Molly Russell social media addiction, suicide

UK-based teenager Molly Russell committed suicide after viewing highly harmful contenton a number of prominent social media platforms, to which she had become addicted.

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 inquest into Russell's death heard that, in the six months before her demise, Russell had viewed over 16,000 pieces of content on Instagram and interacted with over 2,100 Instagram posts related to suicide, self-harm, or depression. She also viewed hundreds of similar images on Pinterest. 

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

The incident raised concerns about the nature and extent of unsafe material on leading social media platforms, the actual and potential psychological and physiological impacts of this material on teenage girls and others, and the apparent unwillingness or inability of Meta and other owners to keep their platforms safe.

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