BFamilies of children whose deaths have been linked to social media have become important voices in the debate about how to protect under-18s from being harmed by their online experiences. Two years ago, the coroner’s verdict that Molly Russell’s death was contributed to in part by the “adverse effects of online content”, including algorithmically delivered self-harm content, was a landmark. Now Ellen Room, whose son Jules Sweeney died by mysterious suicide in Cheltenham in 2022, has become the latest campaigner calling for legal change in this area.
Her petition calling for bereaved parents to be given the right to access their social media accounts has garnered 120,000 signatures and is expected to be debated by MPs early in the next Parliament. The Online Safety Bill, which received Royal Assent in October, significantly strengthened a weak and outdated regulatory framework, but Roome and other bereaved families from Bereaved Families for Online Safety rightly point out that more needs to be done.
Significant efforts are already being made to ensure that parents are not left in the dark when a young person’s suicide is suspected to be linked to online activities or content. New powers for coroners to access children’s data were agreed when the Online Safety Bill was debated, but the powers were added to the Data Protection Act rather than incorporated into the Bill.
The bill The amendments and the work leading up to them were for naught when Chancellor Rishi Sunak called a general election.
It will likely fall on the Labour government to move forward with this broken promise to parents – and given their pain of loss, they should not wait any longer than necessary. Campaigners including Ian Russell, chairman of the Molly Russell Foundation, which aims to prevent young people from committing suicide, and Esther Gay, the mother of murdered teenager Brianna Gay, have shown extraordinary courage.
So far, tech companies have been uncooperative and resistant to pressure. Then-Culture Secretary Michelle Donnellan said the inquest into Molly Russell’s death showed that “social media platforms do not put children’s welfare first.” Experts believe many would be surprised to learn that parents have no automatic right to access accounts or know what their children have been viewing, even in the tragic deaths of young and vulnerable teenagers. Concerns that tech platforms are prioritizing reputation management over children’s safety have been further heightened by Meta’s decision last month to cancel its hiring of a cyber intelligence analyst shortly after criticizing Instagram’s failure to protect them.
MPs have signalled in recent weeks that they intend to consider banning smartphones for under-16s. Experts, including the Molly Rose Foundation and Lady Kidron, believe active regulation and enforcement, rather than bans, is the way to go. But as things stand, there is widespread agreement that more web protections are needed. Rules banning under-13s from using social media platforms need to be made workable by Ofcom. Companies need to be publicly accountable for their design decisions and required to engage with bereaved parents in a humane way. Last year’s Online Safety Act was just the start.
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Source: www.theguardian.com
