Online Safety Bill: Over-18s must not be left unprotected

With new online safety legislation due to be laid before Parliament soon, Julie Bentley argues the

Bill must go further to ensure everyone is protected from harmful suicide and self-harm content online.

Suicide is complex and rarely caused by one thing. But it is preventable, and reducing access to harmful information about suicide – for example, information that positions suicide as a suitable way of overcoming adversity or describes suicide methods – is really important.

This information can readily be found online. While the internet can be an invaluable resource for individuals experiencing suicidal feelings, it can act to encourage, maintain or exacerbate suicidal behaviour and has played a role in suicides. Samaritans is really concerned about the opportunity the internet affords people to quickly access detailed information on how to take your own life. For some, suicide can be an impulsive act, so creating as much time between the impulse and being able to act on it is important to increase the chance of intervention and for the feeling to subside.

Through our Online Excellence Programme, we have developed guidelines for the tech industry and are working with some of the largest and most popular social media platforms in managing suicide content. However, some of the most harmful content can be found on smaller user-to-user platforms like online community groups, forums or message boards.

We regularly receive emails from members of the public concerned about pro-suicide forums, for example, including bereaved parents whose children have accessed these platforms prior to dying by suicide. We are usually aware of these platforms, and share their frustration but have to respond saying that there isn’t anyone with the authority to remove or

reduce the harmful content. We’re hoping this could change with the UK Government’s forthcoming Online Safety Bill - but in its current form it does not go far enough.

The draft Bill, which has recently been examined by a PreLegislative Scrutiny Committee, divides ‘harmful content’ into two categories – illegal content and legal but harmful content. Content relating to suicide falls into both categories. For example, content encouraging someone to take their own life is illegal; content providing information about an emerging suicide method is legal but harmful.

Whilst we welcome the Government’s decision to prioritise tackling illegal suicide content in the new law, this still leaves only the largest and most popular social media platforms required to tackle suicide content that is legal but harmful to adults. This isn’t good enough. Suicidal feelings and behaviour affects people of all ages, and there is evidence that over-18s who have died by suicide visited websites that encouraged suicide or shared information about methods of harm.

The Scrutiny Committee’s findings reflected concerns Samaritans, and our supporters, made about some of the most harmful suicide content and smaller platforms and sites. Importantly, it recommended that the legislation adopt “a more nuanced approach [to legal but harmful content and over-18s], based not just on [platform] size and… functionality, but factors such as risk… and user base…”

Establishing a partial approach to reducing access to harmful information about suicide online will only serve to undermine the wider suicide prevention efforts of governments across the UK. The ball is now firmly in the UK Government’s court. When the final version of the Online Safety Bill is published, the loophole leaving over-18s unprotected when it comes to legal but harmful suicide content must be closed.

“Suicidal feelings and behaviour affects people of all ages, and there is evidence that over-18s who have died by suicide visited websites that shared information about methods of harm”