...but Molly’s parents were denied access
THE Nevada abortion case is not the first time Meta has been criticised over its response to requests for data.
The parents of London schoolgirl Molly Russell pleaded with the social media giant to grant them access to private accounts as part of the inquest into the teenager’s death.
The 14-year-old took her own life in November 2017 after seeing graphic images of self-harm and suicide on photo and videosharing platform Instagram, which is owned by Meta.
Graphic images of self-harm
A coroner had to order the California-based firm to release the data in February after it refused the family’s request. Meta said it had provided 12,000 pieces of content to the court a month later, with its lawyers saying they were working at ‘great speed’.
The company had previously claimed it did not hold data on the algorithms and the sort of content that was promoted to Molly’s account before her death. Molly’s father Ian Russell said he wanted to review all the content she had interacted with before giving his witness statement to the inquiry.
The family’s lawyers blame Meta for unnecessary delays and the inquest has been adjourned until next month.
And Molly’s parents are not the only ones to have taken the firm to task in a bid to seek answers about their child’s death. In July 2018, a German court ordered Facebook to hand over a girl’s account to her parents so they could determine whether her death was suicide.
The 15-year-old was hit by a train in 2012 but the company rejected the couple’s repeated requests to access their daughter’s profile and look for clues about how she died, citing privacy concerns.
Authorities in Brazil went a step further in 2016 when Facebook failed to hand over data. Police arrested the vice-president of Facebook for Latin America after the social media giant refused access to information as part of a probe into drugs and organised crime.