Nearly 1 in 5 users ages 13 to 15 have seen “nudity or sexual imagery” on Instagram that they didn’t want to see, according to a court document released Friday. The document includes excerpts from a March 2025 testimony by Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri in a federal lawsuit in California. Mosseri said Meta doesn’t share survey results “generally” and stressed that self-reporting by users is problematic. According to Meta spokesman Andy Stone, the survey was conducted in 2021 and is intended to capture users’ experiences with the content they encounter on the platform.

Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, is facing accusations from global leaders and thousands of lawsuits in U.S. federal and state courts, accusing it of designing products that are addictive and negatively impact the mental health of minors. According to spokesperson Stone, the statistics on explicit images came from user surveys and not from reviewing the posts themselves. About 8% of users in the 13–15 age group also said they had seen someone harm themselves or threaten to do so on Instagram.

Mosseri said that most of these sexually explicit images were sent via private messages, which poses a challenge for the company, as it must respect users’ privacy. “A lot of people don’t want us to read their messages,” he added. In response to these concerns, Meta announced that by the end of 2025 it would remove content with nudity or explicit sexual activity for teen users, with the exception of educational and medical content. Stone said the company is “proud of the progress we’ve made and we’re always working to do better.” The document and survey reopen discussions about the safety of minors on social media and how technology companies should protect young users while balancing privacy and protection from unwanted content.