of how big it was gonna get.

- This world that Instagram
had created,

where you could present
your life as more beautiful

and interesting than
it actually was.

Where you could see into

all these really interesting
lives and careers,

and places in the world,
from your phone.

That was so exciting

that it grew so quickly

and caught the attention
of Mark Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg
wanted to make sure

that he got to Instagram

before
any of his competitors did

and that he made sure
that they joined Facebook.

So he offered them
a billion dollars,

which is more than anyone
had ever paid

for a mobile app before.

- Kevin opens
the conversation and says,

"You know, we've been talking
to Facebook

"over the last few days,

"and they made an offer
to acquire us".

At this moment I think
what goes through my head

and what goes through

everyone else's head,
I believe,

is the next sentence will be,

"And we rejected them".

And then the very next
thing Kevin says is,

"and we accepted
and we signed".

I remember walking back

from that little circle
to our desks again

next to one of my co-workers,

and he just whispers to me,

"This is not how I thought
it was going to end".

And I think
that's what everyone felt.

This idea that, like,
this ride that we're on,

this roller coaster
of being in control

of our own destiny,

growing a small little thing

that we've been
working on our own

was like suddenly over.

Instagram essentially
had to decide,

do we want to go up
against Facebook,

which is this behemoth?

Or is this our time to, one,

get a pretty significant
payout,

and be able to build upon

Facebook's existing
infrastructure, platform,

and then cater to all
of Facebook's users.

But at the time
it was shocking.

It definitely gave me pause

and a moment to be like,
uh...

I don't know
if this is ultimately

going to be the best thing
for this community.

Facebook has tried
over and over and over

to make a product that
will appeal to young people.

They had these labs
that were turning out

new kinds of apps to possibly
create a new hit.

Nothing really worked.

Their main avenue

into the youth audience
is Instagram

and whatever Instagram
can create,

and in order for Facebook
to stay relevant,

Instagram needs to maintain
that...that cache with youth.

There was this
really burning question

from folks
on the Facebook side,

to understand our own growth

in a way that we had
never really been

as eager about
or as specific about.

You know, previously,
success for us meant

that we built a good product,
that, like,

the things we worked on
were doing really well,

that, like, people using them
felt good about them.

Shifting from that mindset

to something where success
is just measured by numbers

in a very plain way.

Over time, that became
much more and more

part of the way things
were done,

things were evaluated,
things were designed.

I definitely noticed a change

when we launched ads,

and when we started
to onboard brands

onto the platform.

Now, looking back,

what I've seen
or what I've realised

is with the launch of ads
and brands on the platform,

this kind of tension
or friction

was created between brands

that were almost trying
to act like individuals,

and individuals that then
start to act like brands.

- When I first started
doing Instagram,

there was no such thing
as influencing.

I come from
a modelling background.

A few years later than that
Instagram came about.

And obviously
you like to take pictures,

it's a picture app.

So, from my modelling
history, I was like,

OK, great, this is for me.

I was very consistent
with Instagram

and I enjoyed it.

Like, you get free meals,
you get to go to restaurants.

I've even got holidays
for promo as they call it.

There's so many Instagram
stylists.

I feel like
unless girls see you working

with a massive influencer...

Don't wanna work with you.

..they don't wanna work
with you

or they don't want
to book your services.

They just want to
go who's popping

because they've gone there.

- I've got some friends
that...

They will go to all these
Instagram people,

and then when the people
mess up their hair,

they will come back to me.

I'm like,
"I'm not doing your hair!"

You better just...

You know
your friend does hair

why didn't you go and meet
your friend before?

Why are you coming to me?

OK, so first of all,

I would like to say
Instagram World is fake.

Instagram's kind of
like a facade.

It's kind of like
made the highlife

look so easily accessible.

At 21,
I'm getting on a private jet.

It's not like that at all.

I remember when people
started getting paid to post,

and that idea

quickly makes what you post
a bit artificial,

where some people are doing,
like, full-on BMW ads

and it's not genuine
to who they are as a person

because I know that person.

They don't drive a BMW.

The core of Instagram,
as I remember,

it was just,
"Here's what's happening."

But if what's happening
is an ad

then there's
an artificiality to it.

Look at bloody COVID-19,

they was paying influencers
to...

Yeah, to say that
they're doing it.

They was paying influencers

to promote the vaccine.

What?

Instagram followers
are very important,

especially if you want to be
paid as an influencer.

My long-term goal for how
many followers I want

is probably a billion.

I want a billion followers.

- Now follower counts
have, like,

a certain social currency,

as if it's some kind of
golden ticket

to unlocking the universe.

The more followers we get,

the more comments we get,
the better.

We have also
become growth obsessed,

and it's thanks to Facebook
and Instagram

in the way that they have
let us measure ourselves

that we think that way.

- I decided to get
fake followers.

I can't remember
what the package was.

It wasn't even that much.

I think I paid, like...
Maybe, like, £100.

And it basically was, like,

I got 3,000 likes
on each picture,

and then I think I gained,
like, 10,000 followers,

because it did take me from,
like, 10,000 to 20,000.

But then after that,

it was like why are
all my followers Russian

and why are all these
comments in Russian?

Like, what's going on?

We need to get cracking,

we've got, like, literally
10 minutes - let's go.

- It's not very hard
to get fake followers,

fake likes, etcetera,
on Instagram.

You just, you just need
an internet connection

and a credit card.

I'm Sophie Zhang,

or Zhang Sui Feng
in Mandarin.

I was a data scientist
at Facebook

on what's called

the fake engagement team.

I also conducted work
on Instagram.

Back in late 2019
and early 2020

roughly ten percent
of follows

on Instagram were fake.

This is a very
rough estimate,

but considerably higher
than Facebook.

It creates an environment
of constant doubt

and insecurity
and uncertainty.

- I had to go and block

all these
fake Russian accounts.

Every time they commented
I had to, like, block them.

Lucky I did that
because after I did that,

Instagram had this thing

where they started
shutting down accounts

that had fake followers.

So, you would see, like,
celebrities, for instance.

One of my friends,

their Instagram account
was just, like,

gone the next day,
I was like, what?

I was like, bro,
where's your account?

Let's just do one more.

And he was like,
"Oh, I got hacked",

and everyone knew, no,

Instagram's going around

shutting around
fake accounts.

So that was quite
embarrassing.

But luckily for me,

I'd got rid of my bots
by then.

Quite funny.

Girl, go and get changed.

- Go.
- Thank you

I was pretty naive,

because I had no clue
what working for Facebook

would be like.

There is often
a conflict between

the product side
of companies,

whose goal
is to grow the company,

and the integrity side
of companies

whose goal is to protect
the company from harm.

Instagram was
more aggressively focused

on growing than Facebook.

Because Instagram
has more room to grow.

This created a dynamic

in which there
was more resistance

to integrity measures
on Instagram

than I personally saw
on Facebook.

Facebook is a public company,
Instagram is part of it,

and Instagram needs to be the
growth engine for Facebook -

to bring in as many
young people as they can.

And it's becoming more
and more important,

a bigger slice of that
advertising every year.

When Instagram
introduced advertising,

it was obviously better
for people

to spend more time
in the app,

because more time in the app
means you see more ads.

And the single best way
to get you to spend

more time in the app

is to make your feed
more interesting.

One of the kind of trademarks
of Instagram

when I first joined
was that your feed

would be
in chronological order.

But as the platform
became more saturated,

what we were finding was
that more and more people

weren't able to actually see
a lot of the content

that they followed.

It became apparent
that it would make more sense

and actually help users more
to order their feed.

So that was rolled out.

- There was a team
of machine learning engineers

who would evaluate
the algorithm,

and they would compare these
through A/B tests

to see
which was performing better.

There was,
amongst some users,

a negative perception
of this.

However,
if you looked at the metrics,

like our engagement metrics,

like, those were increasing.

Now you can kind of
turn on any time

and get something different,

which I think for your brain,
it's just this, like, candy

that it can't help
but go back for.

It looks like
a logical decision now

looking back, as to like
why Instagram did it

as a business or, like,

why it at the time
it looked good for users.

But it just completely
changed obviously, like,

how it's being used

and what people
get out of it.

And I think
that's impossible to reverse.

There's a vast array
of content

that you may never have
discovered otherwise,

unless the algorithm
recognises

something about
your behaviour.

But at the same time,

depending on the nature
of your interests,

the things that
you might get shown

may or may not lead you
down certain paths.

That can lead to some,
I think,

both, like,
scary places and also ones

that are not super,
I guess, healthy.

- I'm Abby
and I'm 17-years-old.

I live with my mum
and my sister,

and all my dogs.

A good four years,

I've been associated with

these anti-recovery
Instagram communities.

I probably wouldn't have
known what self-harm was

if I didn't look on them
accounts.

I knew how long
I had to stay under water

to drown myself.

I knew how many paracetamol

I'd have to take
to kill myself.

I knew how many minutes
you'd have to have something

around your neck
to...ligature.

You'd get added into groups

and people would tell us
to go and kill myself,

and they'd want to do it
together.

And they would want to come
on a video call

to self-harm together,

which is just...corrupt.

The bullying started,
like, year 7, year 8.

I was bullied all the way
through school

for five years.

So when I was 14,

my school advised that
I study at home,

due to my mental health
deteriorating.

I had so much free time,
like,

I was missing out
six hours a day on education.

So sitting in front
of your phone

for hours and hours a day,

I would make friends
on Instagram.

There'd be these,
like, accounts.

They'd put a sad quote
and they would put it in

with like sad-toned music.

And they have, like,
writing on it

about, like,
how you're feeling.

So, then, you can relate
to some of that,

so you like it and then...

If you let them,

then people often follow you
if you like them.

And then you follow them.

And then you get sucked
into that community.

- The kinds
of problematic content

I remember being surprised by

were actually around things
like self-harm.

Enough for you to be like,
oh, actually,

people are using Instagram

in ways that, like,
aren't, you know,

the sort of, like,
nice vision

that we have for what it
could be and should be.

I mean, just from
the very earliest days

there was a way to report

offensive content
in the app.

You could just tap any photo
and say,

"Hey, I don't like this,

"this is not...this
is not good."

And then we would actually
have to review it.

We were actually
a really tiny team.

We would have to, like,
look at the photos,

which was never fun,
block accounts.

So there was a little bit
of hunting through

and just like being proactive
and reactive

to the stuff that
was happening.

Dealing with
problematic content

was something that Facebook

was able to help
quite a bit with, actually.

They've been running,
you know,

a huge platform
for many more years,

and have had to learn
and deal with

those problems
in much bigger numbers

than we ever had.

I remember that was actually
one of the big benefits

that, like,
we saw looking at Facebook.

Being, like, "Oh, wow."

Like, they can actually

really take this off
our shoulders.

By offloading all of that
community moderation

to Facebook,

Instagram detached themselves

from one of the most
important aspects

of making sure that
their platform was healthy.

Facebook's priority

is to have as few humans

involved in that process
as possible.

And to prioritise the issues

that are getting the most
public attention,

which are the issues mostly
facing Facebook,

not the issues
facing Instagram.

Content moderation happens

in a combination
of different ways.

Some content moderation is
what's called proactive,

where when content gets
posted to the platform,

it gets flagged by an
algorithm that says,

hey, this looks suspicious.

Either it's going to be
removed from the platform

or it'll be sent, perhaps,

to some human
to review it and say,

"Is this actually
a problem?"

But algorithms are
not perfect, right?

Algorithms often struggle
to take into account

social nuances
that might determine

whether something
is problematic or not.

Even if you know your AI
for detecting harmful content

is 99 percent accurate,

if people are posting
a million bad things a day,

which is probably
a vast underestimate,

getting one percent
of them wrong

means 10,000 pieces
of harmful content

are coming through
the platform every day.

And people are going to be
exposed to that.

I'm just packing my things

to go back to placement.

I stay at home on
the weekend.

And then I stay there
for the rest of the week

with like two staff,

'cause I've been poorly.

So I've got their support
through the week.

End of year 10, year 11,

I started really wanting
to hurt myself, and I would.

But I think apart from that,
then,

like, before then
I didn't really want to,

and I was just doing it
because on Instagram

it's glamourised.

And it's meant to be, like,
people make it look good.

Like everything on
Instagram's glamourised,

whether
it's the positive life

and going shopping,

having loads of money,
or self-harm.

- We found her phone

and we got her password
and stuff and then

when we looked into it,
saw, like, the full extent

to it and messages.

"Aw, Abby, cut the cake,
cut the cake, go on",

referencing to her self-harm.

It was upsetting.

Especially as well
'cause they're vulnerable.

And they've been through
stuff like that,

and having to see
what the effect

it has on them as well.

'Cause it's not just Abby
who has that.

It's quite a lot
of other people.

- I was quite shocked.

Naively, I was just thinking

that Abby was quite
innocently on things.

- Later on,
I could see, like,

she was just always
on her phone

and when she had her phone

she seemed to be
more heightened.

So that's when we came
to realise, ah,

it's her phone
that's doing it.

- You might have a low day,

a single low day,

and you might go and search
for something on Instagram,

that you might not
otherwise search for.

Suddenly, the algorithm
has a little seed

it can start to grow.

And because that topic
is so intense, you know,

as they show you more of it,
you engage with it more.

A little tiny glimmer

and Instagram will pull you
in that direction.

- A machine learning model
predicts stuff,

and in particular,
they predict behaviour.

Like think about
the risk of using prediction

to rank things in terms of

a physical public square.

The whole square is
controlled by one company.

There are thousands
of possible routes

you can take through
that square.

And when you come into
the square,

the first thing that happens
is you're handed

a particular leaflet,

and then how you react
to that leaflet

determines which leaflet
you're handed next.

Once you start down
a particular route

through that square,

the leaflets that you see
are going to be

more and more related
to each other.

And that might be
a good thing.

It might be that
you get shown a cat leaflet

and you really like
that cat leaflet,

so then you get shown
more cat leaflets.

But it might also be
a dangerous thing...

..that again,
you find intriguing,

and then you're shown more
of the same leaflet.

And that's the route you then
take through the square.

What that means

is that you have
to have the determination

to give the ranking model

the same signals consistently
over time

that you are not in fact
interested in that thing

that you were
interested before.

And it'll test to see

if you're still
not interested in them.

And if you say, actually,
I am interested,

then it'll start showing
that to you again.

Fundamentally
we're habitual beings,

so it takes real will
and resolve

to break
the self-reinforcing dynamic

of using prediction
to rank things.

It's not impossible,

but it asks a real, like,
test of human psychology.

Betty? No.

- Have you got everything?
- Yeah.

- It's hard to manage,
it's a big problem.

Abby can get very distressed,
you know,

she's been in hospital
for three months.

And it is very, very hard.

I think there must be a way

that Instagram
can monitor things

that are happening on there.

They must know

and possibly turn
a blind eye...

Have you got all your things?

- Yeah.
- Yeah?

..because it's happening
every day.

It's happening every day
to everyday kids.

And, you know, we are very
lucky Abby is still here.

Give us a hug.

Right. I'll see you
through the week,

- darling.
- Alright.

- It's just the thought
of everything

that she's been through,
you know.

A lot of the people on there,
Abby doesn't even know.

She's never met them.

Yeah, I mean she is,
she's a strong girl,

and she will get there.

- One of the hardest things

when it comes
to moderating Instagram

is the visual nature
of the product.

The company simply
hasn't figured out well

how to understand the
dark corners of Instagram,

that are harder to look for

if you don't know
what you're looking for.

The hashtag communities
that exist.

If you don't know
the right hashtag

you might never find them.

So, it's very easy
for somebody

to be doing something
that is harmful

and not coming
to the attention

of anyone
in Menlo Park, California.

- The people
that were building

a lot of the social
technologies were,

I don't want say
similar to me,

but they were probably more
similar to me than different.

And what I mean by
that is that we were,

one,
interested in technology.

Two, we were pretty literate
and educated.

And we...I thought that

by bringing this technology
to the world...

..a lot of things would just
sort of sort themselves out.

I'm sure that there
was some vague awareness,

perhaps, about that risk

in the early days
of social media.

In some ways,

I don't want to say

we were, like,
blinded by ambition,

but blinded by the desire

to just kind of get
this stuff out there

and then we'd sort it out.

Part of this was
a selection bias.

We were seeing people
having a great time

and using these things
for good.

And I think that, you know,
at least for me,

propelled me
to continue to believe

that bringing more access to
more people was a net good

as opposed to just saying,

"OK, you know what?
Humans aren't ready for this.

"Let's give it up."

What was really interesting

about the way Instagram
solved its problems

is they focused
on the biggest users first.

People like Taylor Swift
and Ariana Grande,

they had
such big follower counts

that they also got
a bigger dose of the issues.

Taylor Swift was embroiled
in a controversy

and people were posting
a lot of snakes on her page

and she hated it.

She didn't want
to have a platform

that was just full
of harassment

every time she logged on.

And so that year,

Instagram decided to allow
muting of any words or emoji

that you don't want to see.

Hiding the words
in your comments

that make you sad.

Blocking certain people
from following you.

Making sure that you can't
see likes on those posts.

Well, hiding it
doesn't make it go away.

You are still in this world

where everyone's being
compared to everyone else,

and that is by its very
nature anxiety-inducing.

What happens for some adults,

for some kids,

is that they self-soothe

by scrolling on Instagram.

The only problem is if your
self-soothing technique,

you know,
sitting and scrolling,

is exposing you
to more of the content

that is making you sick,

that's not a good coping
mechanism.

- Having an eating disorder,

it's really easy for you

to fall into...um,

it's kind of like
a trigger hole.

Once I see one thing
that's triggering,

it's kind of easy to then go
and find things

that are also triggering,

just because that part
of your brain likes it.

I get food pictures pop up

and they've got
calorie counts on each side.

And it will say, like,
which one is more healthy

or how you can swap out
different foods

so that your calorie count
is lower.

Being in a trigger hole

can have, like,
serious effects

on what happens
next in your life.

Like, I might see something

and then go
and not eat dinner.

- In a sense,
there is a feedback loop.

The algorithm shows
you some things

that it thinks you're likely
to interact with.

You may interact
with those things,

and then it'll try to show
you more of those things

as you interact
with it more.

That feedback loop is
reasonably well understood.

I think the aspect of it

that's a little harder
to understand

is they will actually change
your own behaviour over time

by showing you
certain things.

- If I'm scrolling
13 hours a day,

it kind of...no wonder

that it had a negative effect
on my mental health.

All the images would be
quite highly edited.

I was, like, comparing myself

to this false person
that I was looking at,

and not really realising that
that's what I was doing.

I always used to use
filters on Instagram,

and I didn't realise how
damaging they were.

But I always used to put,
like,

my pictures in Facetune

and, like,
make my waist smaller

than what it was.

The underlying goal
has always been the same.

How do I look best?

And maybe we need fewer,
you know,

contrast filters
and saturation filters

and all this stuff.

And, oh,
take away my freckles

or take away my, like,
wrinkles or something.

And how do you guarantee,
like, a selfie to look good?

That was a problem we had
to try and solve.

Making sure that, yeah,

when you took a photo,
your skin looked good,

so all the blemishes go away.

Oh, wow. Um...

So, I have a two-year-old,

in 16 years when she's 18...

As a parent, I want to
educate my daughter to say,

"You know what, it's OK.

"Beauty is up to you
to define, to decide.

"It's not something that
is defined by someone else."

You make people aware that
there is a filter.

That's good,

because they know that
there's some sense of,

like,
this image has been doctored.

I think
it's our responsibility

to...to tell people that.

- During COVID,

I made friends with
a neighbour...

..and she'd been through

eating disorder
recovery before,

she'd been an inpatient.

And she said, like,

"You're actually ill," like,

"You're ill,
you need to get help".

Something just clicked
and I was like...

"Yeah, I think actually,
you're right."

And, yeah,
I then got help from there.

Right, I'm filming now
and I'm not stopping it.

I've stopped this video
about 100 times.

Hi everyone,
welcome back to my IGTV.

So, this week

is Eating Disorder
Awareness Week,

if you didn't know already.

The content I post now
is a lot more uplifting,

a lot more positive,

kind of still having
that fashion element.

but I also now talk
about healing.

When you look back

at your content from then,
like,

what do you think about
that girl?

- Um...

I feel like I have, like,

quite a lot of compassion
for that girl.

Because I feel like she was,
like,

striving to achieve this
level of, like, perfection

that just was never
going to happen.

But she also, like,
worked so hard to, like,

get to where she was.

I'm getting upset.

Yeah...

When I look back at that
girl I just think...

..I just wish that someone
would have been, like,

"Hey, it's OK," like,

"there's something
wrong here,

"but it's all going
to be OK",

you know?

- I don't know
if it's an unusual thing

about the nature of work
as an influencer.

But there are no built-in
protections.

You're competing with
literally millions of people

on a scale that most humans

have never had
to confront before.

Imagine constructing
your world

such that you create things
that happen

so you can take photos
of them

in order for them
to get likes.

So then you can get
the validation

to stay at a certain rung
on a ladder.

That if you stop doing that,

then you lose all
of your self-worth,

and you'll start
to question your value.

It's a really tough place
to be in.

It's in the very structure
of Instagram

that these problems
have come about.

And so
if you don't change that,

you really can't change
the nature

of how people feel about
being compared

to others all the time.

- My name's Callum,

I work for the Centre for
Countering Digital Hate

as its Head of Research.

We've investigated a range
of social media platforms.

We look at how their
algorithms work

and what sort of content
that they promote,

and whether they're profiting
from things

that they shouldn't be.

A big part of
Instagram's business model

is that it has
an understanding

of what users are
interested in.

And what it says
to advertisers

is put your advertising
on our platform

and we'll make sure
it's shown to people

who are most likely
to engage with this.

We set up an account
to investigate

what's been called bigorexia,

and that's primarily men
who become obsessed

with becoming
very big and muscular,

obsessed with bodybuilding.

What we found
was that the algorithm

would push bodybuilding
content very, very hard

to accounts that began
to follow that content.

To the extent that the
Explore page on Instagram,

80 percent of the posts on
there recommended to you

would feature pretty extreme
bodybuilding physiques.

This has been likened
to a form of body dysmorphia,

and increasingly
is thought to be harmful.

And so the signs
that the algorithm

is pushing men towards
that content

and is encouraging them
to see

this pretty
extraordinary body shape

as ordinary, normal
and easily attainable.

It was getting adverts
for health supplements,

for diet plans,
for workout plans.

So none of which
is harmful in itself,

but it is another example
of how Instagram

turns that time spent
on the platform

looking at this content into
money through advertising.

If you're Instagram,
strategically,

the ordinary user
doesn't matter

as much as the advertiser.

Unless you're thinking
about them en masse.

They need more ordinary users

spending time on Instagram

to be the ones buying
the products.

I mean,
the most effective ads

and brand marketing

is content that makes
you feel something,

that causes a reaction
or a response.

Instagram was one
of the first platforms

where I think
that creator class

really realised that
the best ads

are ads that don't feel
like ads at all.

- So my natural body type
is very slim.

And when I was younger
skinny girls were in.

But when you came
to Instagram now

the curvy girl was cool.

And then with the whole
advertising of,

oh, Brazilian butt lift,
BBL, you can do this,

you can do that.

And if you don't know
what a BBL is,

they transfer fat from
other areas of your body

and they pull it
into your bum

and then they sculpt you.

I was thinking,

OK, curvy girls are in.

If I'm curvier I'm going
to get more followers.

If I get more followers
I'm going to get more money.

If I get more money

that's a better future
for my children.

I'm Chenade Laroy
and I'm out here in Istanbul,

and I've just had
my BBL surgery,

hence why
I'm a little bit stiff.

I got my BBL surgery done
by a company.

They expected from me
that I post stories

and post my results
of before and after.

In return for that,

they would give me
a reduced rate.

It turned out to be something
I wouldn't do again.

- Hi. How are you, babe?
- Hello!

- How are you?
- Great, thanks.

Get some water if you like,
some biscuits.

Yeah,
definitely need some water.

After my surgery,
when I came back to England,

my body was perfect.

And it was only when I was
having my massages done,

one of the masseuses
was like,

"I think you still have
fluid left inside you."

Can you see like here?

It looks like I've got,
like, a small baby.

And the thing is, like,
people knew me on Instagram,

'cause I've always been into
my health and fitness.

I've always had a six pack.

I did go onto my Instagram,
put up a whole post.

I had a negative experience,

so I owe it to my audience
to be honest and say,

"This is what happened
to me."

You need to not fall into
the hype like I did.

You need to actually think
about the whole process.

It's one of the most
dangerous procedures,

and obviously, like,
I have two children.

It's very irresponsible
of me,

especially being a mum.

But if I'm honest,

I feel like I probably still
would've done it.

It's the advertising.

And like,

"Oh, but he looks good,
and her body looks good."

And this is why, like,
for me,

I had to go through
my Instagram

and filter who I follow.

When it comes
to the algorithm

that's where safety
has to be paramount,

because that's where
the platforms

take an active role in
presenting content to users

and it can cause harm
to them.

Yes, influencers
have a responsibility

to their public,
to their audience,

especially
if they're younger people.

However, the government

and the people
that actually run Instagram,

that's where the
responsibility really falls.

If something
is that detrimental,

you have the algorithms,
you have the numbers.

You're seeing everything
from the top.

They have to control it.
They have to figure out.

It's not the case

that social media companies
like Instagram

are just not thinking
about all the ways

in which their content could
harm people - they are.

They write rules which
are publicly available,

and on the basis
of those rules,

content is completely removed
by people from the site.

But the other way
they're thinking

about reducing content
that's harmful to people

is by training machine
learning models

to predict
what kinds of content

meet certain definitions,

and then demote that
on people's Instagram feeds.

But the crucial question
about that -

and this is a question
for society -

is who should get to decide?

What are the concepts

that we should train machine
learning models

to demote content
on the basis of?

Should that be
the companies themselves?

Should it be legislators
or regulators?

And how should we know
what those concepts are?

'Cause right now,

we don't know all that
much about them.

- What's going on, Abby?

Have a think
of 10 different things

that are important
or special about you

that nobody would know
about unless you told them.

I'm living at home now,

so I've moved from
my placement.

I didn't have my phone from
my first placement.

I'd say about 14, 15 months,
I didn't have my phone for.

They knew what was going on
with social media,

stuff like that,
so it was like,

"No, we're taking
your phone off you,

"um, because it isn't
making you any better,

"it's just making you worse".

Not having access
to them groups

as such was very good,

like,
still now I'm very grateful

that I didn't have my phone.

I'm not in them
groups anymore.

If I get added, I'll leave.

And then look at her face
when she turns.

- With Abby's phone and that
it is a bit of a concern,

'cause you don't know
whose on there,

who she's messaging.

So it makes you
quite worried,

what she's doing by herself
and on her phone.

- As soon as you open
Instagram

it's the feed page you see

and not the group chats.

I went on Instagram,
like, about two weeks ago

and there was someone
posting, like,

a few screen recordings
of these videos -

people committing suicide
who'd videoed their suicides.

I don't know how them
videos were uploaded.

I didn't really look into it,

'cause I was so traumatised.

And one of them there
was this woman

and she was hanging herself

and she was crying
and all this.

It's getting out of hand.

When I first went on
the communities

it was like, yeah,
people posting pictures

of self-harm and that
but now it's, like...

I mean,
that is bad in itself,

but now it's like extremes

and it's just getting,
spiralling out of control.

And I think people
can't control

what people put on anymore,

because they didn't stop it
in the first place.

- Obviously, no social media
would be the best solution,

but you can't take somebody's
phone off them forever,

their social media
off them forever.

So I think certain guidelines
need to be put in place

to stop this harm
towards people.

I don't think they really put
a lot of safeguards in place,

so all it would be
is sensitive warning

on this video.

All you have to do
is click yes,

do you know what I mean?

It's not...it just
shouldn't be up there,

that video should
not be on social media.

- I think
we're starting to have

a reckoning as a society

for the power
that Instagram holds

over young people and over,
really, all of us.

In the last few years,

employees have realised

that the power
that this company holds

is simply too large,
too important to keep secret.

- I worked at Facebook
for approximately two years,

starting in June of 2019.

And it really struck me,

when I worked at Facebook,

that there were a number
of systemic problems

that I didn't believe

Facebook could solve
on its own.

Facebook's research says

that in the United States

six percent of teenagers

who thought about

suicidal ideation said that

it was driven by Instagram,

and 13 percent in the UK.

Instagram makes

body image issues worse

in one in three teen girls.

The documents describe
an addict's narrative.

No, I don't feel good
when I use this.

I can't stop.

I want to stop.

If I leave,
I'll be ostracised.

And when they go
to their parents

and talk about
these problems,

because their parents never
lived this experience,

Facebook's own documents say
kids are suffering alone.

At some point I realised

that the only way
these problems

were going to be solved

was if we stepped out
of the frame.

Facebook is trying to solve
these problems in private.

And that's part of why
I came forward.

We have to solve these
problems together.

Facebook and Instagram have
a responsibility

to better understand
the impacts

that they're having on
the world.

But, in my mind,
that's not enough.

What really needs
to be part of the solution

is a much broader
conversation with regulators,

with the public,

in terms of can we actually
envision a world

where Facebook
isn't just left alone

to do whatever it wants
to its platforms?

But there's actually some way

that we have some
transparency

into what they're doing.

And I think people are
starting to realise that,

actually, there's a way that
this could be done better.

- I'm literally a completely
different person.

Every single thing
is different about me now

because I've been through
so much therapy.

My whole life has changed.

I've decided more recently to
not edit any of my content.

So...

Oh, this is cute.

..I just have it straight
from my iPhone camera

to Instagram,

not being touched.

I don't want to add
to the problem,

that is probably never
going to go away,

by showing people
this false image of myself.

I feel a lot happier
and healthier.

Like,
I literally always smile...

..which I never really did
before.

- I hope that we will be able
to find ways

to feel interconnected
in a positive way

that benefits society
at large.

And I think that
there are ways

that social media platforms
can do that.

But they do need to change.

- Now I'm in college.

I'm doing my level three
Health and Social Care,

so I can become
a Mental Health nurse.

I think people need
to take responsibility

for what they're posting

and acknowledge
how it can impact others.

Instagram could try
and monitor this

a lot more closely

and try
and tackle this problem

as soon as possible.

I don't know, like,
who is responsible.

I do think it will take us
a while to kind of look back

and kind of figure that out.

Um, am I responsible?

Of course, I am.

I was part
of designing features

and building features
that are now used

in the way they are.

I can't completely disconnect
from having worked on it.

I still love Instagram.

And I really hope

that it's able
to sort of figure out

how to navigate this space

and get back to what
it wanted to be.

But I can't say that
I'm holding my breath

for that to happen.

The only way Facebook
will change

is if they're forced
to change.

Companies don't change
until the cost of changing

is less than the cost
of staying the same.

And so we need to stand up
and demand better things.

We need to demand the
Instagram that we deserve,

not the one that Facebook
is giving us today.