After a two-week hearing, coroner Andrew Walker’s investigation confirmed social media accountability
Molly Russell was a 14-year-old girl like many others. On the evening of November 20, 2017, in her home in Harrow (North West London), she was spent like an ordinary family evening. Nothing about her suggested that she would soon take her own life, victim of what her father, Ian Russell, defined as the “bleakest of worlds“.
On Friday 29 September, at the end of a two-week hearing, Andrew Walkerthe coroner of the North London court (magistrate charged with investigating cases of suspected death), ruled that Molly died of an act of self-harm while suffering from depression and “negative effects of online content“. “It’s a world I don’t recognize. It is a ghetto of the online world from which, once fallen, the algorithm can no longer get out and continues to recommend other content. There is no escape, ”added Ian Russell.
The legal battle and the results of the investigation
The girl’s family fought for a long time to have the involvement of social networks such as Instagram And Pinterest in Molly’s death. Andrew Walker’s investigation finally ascertains this. Of the 16,300 contents saved, liked or shared by the 14-year-old on Instagram in the six months prior to her death, 2,100 were related to suicide, self-harm And depression. The last time she used the phone to access the platform was at 12.45 in the morning. Two minutes earlier she had saved an image that carried a slogan related to depression.
Instagram it is undoubtedly the social media in which Molly was exposed to the most disturbing content, so much so that it is child psychiatrist consulted at the hearing stated of not being able to sleep for weeks, after viewing the contents seen by the girl shortly before she died. Among the collected material, there were photos, graphics and videos containing clips relating to suicide, depression and self-harm, for a total of 138 videos.
The court was told that Molly had left a note on the phone quoting a depressive Instagram post seen earlier, while another note quoted one of the video montages. Oliver Sanders KC, representing the Russell family, said that “it’s Instagram that literally gives Molly ideas.”
Also Pinterest it is not without faults. On the platform that allows you to collect images and save them on digital message boards, the girl had searched for posts with terms such as “depressing qoutes [sic] deep“(Deep depressing quotes) and”suicial [sic] qoutes»(Suicide quotes). One collection in particular, titled “nothing to worry about …” by Molly, contained 469 images, some of them relating to self-harm and suicide. Others involved anxiety and depression, while it emerged that Pinterest himself had sent the 14-year-old an email, recommending content with headlines like “10 Depression Pins You May Like.”
The reaction of Meta and Pinterest
Elizabeth Lagone, head of health and wellness policies at Meta – the company that owns Instagram and Facebook – has defended the suitability of some posts, claiming they were “safe” for children, because they represented an attempt to raise awareness of sanity. However, the Russels’ lawyer, Sanders, questioned whether a 14-year-old could distinguish between a post that raises awareness of self-harm and one that encourages it.
Some contents were indefensible also for Lagone and the Instagram guidelines of 2017, so much so that she apologized for the fact that they had not been removed from the platform. But the content that the head of Meta tried to defend aroused the exasperation of Sanders, who said “Instagram is choosing to put content in the bedrooms of depressed children. You do not have the right – she added -. You are not their parents. You are just a company in America ».
The attitude of Jud Hoffman, head of operations of the Pinterest community, was different. He declared that he was «deeply sorryFor what Molly saw and the fact that the platform was not safe at the time. Hoffman also said Pinterest isn’t “perfect” yet and that content that violates his policies “probably still exists.” Those who fight for internet safety, such as the Russell family, argue that this also applies to other platforms.
The draft law for the protection of minors online
During the hearing, coroner Andrew Walker addressed the issue of the necessary changes that social platforms must undertake with regard to minor users. Some of the work has already been done with L ‘Age Appropriate Design Code, which prevents websites and apps from misusing children’s data. Instead, the imminent Online Safety Bill will impose an obligation on technology companies to protect children from harmful content.
Ian Russell said he wanted to broadcast a message of hope along with loss. “Just as Molly would have liked, it is important to try to learn everything possible and then take all necessary steps to prevent such a young life from being wasted again.”
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