The coroner who presided over schoolgirl Molly Russell's inquest has said the Government should consider separate social media platforms for children and adults. Molly, 14, from Harrow in north-west London, died in November 2017 after viewing content related to suicide, depression and self-harm online.
At the inquest last month, coroner Andrew Walker ruled Molly "died from an act of self-harm whilst suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content". He has now issued a prevention of future deaths report, recommending that the Government reviews the provision of internet platforms to children.
As part of that review, he said, it should look at: separate sites for children and adults; checking a user's age before they sign up to a platform; providing age-appropriate content to children; the use of algorithms to provide content; advertising to children; and parental or guardian access to a child's social media account. The prevention of future deaths report was sent on Thursday to firms including Meta, Pinterest, Twitter and Snapchat, as well as the UK Government.
All parties who receive the report must respond by December 8 with details of the actions they propose to take, or explain why they are not taking action. In his report, Mr Walker said: "I recommend that consideration is given to the setting up of an independent regulatory body to monitor online platform content."
He also recommended that "consideration is given to enacting such legislation as may be necessary to ensure the protection of children from the effects of harmful online content and the effective regulation of harmful online content". The coroner added that while any regulation "would be a matter for government I can see no reason why the platforms themselves would not wish to give consideration to self-regulation".
"I believe you and/or your organisation have the power to take such action," he wrote.
Responding to the report, Molly's father Ian Russell called on social media platforms to think "long and hard" about whether their services were safe for children and to take action before the Government's online safety bill was introduced. He said: "We urge social media companies to heed the coroner's words and not drag their feet waiting for legislation and regulation, but instead to take a proactive approach to self-regulation to make their platforms safer for their young users. They should think long and hard about whether their platforms are suitable for young people at all."
