The Prince of Wales has called for more online safety regulations.
Prince William - who has three children, Prince George, nine, Princess Charlotte, seven, and Prince Louis, four with his wife Catherine, the Princess of Wales, 40 - believes that no family ought to go through what Molly Russell's after the 14-year-old died by suicide in 2017 after it was ruled she ended her life after suffering depression and seeing negative online content on Friday (30.10.2022).
The 40-year-old royal said: "No parent should ever have to endure what Ian Russell and his family have been through."
"They have been so incredibly brave. Online safety for our children and young people needs to be a prerequisite, not an afterthought."
Andrew Walker, the coroner involved in the ruled that images seen by the teenager on platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest “shouldn’t have been available for a child to see.”
The north London senior coroner testified that Molly appeared to being a thriving girl after making the successful transition to secondary school and loved the performing artists.
He added to North London Coroner’s Court: "It would not be safe to leave suicide as a conclusion.
"Molly subscribed to a number of online sites. She had access to images, video clips and text concerned with self-harm and suicide, or that were otherwise negative or depressing in nature."
Andrew also said the social media company’s algorithms pushed some of the content to Molly’s timeline without her seeking it out, which increased the amount she saw, which is believed to have a negative impact on her and "contributed to her death in a more than minimal way".
Molly’s father Ian Russell - who has become an internet safety campaign since his daughter’s passing - also deemed it “time to protect” vulnerable people on the internet.
He said: "It's time to protect our innocent young people instead of allowing [social media] platforms to prioritise their profits by monetising the misery of children."
Three years prior to this ruling, Prince William and his wife met Ian Russell and offered their condolences and asked the grieving father if he believed social media sites were working hard enough to combat the problem.
Ian said: "My thoughts on Instagram are, we're grateful that they're doing something but I think they're only really inching along the road, and they need to do a lot more.”
