Force tech giants to give us access to our children’s accounts, say bereaved families
Bereaved parents will today tell politicians they must be given access to children’s online accounts
FIVE bereaved families will today urge ministers to introduce new laws to allow parents of children whose deaths are linked to social media to access their accounts.
The families are backing an amendment to the Online Safety Bill that would force tech giants to unlock the data or face multi-million pound fines.
The five – including Ian Russell, whose daughter Molly, 14, took her own life after being bombarded with selfharm and suicide content – will set out their demands in Westminster as the Bill returns to the Commons today after a six-month delay.
Mr Russell, who fought for five years to see the 16,000 “destructive” posts of self-harm, anxiety and suicide that Molly received in the six months before her death, said: “We can no longer leave bereaved families and coroners at the mercy of social media companies.
“There is a dire need for managing this process to make it more straightforward, more compassionate and more efficient. The experience of living through Molly’s prolonged inquest is something no family should endure.”
It comes after ministers last week unveiled the revised version of the Bill, including moves to force social media firms to bar access by under-aged children or face heavy fines.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Kate Winslet, the actress, today warns of the impact on teenagers of social media, as she is due to star in a new drama about the issue alongside her daughter, Mia Threapleton. The amendment to the Online Safety Bill – tabled by online safety campaigner Baroness Kidron – would give watchdog Ofcom powers to ensure that bereaved parents and coroners can access social media data if it was suspected that it had played a part in a child’s death.
Legislation would require social media companies to hand over all “relevant” content that had been “viewed or otherwise engaged with” by a dead child and within a timeframe set by the coroner in charge of the inquest.
The bereaved parents claim social media firms “obstructed” many of their attempts to secure data to reveal who their children contacted.
‘Molly received some 16,000 “destructive” posts in her final six months’
‘Someone needs to look at this and ask: “Is this acceptable material for children to see?”’
FIVE bereaved families have come together to form a group to campaign for online safety after social media platforms played a major part in the deaths of their children.
Their first demand focuses on the need for laws to ensure that grieving parents – and coroners – can access children’s social media accounts in order to understand how and why they died. They will present their case in Westminster today as the online safety bill returns to the Commons to complete its report and committee stages, which have been delayed from July.
Frankie Thomas
For Judy and Andy Thomas, details about the death of their 15-year-old daughter, Frankie, remain locked in her social media accounts.
She took her own life at home in September 2018 after a “normal” day at school, with no apparent motive.
“We were devastated and in total shock. Frankie had no history of suicide attempts and we were at an absolute loss as to why she had done this,” said Andy, a 61-year-old IT consultant, and Judy, a 64-year-old retired music teacher.
It subsequently emerged she had spent more than two hours that day, out of lessons, using a school ipad, unsupervised, and accessing material about violent rape and self-harm, as well as fictional stories featuring her favourite band, on Wattpad, that ended in suicide.
As with the case of Molly Russell, the 14-year-old who took her life after being bombarded with content featuring self-harm and suicide, the coroner concluded failures by Frankie’s school and the Wattpad social media platform to protect her from online harms “more than minimally contributed” to her suicide.
However, Wattpad, a US company outside the UK’S legal jurisdiction, refused to participate in the inquest as an “interested party,” and provided the family with “very limited information,” her parents said.
The Thomases have also been denied access to their daughter’s Instagram account even though her suicide note contained the name of a stranger she had met on the social media site. Her family has been desperate to identify that person is and find out whether they played a role in their daughter’s suicide. They have been writing to Instagram since 2020 but have been refused access to the account on privacy grounds.
“We have pointed out to Instagram and various government ministers that this is a dangerous practice, which may protect anyone maliciously communicating with a child since they know material on the child’s account cannot be disclosed,” they added.
“If, by some means, we could see the content we would just be thankful if nothing of significance was found and that this could be put to rest. It would help us to find some closure.”
Molly Russell
Molly Russell’s father, Ian, admitted it would have been easy for the family to give up and accept that little or no digital evidence would be provided to answer their questions about the online experiences that drove their 14-year-old daughter to take her life.
“Instead, with the support of many, we resolved to keep pushing for the data required to learn lessons, improve online safety and save lives,” he said.
It took five years before the full scale emerged: data revealed Molly received some 16,000 “destructive” posts encouraging self-harm, anxiety and suicide in her final six months.
The coroner concluded she died from an act of self-harm while suffering from depression and “the negative effects of online content” that had “more than minimally contributed” to her death.
At the heart of the inquest were the algorithms that drove the content to Molly – and which, under the proposed amendments, would be included in material that social media companies would be obliged to divulge to parents and coroners under powers handed to Ofcom, the online regulator.
A new offence of delaying the disclosure of evidence, documents or algorithms to an investigation by Ofcom or the coroner would be created under an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Act, with social media bosses facing up to a year in jail and fines of up to 10 per cent of their companies’ global turnover.
Sophie Parkinson
Ruth Moss, a clinical research nurse, has retained on a hard drive some of the suicidal and depressive content her daughter, Sophie, viewed before she took her life at the age of 13.
This was possible because she had persuaded Sophie to provide her with her social media account passwords after a man aged 31 tried to groom her daughter online.
“It was mainly after Sophie’s death that the full extent of her internet use became clear and it was harrowing.
She viewed material on well-known and lesser-known social media sites that showed her how to die quickly and different methods, including how she died,” said Ms Moss.
“I actually morbidly saved it. I still have it on hard drive because I was just so horrified at it. I thought someone needs to look at this and ask: ‘Is this acceptable for children to see?
“The vast majority of the material she viewed would be considered ‘harmful but legal’ but it’s the quantity that she got, a steady drip feed of content.
“It might not be deemed fatal, but in the amount that she saw it was very damaging.”
Ms Moss had implemented full parental controls at home but, once out of the house, it was hard to control. “The internet is ubiquitous and it became impossible, as a parent, to control the internet,” she said.
“I had had discussions with both of my children about safe internet use and limited their use of online devices. But, it was clear that I was losing the battle against the internet providers. If something online was removed, other harmful material would replace it. And Sophie was fed more and more of it, through their algorithms.”
Breck Bednar
Lorin Lafave, whose 14-year-old son Breck Bednar was groomed and murdered by a youth he met online, said her family’s grief had been compounded by internet trolls who had contacted her children on social media pretending to be their dead brother.
It followed similar messages that her daughter, Chloe, received purporting to be from Breck’s killer, 18-year-old Lewis Daynes, who befriended her brother on online gaming platforms before luring him to his flat where he murdered him.
However, the social media firm and messaging app refused to identify who was behind the contacts on the grounds of privacy. “Can anyone even imagine what it is like to have your brother who has been murdered contacting you, via social media, and saying some really graphic and horrible things?” she said.
“And yet again police are unable to access them, or it’s too costly or too lengthy and these trolls get away with it.
“As parents, we want access to anything that harms our children, especially if it is something that could save them.”
Olly Stephens
The social media data of the three children convicted of Olly Stephens’ murder comprised 69,500 pages and on 11 platforms and 40 devices.
He was 13 years old when he was lured from home by a 14-year-old girl he knew, for what he thought would be a one-to-one chat, only be ambushed by two boys aged 13 and 14, the younger of whom was armed with a knife. Olly was stabbed twice and died at the scene.
Because it was a murder inquiry, police were able to compile a forensic digital account of the 649 “events” in a timeline that led to Olly’s death.
His parents, Amanda and Stuart, said: “As parents we were completely naive to what was happening on social media, for Olly, until we saw the evidence in court.
“We now raise awareness to ensure that parents know and can try and protect their children as we didn’t.we campaign to ensure that the online safety bill gets passed as quickly as possible [so] that social media companies are brought to account. The violent language and images go ungoverned and allow arguments online to escalate to murder.”