Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan is seeking to pass a new bill which would criminalise content encouraging self-harm.
Michelle joined This Morning to discuss the new bill alongside Ian Russel, the father of schoolgirl Molly Russel who took her own life after seeing and being influenced by depression and suicidal posts.
On the fifth anniversary of Molly's death, they agreed more needs to be done to protect children online which the new bill will set out to do. Michelle said she was strengthening the Online Safety Bill "to make sure these vile acts are stamped out".
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"We want to prevent other families from going through [the same as Ian] and that's why it's a priority to get it backed, it was my top priority when I came to office, but also to strengthen it for children.
"So some of the changes on top of what we had before is saying for too long we've allowed social media companies to almost pretend that they're putting a restriction of 13 in place when we know 10-year-olds are on there.
Molly's father previously criticised the current Online Safety Bill for not doing enough following Molly's death. The update would bring self-harm content in line with communications that encourage suicide.
The amendment would mean social media platforms would be required to remove self-harm content and any person found to have posted such content would face prosecution.
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