Recently, it has been found that the social media giant, Instagram, has been found of promoting hashtags relating to and in some cases, promoting eating disorders.
Between 600,000 and 750,000 people in the UK suffer from eating disorders such as anorexia or bullimia. This is a shockingly huge number of people in just one country that are affected.
Launched on 5 October 2010, Instagram is a photo and video sharing social - networking service, owned by Facebook. It allows people to upload and share pictures and posts and like and comment on other people's posts.
Investigators found that there were some posts on the site, which implied that eating disorders were a lifestyle choice, rather than a mental illness, therfore promoting the idea of them.
BBC trending found that certain terms promoting bullimia were still searchable, and that the Instagram search bar was suggesting alternative spellings and phrasings for known terms which some people see as glamorising or encouraging eating disorders.
However, since the claim has been put forward, Instagram have altered the service that they offer to their customers. They added more health warnings and have used their technology to remove any harmful content online, so that viewers will not be exposed to any sensitive content. They also rely on viewers to report any harmful content that they may see, in order to help get rid of it once and for all.
