Molly Russell Instagram, Pinterest suicide

A coroner concluded (pdf) that the death of 14 year-old Molly Russell had been contributed to by Instagram and Pinterest in 'more than a meaningful way'. 'She died', the coroner ruled, 'from an act of self-harm while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content.'

The Guardian found that, in the lead up to her death, Russell had viewed and interacted with over 2,000 Instagram posts related to suicide, self-harm, or depression, and hundreds of similar images on Pinterest. 

Instagram owner Meta and Pinterest acknowledged unsafe content had been on their platforms and apologised. The inquest had been delayed multiple times, in part due to content redaction requests from Meta.

System

• Instagram website, Wikipedia profile

• Instagram (2022). Updates to the Sensitive Content Control

• Pinterest website, Wikipedia profile

Legal, regulatory

• North London Coroner’s Service (2022). REGULATION 28 REPORT TO PREVENT FUTURE DEATHS (pdf)

• UK Childrens' Commissioner (2019). Online platforms must do more to tackle social media content which is harmful to children

Research, advocacy

• NSPCC (2022). Molly Russell inquest findings

• Duffy B.E., Meisner C. (2022). Platform governance at the margins: Social media creators’ experiences with algorithmic (in)visibility

• Minsun L., Lee H-H. (2021). Social media photo activity, internalization, appearance comparison, and body satisfaction: The moderating role of photo-editing behavior

• Picardo J., McKenzie S.K., Collings S, Jenkin G. (2020). Suicide and self-harm content on Instagram: A systematic scoping review

• Royal Society for Public Health (2017). Status of Mind

News, commentary, analysis

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhm_Fkwqlsw

• https://www.wired.co.uk/article/how-a-british-teens-death-changed-social-media

• https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/01/business/instagram-suicide-ruling-britain.html

• https://gizmodo.com/molly-russell-instagram-pinterest-coroner-death-1849601679

• https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10527975/Molly-Russell-inquest-Instagram-ordered-hand-data-private-accounts-teenager.html

• https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/30/molly-russell-died-while-suffering-negative-effects-of-online-content-rules-coroner

• https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/sep/30/how-molly-russell-fell-into-a-vortex-of-despair-on-social-media#:~:text=On%20Friday%20the%20senior%20coroner,negative%20effects%20of%20online%20content.%E2%80%9D

• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-30/social-media-played-a-role-in-uk-teenager-s-death-judge-says

• https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/heated-words-instagram-chief-says-163117507.html

• https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/07/instagram-bans-graphic-self-harm-images-after-molly-russells-death