Is social media safe enough for children? Today, parents must primarily rely on claims that social media companies make about their products to answer that question. But how accurate are these claims? To answer that question, we undertook a methodical independent analysis of features claimed to be provided by: Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube. We found that most features do not live up to the promises that companies make about the safety they provide. Of the 86 features that we tested, 51 failed, or ~60%. The rest of our report explains in detail how we conducted our analysis and detailed findings. Our goal is to provide a robust understanding of the gap between the promise and reality of social media safety features.

See coverage of our findings by the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/29/us/social-media-child-safety-report.html