Instagram to remove self-harm images

Instagram boss Adam Mosseri says he hopes new technology will help to flag all graphic images of self-harm  and will be removed from Instagram.

Father of Molly Russell, 14-year-old who took her own life in 2017, said Instagram had “helped kill” his daughter. Molly’s family found she had been viewing graphic images of self-harm on the site prior to her death.

Adam Mosseri said Instagram was trying to balance “ the need to act now and the need to act responsibly”. He added the Instagram site was “ not where we need to be on the issues of self-harm and suicide”.

He added: “ Historically we have allowed content related to self-harm that is  “admission” because people sometimes need to tell their story – but we haven’t allowed anything that promoted self-harm. But moving forward we are going to change our policy to not allow any graphic images of self-harm.”