Posts encouraging eating disorders recommended to X users

(NBC).- Content warning: This piece includes descriptions of eating disorders and self-harm that may be triggering to some readers. The National Alliance for Eating Disorders Helpline provides support, resources, and information about treatment options at 1-866-662-1235. You can also text “ALLIANCE” to 741741 to be contacted by a trained volunteer.

Communities that promote eating disorders have been thriving on X, with some users saying the platform has recommended content to them that glorifies or encourages starving, self-harm, and being underweight.

Over the last two years, over 173,000 users joined one such X community, a recent feature that allows people to join groups based on a shared interest, making it one of the largest on the platform. More than 70,000 of them have joined since June. Thousands of posts were made in the group daily, including encouragement and instructions for disordered eating.

Many of the users identified as teen girls and young women, some as young as 13.

Users refer to the groups as part of “ed twt”(eating disorder Twitter), referring to X’s previous name. The posts are a glimpse into a thriving social media subculture that has migrated across platforms for over a decade, well before Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, and has an even longer history across social media platforms, from Tumblr and Pinterest in the 2010s to Instagram and TikTok today. X, which experienced major upheaval after Musk became CEO of the company, is the latest platform to struggle with the moderation of the subculture.

In September, X suspended the largest group for violating rules against promoting self-harming behaviors after NBC News requested comment. Tens of thousands of members then migrated to similar X communities. X suspended two of those communities after NBC News reached out again.

NBC News subsequently identified seven more X communities with 2,000 to 78,000 members featuring content promoting eating disorders and self-harm.

Experts say social media alone isn’t to blame for why eating disorders among teens are at an all-time high, but online content can introduce, facilitate, and worsen disordered eating. However, moderation efforts have been largely unsuccessful in stopping the subculture from migrating to new platforms.

Under Musk’s leadership, X expanded its Communities feature and introduced the algorithm-driven “For You” page as the default tab. This page recommends content based on user’s previous interactions, potentially exposing them to pro-eating disorder accounts and communities.

Unlike strictly moderated eating disorder recovery groups, these online communities include content that promotes starving and purging and demonizes bodies and people who aren’t thin or pursuing thinness. These subsections are sometimes referred to as “pro-anorexia” or simply “pro-ana” groups.

A recent study found that a majority of female TikTok users had encountered disordered eating content on their “For You” page, often including pro-anorexia messaging.

In February 2021, in partnership with the National Eating Disorders Association, Instagram and TikTok started directing users to help resources when searching for terms associated with eating disorders. X currently does not.

The growth of this highly visible community on X had stoked alarm and previous calls for intervention. In early September, The Guardian reported that campaigners in the U.K. had called for X to moderate the largest eating disorder community and at least seven others. X did not respond to The Guardian’s request for comment.

Posts in these communities directly encouraged and facilitated disordered eating through group chats and extreme diet challenges. The challenges encouraged eating very little for weeks and months at a time, including days of eating nothing at all.

Other posts advertised group chats where the entire group would be subjected to a single calorie limit. If one of the members exceeded their daily calorie limit, the other members would be told to “eat less” to compensate. The post viewed by NBC News said the group chats would be divided into people over the age of 17 and those under 17.

In a sample of the posts made in the largest eating disorder community during a single one-hour period, there were at least five from accounts that identified themselves as children between ages 13 and 17 who asked for advice on how to maintain disordered eating habits, sought negative feedback on their bodies and even discussed being sexually preyed on by adults online. NBC News also viewed two posts in the X community that were photos depicting graphic images of freshly self-inflicted cuts.

There are a handful of ways to address and further understand the harms of pro-eating disorder content and communities on social media, including platform transparency and collaboration with experts to provide insight into how algorithms recommend harmful content and how to introduce content that encourages recovery. Pro-recovery content may be one of the best ways to provide help to people struggling with eating disorders.

Experts warn that removing the communities entirely won’t solve the problems that built them in the first place or prevent their re-creation.