People with eating disorders will face Meta bosses in federal parliament today to demand more protection for vulnerable young people, as new research reveals links between TikTok and harmful dieting videos.
Key points:
- Executives from Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, will be in parliament to discuss body image
- New research into TikTok’s use suggests it intensifies eating disorders
- Researchers say it’s difficult to find effective ways to negate social media’s harmful influences
Katya Jaski, 15, has flown to Canberra to join the parliamentary meeting to discuss rising body-image dissatisfaction among young people.
The Melbourne school student will speak to Meta’s Australian policy mangers Mia Garlick and Alex Cowen.
Katya said she was concerned at how filtered, edited content on social media was used to project and monetise unrealistic beauty ideals.
She said she continually reported images and videos that were “obviously pro-eating disorder” to the platforms, but was still shown “harmful” content of “people losing weight, people posting body-checks, people describing their habits, their rituals”.
“It’s all of this comparison of then and now, and the body transformations, and what is seen as good and bad. And it’s just shocking, really.
“If there was a way I could just turn off seeing eating-disorder-related content, I would feel much safer going on social media.”
TikTok far likelier to show diet videos to users with eating disorders
The meeting coincides with the release of new research into TikTok, the world’s fastest-growing social-media platform.
University of Melbourne psychologist Scott Griffths said he was concerned the platform was creating algorithmic “eating-disorder echo chambers”.
His study sought to determine whether “vulnerable users are delivered increasing numbers of videos oriented on physical appearance, dieting, and exercise”.
It examined about 1 million TikTok videos delivered to 48 people with eating disorders, and 46 people who did not have the conditions.
Dr Griffiths found TikTok showed 225 per cent more appearance-related videos to users with an eating-disorder than to other users.
The platform also showed the people with eating disorders 384 per cent more videos about dieting, 78 per cent more about exercise, and 3851 per cent more featuring eating-disorder content.
The study found that people with eating disorders reported greater difficulty stopping themselves from using TikTok, and they were not necessarily shown the videos because they had interacted with similar videos — for example, by “liking” them.
“Our findings strongly implicate the TikTok algorithm in the intensification of eating disorders among young people,” Dr Griffiths said.
Independent MP Zoe Daniel, who is convening the parliamentary meeting, said the research was “pointed”.
“It is evidence of what we already knew, which is that people who have eating disorders are being fed content that compounds their disorder,” Ms Daniel said.
“And that’s at the core of the conversation that we have to have with these platforms about what can be done about that.”
Representatives from TikTok will not take part in the meeting.
‘I started body-checking a lot’
Varsha Yajman, 21, who had anorexia nervosa, will join Katya today to tell Meta how its platforms affected her sickness.
Ms Yajman was 14 when she began experiencing disordered-eating. Like many patients with the condition, she faced barriers on the way to recovering.
“I was explicitly told by a doctor that a diagnosis would affect my employability,” she said.
“And I guess when you’re already an immigrant, that’s quite scary … So a lot of my symptoms were just dismissed.”
The Indian-Australian said Instagram in particular had hindered her recovery, because it enabled negative self-comparisons.
“During that time, social media played such a big role because I was somebody who started body-checking a lot,” Ms Yajman said.
“I was trying to see whether my body compared to the people I saw on social media.
“I thought that there was something wrong with my body because I didn’t realise that filters and face-tuning and all these different things actually existed.
“I really want to convey [to Meta] that you should not be capitalising off a social problem affecting so many people, and that it’s really about time that we take control and we make a change about what kind of content is allowed.”
Disclaimers for altered images unlikely to solve problem
Social media and body-image researcher Jasmine Fardouly said she hoped today’s meeting would pressure Meta and other social media platforms to change.
“These companies are businesses focused on making money, but they also have huge social impact,” she said.
“And so we really do need to be talking about how we can make these environments safe.”
After years of research, Dr Fardouly said she could not point to any significant actions the platforms had taken to improve body image.
“They are trying to regulate pro-eating-disorder content, which is a positive thing,” she said.
“But that’s not the only content that is causing harm.”
Dr Fardouly said the companies were notoriously secretive about their algorithms, but more openness might allow users to better control what appeared on their screens.
She said the platforms could also address the prevalence of filters, which artificially alter people’s appearance.
But she added this was not a straightforward solution, as requiring a disclaimer on filtered images and videos would not prevent people from making negative self-comparisons.
Research showed that, even when content was clearly labelled as edited, “people will still internalise these ideals”, she said.
Dr Fardouly said it would be incredibly challenging to rid the platforms of idealised content due to human nature.
“People want to present themselves positively to others, they want to be attractive … and are motivated to post the most attractive images of themselves online.”