Testimony

Oral Evidence to the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill

Jan 2021 🇬🇧 Molly Rose Foundation

Suicide and self-harm are complex and never caused by one factor alone. Problematic screen use, cyberbullying, harmful content, and online exploitation may increase risk or intensify existing distress. If someone is in immediate danger or emotional crisis in the United States, call or text 988.

Outside the U.S.? Find your local helpline at findahelpline.com.

In 2021, Ian Russell — whose fourteen-year-old daughter Molly died in 2017 after viewing large volumes of graphic depression, self-harm, and suicide-related content on Instagram and Pinterest — gave oral evidence, as chair of the newly formed Molly Rose Foundation, to the UK Parliament's Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill. This pre-legislative committee scrutinized the bill that became the Online Safety Act 2023, and Russell was part of a witness panel pressing MPs and peers on strengthening duties around content linked to self-harm and suicide and on the powers of the incoming regulator. The foundation's own account describes the session as 'wide-ranging and informative.' TechKids Foundation includes this appearance as a documented instance of bereaved-parent input into landmark UK legislation, described here in association language rather than as a claim that any single platform feature caused his daughter's death.

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CITATION

UK Parliament, Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill. Oral evidence session, 2021; witness panel including Ian Russell (Chair, Molly Rose Foundation). Cited via Molly Rose Foundation, "MRF Gives Evidence To Parliamentary Committee," https://mollyrosefoundation.org/mrf-gives-evidence-to-parliamentary-committee/

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