Instagram announced has announced that it would no longer allow graphic images of self-harm, such as cutting, on its platform.
The change appears to be in response to public attention to how the social network might have influenced a 14-year-old’s suicide.
In a statement shared by the New York Times, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, made a distinction between graphic images about self-harm and nongraphic images, such as photos of healed scars.
Those types of images will still be allowed, but Instagram will make them more difficult to find by excluding them from search results, hashtags and recommended content.
Facebook, which acquired Instagram in 2012 and is applying the changes to its own site, suggested in a separate statement that the changes were in direct response to the story of Molly Russell, a British teenager who killed herself in 2017.
Molly’s father, Ian Russell, has said publicly in recent weeks that he believes that content on Instagram related to self-harm, depression and suicide contributed to his daughter’s death.
Russell has said in interviews with the British news media that after Molly’s death, he discovered she followed accounts that posted this sort of “fatalistic” messaging.
“She had quite a lot of such content,” Russel told BBC. “Some of that content seemed to be quite positive. Perhaps groups of people who were trying to help each other out, find ways to remain positive.”
“But some of that content is shocking in that it encourages self-harm, it links self-harm to suicide,” he said.
Mosseri said in the statement, that the company consulted suicide experts from around the world in making the decision. In doing so, he said the company concluded that while graphic content about self-harm could unintentionally promote it, removing non-graphic content could “stigmatise or isolate people who are in distress.”
“I might have an image of a scar, where I say, ‘I’m 30 days clean,’ and that’s an important way for me to share my story,” he said in an interview with BBC
“That kind of content can still live on the site.”
The changes will “take some time” to put in place, he added.
In Instagram’s statement, Mosseri said the site would continue to consult experts on other strategies for minimising the potentially harmful effects of such content, including the use of a “sensitivity screen” that would blur non-graphic images related to self-harm.
He said Instagram was also exploring ways to direct users who are searching for and posting about self-harm to organizations that can provide help.
