Nearly one in five Instagram users aged 13 to 15 reported seeing nudity or sexual images they did not want to view on the platform, according to a court filing made public Friday.
The document, released as part of a federal lawsuit in California and reviewed by Reuters, includes portions of a March 2025 deposition by Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram.
The statistic stems from a 2021 user survey conducted by Meta Platforms, which owns Instagram and Facebook. According to the filing, about 19% of users in the 13–15 age group said they had seen “nudity or sexual images” they did not want to view.
In the same survey, approximately 8% of respondents in that age bracket reported seeing someone harm themselves or threaten to do so on Instagram.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the nudity statistic was derived from user responses about their experiences and not from a review of actual posts.
The disclosures come as Meta faces thousands of lawsuits in U.S. federal and state courts alleging that its platforms are addictive and harmful to young users’ mental health.
Another document unsealed in the case includes a January 2021 internal memo from a Meta researcher recommending that the company prioritize teens because they act as “catalysts” within households, influencing younger siblings and even parents in their app usage.
“If we’re looking to acquire (and retain) new users, we need to recognize a teen’s influence within the household to help do so,” the memo stated.
Meta has said it continues to strengthen protections for teens. In late 2025, the company announced it would remove images and videos containing nudity or explicit sexual activity for teen users, including AI-generated content, while allowing exceptions for medical or educational purposes.
“We’re proud of the progress we’ve made, and we’re always working to do better,” Stone said.
Mosseri noted in his deposition that much of the explicit content reported by teens was shared through private messages, adding that user privacy limits how extensively the company can monitor direct communications.
“A lot of people don’t want us reading their messages,” he said.
