OPINION
Instagram announced yesterday that they will be introducing new guidelines around weight loss products and cosmetic procedures.
The new policy will see Instagram restrict posts that promote diet products and cosmetic procedures being seen by people they know to be under 18.
It also means that any content that "makes a miraculous claim and is linked to a commercial offer" will be subject to removal.
The move comes on the heels of campaign led by actress Jameela Jamil calling for greater regulation of diet related products, including famously calling out diet lollipops promoted by .
Jamil worked with Instagram on the change and said the move "sends an important message out to the world".
Instagram Public Policy Manager Emma Collins said that the policy is part of the company's ongoing work to "reduce the pressure" people can feel as a result of social media.
But the question still remains, will the change really make a difference?
The reality is that an age restriction is not a solution to the problem of how we consume social media.
A national survey conducted by last year found that respondents most commonly looked to social media when judging their own appearance.
Restricting diet-related content is just the tip of the iceberg. Young people will still continue to dissect their own bodies in response to the content that they see on social media, especially a platform like Instagram built on images and filtering.
Young people have a knack for finding loopholes in rules. Age based restrictions have existed on social media for a long time. That has never stopped users from accessing . So while it is commendable that Instagram is taking the long overdue step of addressing the harm that is done by diet-related content - an age restriction will not solve the problem entirely.
While the platform employs teams of moderators to monitor and remove content that violates their guidelines, they don’t always catch it all. And that puts the onus back on users to report such content.
But we have to think about the kind of users we’re talking about. The Butterfly Research Institute findings showed that people under 30 years old were most likely to rank their appearance as very important.
Are these users really going to report posts that violate the new diet guidelines? It seems likely that they will instead fall prey to the very content that Instagram is trying to protect them from. In fact, it may be impossible to prevent this sort of content from appearing on the platform altogether.
The new policy echoes changes made by Instagram regarding self-harm content and. Earlier this year, that they would no longer allow any graphic images of self-harm. The platform also removed users’ ability to search for any self-harm related content through their hashtag or explore function. Instagram stopped short of removing the content from the platform altogether, saying they didn’t want to "stigmatise or isolate people".
Instagram's new policy might benefit from a similar kind of middle ground thinking.
But while it might be useful to think about changing the way platforms like Instagram can proactively influence positive body image, particularly for young users - the answer might just lie in using it less.
Zoe Victoria is a Macquarie University journalism student and an SBS Media Mentorship mentee. You can follow Zoe on Twitter .
