Hundreds of Instagram accounts push graphic real-life violence to millions

In February 2025, a glitch accidentally exposed unwitting Instagram Reels users to graphic videos depicting real-world violence, injury and death. I was one of them, and wanted to understand what this content was, who was posting it and why. I built a web scraper to scroll Instagram Reels and map the network of so-called accounts, and quantify the scale of their reach.

With the help of our OSINT team, we investigated the accounts. We interviewed the people behind these so-called "gore" accounts, who told us they post the often shockingly violent videos to grow and monetize their accounts via informal, off-platform advertising deals made in Telegram channels.