Pathways: How Digital Design Puts Children at Risk
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Pathways: How Digital Design Puts Children at Risk, published by 5Rights Foundation in September 2021 with research by Revealing Reality, tested how major platforms treat new accounts registered as belonging to 13-year-olds. The research team found that test accounts on services including Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok were served content associated with self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, and sexualized imagery within 24 hours of account creation, and the report argues these pathways reflect engagement-maximizing design choices rather than accidents. It draws on interviews with digital designers and children alongside the avatar-based testing. TechKids Foundation cites this report for its association-language finding — that certain platform design choices are linked to rapid exposure to self-harm- and suicide-related content among newly created teen accounts — while noting that suicide and self-harm are never explained by any one factor alone.
Test accounts registered as 13-year-olds were served content associated with self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, and sexualized imagery within 24 hours of account creation on platforms including Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.
5Rights Foundation (research by Revealing Reality). Pathways: How Digital Design Puts Children at Risk. September 2021.