‘Shocking’: Aussie teens exposed to self-harm content on social media

An alarming insight into the disturbing content Aussie teens are being exposed to on social media platforms has prompted experts to push for “big systemic changes”.

EXCLUSIVE: Australian teenagers are being exposed to disturbing self-harm content on social media showing them ways to physically hurt themselves, as well as other violent and gory material.

An alarming insight into what Aussie teens are being exposed to online on platforms, including Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, also reveals 70 per cent of teens aged between 15 and 17 had viewed content involving hate speech attacks on other groups.

John Livingstone from UNICEF Australia, which commissioned the Teens Online Behaviour survey, said the results were concerning, especially around self-harm.

“It’s shocking,” Mr Livingstone said. “For young, impressionable teenagers, especially those with mental health issues, it is very serious.”

John Livingstone is UNICEF’s lead on digital policy in Australia. Picture: Supplied

Online users calling out self-harm content online. Source: Instagram

He said a lack of protection on platforms such as Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, and the prevalence of young people using them, meant almost every single child in Australia was at risk.

It comes as a Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen said Australian kids shouldn’t have smartphones before they are 14 years old, due to the algorithms on social media which have the potential to push harmful content.

Mr Livingstone said UNICEF was hoping to bring representatives from all sides together in Canberra today, Thursday, to discuss how to make “Australia the safest place for kids to be online”.

He said the Online Safety Act, which is due to undergo a review this year, was an opportunity to put in place proper protections for the next generation of kids.

Mr Livingstone said ultimately, there needed “to be big systemic changes to the designs of these platforms”.

“We need to build robust laws and regulations to provide higher levels of protections,” Mr Livingstone said.

Aussie teens are being exposed to disturbing and violent content on social media, Source: Instagram

The survey found 70 per cent of teens aged between 15 and 17 had viewed content involving hate speech attacks on other groups. Source: Instagram.

Meta – which owns Facebook, Instagram and Whats App – has been criticised, along with other tech companies, of putting profit before safety and exploitation of children.

Digital wellbeing expert Dr Kristy Goodwin warned that while the survey related to children aged 15 to 17, those much younger than that were also coming across inappropriate content online.

“It doesn’t matter how many parental internet filters you have at home, or how many protections you have put in place, because many other parents are abdicating their responsibilities,” Dr Goodwin said.

She said kids were being shown awful content – a lot of it video – in the playground, or they were describing what they had seen to their friends.

Dr Goodwin, a Sydney mum of three children, 13, 10 and five, had first-hand experience of this at her son’s Catholic primary school only last week.

“Our middle son is in Year 5 and a group of Year 6 kids were showing porn to the young ones on the school bus on the way to sports training,” Dr Goodwin said.

“My son didn’t see it, but we had to have a conversation about it.”

Author of Raising Your Child in a Digital World, Dr Kristy Goodwin. Picture: Supplied.

On another occasion her two boys were told by an older kid to go home and watch PornHub. Luckily, they told her first.

She warned parents not to blame kids if they saw inappropriate content online and to keep conversations open.

She said the main reason why kids don’t tell a trusted adult if they have seen something was the fear of “digital amputation”– that they will have their device taken away or access to a certain platform removed.

Meta refused to comment directly when asked about how it plans to combat the issue, but sent background information, including how Instagram and Facebook has begun to hide more inappropriate content from teens by applying the “most restrictive content control settings” to their accounts. In its response, it said it was also going to “hide more results in Instagram search related to suicide, self-harm and eating disorders”.

In the last quarter of 2023, Meta said it also found and took action on more than seven million pieces of suicide and self-injury content – 99.40 per cent of that content was removed before it was reported.

Originally published as ‘Shocking’: Aussie teens exposed to self-harm content on social media