This is bad news for parents and kids, as a former Meta insider says Instagram's own systems made it easier for predators to find teenage girls.

• Internal surveys of 100,000 kids found roughly one in eight girls aged 13-15 got an unwanted sexual message in a single week, even as the company publicly downplayed the harm.
• One of Instagram's recommendation algorithms learned that older men who friended young girls tended to get accepted, so it kept suggesting more young girls to those same men.
• Lawsuits forced a fix: minors are now defaulted into private accounts in some regions, though the policy still depends on local laws.
• Sextortion and AI-generated fake nude images of teens are a growing threat, since bullies and predators can now fabricate explicit images without needing a real photo.
• Politically, state-level action protecting kids online (Florida, Texas, Utah) has come more from the right, while federal legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act has broad bipartisan support but remains stuck in Congress.

Outlook: Expect more state-level laws forcing age limits and privacy defaults on social media, while federal action stays gridlocked and tech companies continue resisting broader changes.