YouTube’s UK Anorexia Algorithm
How YouTube recommends eating disorder videos to young girls in the UK.

New research by CCDH shows that YouTube pushes dangerous videos including eating disorder content to young girls in the UK.
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This report investigates YouTube’s video recommendation system to 13-year-olds based in the UK. It follows CCDH’s earlier report, YouTube’s Anorexia Algorithm, and analyses the video recommendations shown to a 13-year-old user in the UK.
Instead of diverting 13-year-olds away from harm, our analysis found that 1 out of 4 of YouTube’s recommendations were for harmful eating disorder content. When reported, YouTube failed to remove or age-restrict 74% of these videos. Videos that breached YouTube’s policies include thinspiration and vlogs on extreme diets such as the “Anorexia Boot Camp” diet.
This content breaches YouTube’s own policies, posing a risk to minors and to wider public health. The UK’s Online Services Act (OSA) requires YouTube to mitigate these risks, protecting children from content that is harmful to them and ceasing algorithmic recommendation of priority content like eating disorders.
Ofcom, the UK regulator charged with enforcing the Online Safety Act, told platforms they should be improving systems and processes to meet the requirements of the Act ahead of enforcement. CCDH’s report exposes YouTube’s worrying failure to heed this pre-emptive call, and demonstrates the need for swift enforcement action once Ofcom’s OSA Children’s’ Codes come into force later this year.
Check out the full findings in our report.