I am writing with concern because of the rampant grooming for sex trafficking and child sexual abuse, as well as adult fetishization of young girls, on Instagram. I've learned recently that minors whose Instagram accounts are set to private can still receive unsolicited direct messages from strangers, and that many of these strangers can be (and in several cases have been) child abusers or sex traffickers. I've also learned that there are countless comments by predatory adults on the photos of minors, where they comment sexually graphic things or sexualize the children. This is like the pedophile rings discovered on YouTube in January! I have three requests: 1) change your settings so that strangers cannot direct message minors, 2) fix the algorithm to proactively remove sexualizing or sexually graphic comments on minor's photos, 3) update your reporting system so that if someone is reporting a sexual comment on a minor’s post it can be reported as such. The “harassment/bullying“ selection does not capture the fact that these comments come from adults who are grooming/sexualising/harassing/masturbating to an image of a child. Please publicly commit to these improvements to stop Instagram from being a predator's paradise!

I heard several sex trafficking survivors talking about the way their abuse was facilitated by Instagram, and how they were groomed for abuse on Instagram despite having their account settings set to private! This is an outrage, how can your company let this continue? I have three requests: 1) change your settings so that strangers cannot direct message minors, 2) fix the algorithm to proactively remove sexualizing or sexually graphic comments on minor's photos, 3) update your reporting system so that if someone is reporting a sexual comment on a minor’s post it can be reported as such. This is urgent!

Do you remember in January when YouTube came under fire for its hosts of pedophiles who would comment sexually under videos of young girls? Well the same thing (and worse) is happening on Instagram right now! You need to act swiftly to change this! First you need to fix the algorithm to proactively remove sexualizing or sexually graphic comments on minor's photos. Then you need to update your reporting system so that people can accurately report a sexual comment on a minor's post. Lastly, please change your settings so that strangers cannot direct message minors. Right now Instagram is full of pedophile rings, and these are vital improvements to stop it!

Did you know that sex trafficking is happening on your platform? Did you know that adults are also fetishizing young girls, which likely means there are pedophile rings on Instagram? Your platform is failing to protect kids because you let strangers direct message them! We know from the research that psychological manipulation and coercion is the most prevalent and popular tactic to coerce a victim. Direct message is the perfect tool for a predator to use to groom someone for abuse. Also, sexualizing comments like "please open your legs" and "I imagine it with less clothes" and "I want to enter you" and more graphic comments are appearing on young girl's photos all over your site! You need to take immediate action to fix these problems.

I heard that you stopped allowing diet ads to target kids on Instagram, and this is great news. But what about all the exploitation on the platform? There are many accounts with sexualized pictures of minors. After some groups have reported these pages, Instagram reported that no community guidelines had been breached. Some of these accounts were linked to Patreon accounts where viewers (which appear to be paedophiles, based on comments) can pay for subscriptions to more content, like underage girls washing the dog in a bikini. Many pictures of underage girls (including 14 and 11 year olds) are accumulating graphic and sexualizing comments like "wow sexy af" and more from strangers who appear to be adult men. You need to increase protections for kids on Instagram!