posts encouraging eating disorders were recommended to x users

Question

"edtwit" has been gaining traction to users and x is not doing much about preventing the spread of toxicity on their platform via the "for you" tab. 

Via NBC News 

Posts encouraging eating disorders were recommended to X users

X is just the latest platform to struggle with user groups creating eating disorder content, where teens can fall down a rabbit hole that promotes extreme thinness.

Factchecking

I believe NBC is a reliable news source although there is a very similar article from 2021 regarding this topic which provides more data and charts. This source is not as known but has various cultural pieces. They include personal stories from users.  https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/thinstagram-instagrams-algorithm-fuels-eating-disorder-epidemic 

The author of the article is Kat Tenbarge who is an award winning journalist for nbc news. She focuses on social media and has hundreds of articles. 

The topic has been around since social media was born but it is a recurrence that is seen on many platforms.  Other news outlets are publishing the same story, copying the nbc news article. The quotes and content seem accurate and real, aligning with the claim and users experiences. 

Comments

I do agree with your claim that NBC is a reliable news source, and it is very prominent that  a group on X promote eating disorders, self-harm, and the encouragement of underweight values in younger people, as the rise of glorified disordered eating is at the highest its ever been. One thing I seemed to catch, is that Tenbarge wrote in the article that around 173,ooo users joined a specific X community, however it is hard to keep track of those in a community on a social media platform. Though X does provide a community feature that is exclusive to members included, when someone isn't in a specific community that promotes eating disorders, it doesn't mean they aren't technically apart of it still. The point is, the number of members in the X eating disorder community may be underestimated. X stated that their community feature is incredibly used, but only those in it can post and interact with one another. EDTWT accounts not in the community are excluded in the 173,000 members statistic.
https://metricool.com/twitter-communities/

Answer 1

I found another source that supports your claim, stating that there has been community on X that has encouraged the younger generation to develop eating disorders, self harm, and glorifying being underweight. I believe your source and the one I found because they both have relatively the same information and these facts are coming from many trusted news sites.

The link for the source I found: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/posts-encouraging-eating-disorders-were-recommended-to-x-users.html

Comments

Think that its great that you were able to find a source that supports the claim, but I'm not sure if it would be a first choice for reassuring this claim. Though the website states and gives credit to NBC News I wonder what sources NBC News used and if there is more primary sources.