Back in September 2024, I started doing something that, quite frankly, should never have become a regular part of anyone’s life: reporting online abuse and harmful behaviour that either I had experienced or people had come to me about. It started with the obvious things: profiles from chat groups sliding into my DMs with “hi sexy”, unwanted messages, unsolicited explicit images, and the usual online behaviour that some people seem to think is acceptable simply because they are sitting behind a screen. Business owners in my FSB groups were getting unwanted DMs trying to sell them services and these sales techniques were getting quite controlling which people were finding upsetting; they were also very confused as to why the platforms were not stopping it from happening when they reported it.
The first thing that becomes apparent when you start reporting this kind of behaviour is how little acknowledgement you actually receive. You take the time to report, explain what has happened, provide evidence where required, and then you are left waiting. Many times, there is no meaningful response at all. You are essentially throwing your concerns into a digital black hole and hoping that somewhere, somehow, an actual person or system is paying attention and will take action.
Most major platforms have a reporting process that looks reassuring in training manuals and we expect them to respond in the same way that you get from a customer services desk at a supermarket. The reality, however, often feels very different. In the real world, we take an item back with our receipt and they resolve the issue with us. Online, you report an account, they review it against their community standards, and they make a decision. You either get a message saying that no action has been taken because apparently it does not breach their rules, you are told the content has been removed, or you receive one of those generic responses that gives the impression a box has been ticked rather than a problem actually being addressed. I have also received hundreds of notifications that a reported account has been removed due to breach of their community standards only to see that it’s still there, alive and sharing more of the very same posts. Is that a system failure or a system designed to make me think that those accounts had, indeed been deleted?
The biggest issue is that some online platforms appear to judge everything in isolation. They look at one message, one image, one post or one report, as though each piece of content exists completely separately from everything else. The problem is that harmful online behaviour rarely works like that. A person who sends one inappropriate message is one thing, but someone who repeatedly creates accounts, repeatedly targets people, repeatedly posts harmful material and repeatedly returns after removal is not an isolated incident, it’s a pattern, and patterns are where one or more platforms appear to struggle. I know the tech exists to significantly reduce a banned user from creating new accounts even even if they are using a VPN or getting people in other countries to create an account for them – it’s deployed quite effectively on a relatively small online chat platform; this same platform can also mute people from typing, DMing anyone and adding any content, so that tech exists too!
When I first started reporting accounts and posts, I would sometimes get two or three accounts removed in a day. Of course, the people behind those accounts were not happy about it. Some would complain ( I could see them say so on a post showing a screenshot of their list of discipline notifications – talk about showing every one the very evidence!), some would create new accounts, and some would simply carry on as though nothing had happened because it appears that disputing a suspended account works and they get reinstated. Over time, I started noticing the patterns. Some accounts were back within minutes, some within a couple of days, and some would disappear for a couple of weeks before returning again – same account, same posts – back to square one. These days, some profiles immediately set themselves as “private” as soon as they have one post flagged, possibly thinking if they hang low for a while, they will get forgotten. I’ve also noticed that some profiles seem to be psychic and know that they have been reported before even any action has been taken; however, this may be something that they are automatically notified about when the system comes back to me saying that their initial decision is that there is no problem, but I can request a review.
Something I see quite regularly is one of these profiles posting that they’ve been “silenced” and can no longer reply to DMs until their shadow ban has been lifted. The irony appears to be completely lost on them. Then, almost on cue, comes the helpful little announcement: “Follow me on my new account.” Brilliant. Thank you for saving everyone the detective work. Nothing quite says, “Perhaps I really was the problem,” like publicly advertising where you’ve moved your activities next. Better still are the ones proudly declaring, “New account. Last one deleted at 120k 😢”, as though losing an account with 120,000 followers is some sort of career milestone rather than a warning sign. It’s the online equivalent of leaving a forwarding address for the bailiffs, or moving house during the Great Plague and painting a great big red plague cross on your new front door again…
I kept a record of the accounts I had successfully reported which were then removed for a period of time, and that number eventually passed 2,000 accounts by early 2025 – let that sink in for a moment; that is not a couple of isolated bad actors, but hundreds of profiles that were active online and that, according to the platform’s own rules, were serious enough to warrant removal. Some were mass accounts and by that I mean close to 500 accounts all using variations of the same core name and pictures: “mystygrace 123”, “mystygrace456”, “dustygrace123”, “dustygrace456” – yes they were as obvious as that and my thanks go out to my contact who passed the list on for deletion.
Whenever I mention the sheer number of reports I’ve submitted over the past two years, people often assume I’m talking about one report per account, but that’s not how it works: one account can contain hundreds or even thousands of individual posts, and every one of those posts can be reported separately if it breaches the platform’s own rules. Once you’ve done it often enough, it becomes second nature. On a profile containing thousands of harmful content, reporting 15 posts a minute is perfectly achievable. The numbers sound ridiculous until you understand the mechanics, but that’s how they can add up remarkably quickly.
In late 2025. something changed; getting harmful profiles deleted became harder; the same types of accounts that previously resulted in action started getting ignored or rejected. The pattern went from being able to get around 1 account removed every day, to 1 every couple of days, then 1 a week. Since spring this year, it’s been rare to see more than 2 or 3 accounts removed in a month and the accounts with larger followings, (more than 30,000 followers), seem particularly difficult/impossible to get action against. Maybe I’ve been marked as an account to mute because I do it too often – that’s quite possible, but what I do is in good faith because I care about people’s physical and mental health.
The same thing has happened with individual posts. In 2024, it felt like reporting harmful content was more likely to result in actual removal. Now, increasingly, the response seems to be that the content is simply marked as “not suitable for teenagers”. Which raises a fairly obvious question: if something is not suitable for teenagers, why is it still considered acceptable to leave it sitting there?
At what point does somebody look at an account and think, “Hang on a minute, this profile keeps producing content that is repeatedly being flagged, maybe the problem isn’t just the odd post, but the account itself?” Surely there has to be some kind of threshold where the repeated behaviour becomes the evidence. How many posts does an account need to have flagged before someone actually stops and asks why? I know it’s not 10, but could it be 50 or is it 100 or a % of their total number of followers? At what point does the system recognise that the account itself has become the issue? Sometimes it genuinely feels like someone forgot to put a limiter on the system: almost like there should be a warning light somewhere saying: “this account has generated an unusually high number of reports, we should investigate.”
Instead, it often feels like the burden remains on ordinary users to keep reporting and hoping that eventually someone notices the bigger picture until we reach the point that we cannot report that account any more, because the system won’t “register” it (and yes that also includes the reports via the UK form system). So the person telling your Mum to keep buying those supplements with zero evidence of clinical efficacy, let alone details of independent quality and safety testing is allowed to continue to trade – in the real world, the Advertising Standards Agency would have forced a take down.
Then there is the report button itself, which appears to have developed an identity crisis – anyone who reports content regularly will know exactly what I mean. Just when you’ve trained your muscle memory to instinctively hit the three dots in the top-right corner, the platform decides that wasn’t exciting enough and quietly moves it somewhere else. More recently, the report option disappeared behind two little lines in the bottom-right instead. There was no fanfare, no obvious explanation, just another opportunity to wonder whether you were losing your eyesight or whether someone in design had decided to spice up your Tuesday afternoon.
After reporting thousands of accounts, you eventually develop the reflexes of a concert pianist. Your index finger instinctively heads towards where the report button used to live, only to discover that you’ve accidentally opened the next profile, liked something you had absolutely no intention of liking, or found yourself watching another video of someone trying to convince the world that sprinkling baking powder onto their thighs is the secret to dropping three stone before breakfast (that is a real post !).
Of course, you qiockly adapt; because practice makes perfect and there are plenty of profiles to practice with; you retrain your brain, your fingers and patience to follow whatever treasure hunt the platform has designed this month. But it does make you wonder why one of the most important safety features on the platform always seems to require users to go looking for it. You would think making it easier to report abuse would be high on the priority list. Instead, it sometimes feels as though the report button is taking part in its own witness protection programme, quietly relocating every so often in the hope that nobody notices. Perhaps that’s being unfair and there is a perfectly sensible user experience reason for moving it around…
More and more these days, we have the growing problem of fake accounts and AI-generated content. The technology exists to identify suspicious images and activity. Platforms are increasingly able to tell users that something is “probably generated by AI”, yet somehow accounts using fake identities, images and ridiculous claims are still allowed to remain active. We are now seeing accounts pushing complete nonsense, including miracle weight loss claims such as telling people to pour apple cider vinegar and cinnamon into their belly button; yes I’ve reported that post and it’s considered to be ok – really? And the worst thing: once you’ve reported a post as “false information”, the system will let you click the “false information” button again, but it never registers this as a new report so the problem disappears as far as the system is concerned if you try to report it again. The same “advantage” applies to some, but not all profiles themselves – are some paying extra not to be reportable more than once under one category – from my experience, it appears so.
At what point does common sense get invited into the conversation? The problem is not just one fake image or one ridiculous post, but the accumulation of trash: the more rubbish that platforms allow to remain becomes a reflection of how we see them, just like in the real world. One piece of litter in the office kitchen is annoying, but an overflowing bin tells you something completely different. Every abusive message that stays up, every fake account that remains active, every harmful post that is ignored and every repeat offender who simply creates another account adds to the overall perception that the platforms are not really solving the problem; they are just managing the complaints by pushing the reporter away.
Of course, the uncomfortable question nobody really wants to ask is why the rubbish is not being cleared out properly in the first place. Is it genuinely a problem of technology, resources and scale, or is there a reluctance to remove content that still generates attention, engagement and screen time? Because the reality is that some of the content being left behind is not attracting meaningful communities, valuable discussion or positive interaction. It is attracting people looking for the lowest common denominator of online entertainment: accounts built around sexualised content, shock value, desperation, outrage and the endless scrolling that keeps people on a platform for longer – potentially creating the next addictive behaviour that our society and the NHS is going to have to cope with (do you want more of your take home pay to disappear to pay for this?) The question is whether platforms are prepared to lose that engagement in order to create a healthier environment, because emptying the bin also means admitting that some of what has been allowed to accumulate should never have been there in the first place.
A platform that removes harmful content quickly sends a clear message that it takes user enjoyment / safety and their reputation seriously. A platform that repeatedly leaves harmful material in place sends a very different message to me: that they are more interested in the numbers, inconsistent and dependent on users doing the hard work for them. They can hide behind article 230 which effectively means that a yoga guru can continue to tell people to use a pile of books to rest their neck on while exercising. Users should not have to become unpaid investigators, moderators and evidence collectors just to get basic standards enforced because I believe that platforms need to take far more accountability and action when reports are made.
Eventually people stop noticing individual pieces of rubbish, they will simply see an environment that has become full of rubbish. I know the tech ability to identify problems exists; I create reports on a daily basis, (many of which come from the profiles the platforms themselves suggest) – it’s easy to do while listening to podcasts and watching rugby. I am beginning to question whether platforms actually want to use these reports properly – because a bin that stops being emptied does not become cleaner, it just becomes trashier…
FAQs
Why do social media platforms ignore abuse reports?
Many platforms review individual posts or messages rather than looking at repeated patterns of behaviour across an account. This can mean persistent offenders remain active despite multiple reports.
How many reports does an account need before it is removed?
There is no publicly consistent threshold across platforms. Many users question why accounts with repeated reports and harmful content are not automatically reviewed.
Can AI-generated accounts be detected?
Platforms are increasingly able to identify content that may be AI-generated, but detection does not always result in removal because platforms assess content against their own policies.
Why do harmful accounts keep coming back?
Some offenders recreate accounts after removal, often changing usernames, images or details to avoid detection. Tech exists to detect this – ironically a small online platform – Wireclub- deploys it quite effectively; they can also mute profiles so while they can do into individual chat group rooms, they cannot post, DM or participate in chat. If they can do it…
Are users becoming unpaid moderators?
Yes when you do it at the level I do ! However, from various conversions, I am aware that many users argue that reporting systems rely heavily on the public identifying, documenting and reporting harmful content rather than platforms proactively preventing it.
