Molly Russell’s dad blasts the social media company’s response to the coroner in the inquest of her death.
The 14-year-old school girl from Harrow took her own life in 2017 after viewing content centring on suicide and self-harm and last year a coroner rule that she died while impacted by the “negative effects” the content, which the algorithm of sites like Pinterest and Instagram pushed out.
Her father Ian said the reaction from companies like Meta - who own and operate Facebook and Instagram - implied a “business as usual approach” after Andrew Walker, the senior coroner in the case, passed on a document, titled ‘Prevention of Future Deaths’ to the Mark Zuckerberg-helmed company, Pinterest, Twitter and Snapchat in 2022.
Recommendations to the tech giants include going over the algorithm used by the sites to share content.
Ian told BBC News: "My reaction is summed up by underwhelming and unsurprising.
"The responses vary but in general they are underwhelming and seem to me to indicate a 'business as usual' approach post-Molly's inquest.
"One perhaps would have hoped that looking at the level of detail that was presented to the coroner… it would have focused minds and compelled tech platforms to react more positively to put safety higher up their agenda.
"But that doesn't seem to be the case - particularly in Meta's case."
In response to the coroner’s document, Meta pointed out their sensitive content controls, their “take a break” reminders and a notification for teens engaging heavily on a certain topic.
