Almost one in five users between the ages of 13 and 15 told Meta they had encountered “nudity or sexual images on Instagram” that they did not want to see, according to a court filing. The document, released Friday as part of a federal lawsuit in California and reviewed by Reuters, contains excerpts from a March 2025 deposition of Instagram chief Adam Mosseri.
According to Meta spokesperson Andy Stone, the data regarding explicit images was derived from a 2021 survey of Instagram users about their experiences on the platform, rather than an analysis of the posts themselves.
In a different document released during the lawsuit, a Meta researcher advises the company to concentrate on teenage users, describing them as 'catalysts' for their families and noting their impact on how both their younger siblings and parents engage with the app. This document is dated January 20, 2021.
As the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, Meta is under intensifying scrutiny worldwide, with policymakers and regulators questioning the impact of its platforms on children and teenagers. Across the United States, a wave of federal and state lawsuits claims the company engineered features that encourage compulsive use, contributing to worsening mental health outcomes among young people.
Mosseri's testimony indicated that a 2021 survey found about 8% of Instagram users aged 13 to 15 had seen someone engage in self-harm or threaten to do so. In late 2025, the company announced it would delete images and videos featuring nudity or explicit sexual content for teen users, even if created by AI, with exceptions for medical and educational purposes.
Mosseri stated in his deposition that the majority of sexually explicit images were exchanged through private messages between users, and Meta needs to take user privacy into account when examining these images.“A lot of people don’t want us reading their messages,” he said.