A damning new study from researchers at New York University and Northeastern University has found that at least half of the safety features designed to protect children on major social media platforms fail to deliver on their promises.

The Study

Published by the Heat Initiative and the Cybersafety Research Center, the study tested 86 distinct safety features across four major platforms: Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube. According to the analysis, every single platform posted a failure rate of at least 50 percent when it came to its advertised protective capabilities.

Researchers created dummy accounts simulating children of various ages alongside adult accounts to test real-world effectiveness. The study examined three scenarios: a child using a platform naturally, a teenager attempting to circumvent safety features, and a “malicious adult actor” trying to bypass protections on a teen’s account.

Key Findings

The testing revealed serious vulnerabilities. On Snapchat, the study found that adult accounts were able to “search for, find and then message the child account with zero restrictions.” Meanwhile, TikTok was observed suggesting anorexia-related searches to teen accounts – a troubling failure of content moderation safeguards.

A feature was considered a failure if it was too buried in privacy settings menus to be practically useful, if it didn’t actually do what it claimed, or if it was entirely missing from the platform. Of the many features tested, those intended to be activated by children themselves fared particularly poorly.

Industry Pushback

Spokespeople for Snap, Meta, and YouTube all contested the study’s methodology in statements to the New York Times, which independently verified and replicated the study’s findings. A Meta spokesperson told Engadget that “teens are seeing less sensitive content, experiencing less unwanted contact, and spending less time on Instagram at night” thanks to Instagram’s Teen Accounts. However, the spokesperson also claimed the study’s authors “include vague claims that our features are broken but, in the vast majority of cases, either misrepresent those features or fail to provide any examples or evidence.”

Broader Regulatory Context

This latest research arrives amid a growing wave of legal and regulatory pressure on social media companies. School districts and individuals have filed lawsuits claiming platforms caused harm to children. Countries around the world are pursuing stricter measures – the UK is considering a social media ban for children under 16, while Australia recently doubled its maximum penalty for non-compliant companies.

What This Means

The report raises urgent questions about whether social media platforms are genuinely prioritizing child safety or merely offering the appearance of protection. With regulators increasingly scrutinizing these companies and governments pushing for legislative action, the pressure to deliver working safety features has never been higher. For parents and guardians, the study serves as a stark reminder that the safety tools currently available may not be reliable safeguards for children navigating the online world.