Instagram continues the fight to make social media a happier and healthier place to be, but the platform’s latest update might be acting as a band-aid to a much deeper wound.
Yesterday, Instagram announced a new policy that would restrict users under the age of 18 from seeing content that promotes weight loss products or cosmetic procedures. While the policy is Instagram-led it will also affect users on Facebook.
“We want Instagram to be a positive place for everyone that uses it and this policy is part of our ongoing work to reduce the pressure that people can sometimes feel as a result of social media,” Instagram’s public policy manager Emma Collins said in a statement.
Actress and activist Jameela Jamil’s organisation I Weigh was also behind the policy change. “We are changing the world together. After a bunch of shouting, screaming and petitioning…we have managed to get the attention of the people at the top, and they have heard us and want to protect us,” Jamil wrote on Instagram.
Jamil has been campaigning for restrictions and removal of harmful content on Instagram for several years now. Over the course of the last few years, she has called out celebrities like Iggy Azalea and the Kardashian for exploiting vulnerable users by promoting get-thin-quick weight loss products and procedures.
Instagram rep Emma Collins said, “If [a Kardashian’s] Instagram post is pulled into the policy of promoting diet products or procedures for sale it will be removed.”
“The Kardashians are people we continue to have collaborative conversations with, they’ll be made aware of the change.”
Instagram’s new policy is a huge stride in the right direction, but will it fix the issue altogether?
The minimum age you need to be to use Instagram is just 13 years old, however the platform doesn’t ask users to specify their age, which means users as young as 10, 11 or 12 could be lying to access content restricted to those 18 and over.
The new policy covers content being served to users on social media, but what about all the damaging and influential advertising we’re being bombarded with on a daily basis? Sadly, ads for products that fulfil a need we simply don’t have have become part and parcel with everyday life.
At least we can take comfort in knowing big social media players are doing something to combat harmful content and we can only hope there is more positive change to come.