Promoting self-harm online will be made illegal

‘Abhorrent’ trolls exploiting the young and vulnerable will be brought to justice in new Bill, says Tory minister

ENCOURAGING self-harm online is to become a criminal offence in a move to prevent a repeat of the Molly Russell tragedy, the Government has announced. Social media firms will be required by law to remove and prevent any material promoting self-harm and face multi-million pound fines if they fail to do so.

The new offence, to be part of the Online Safety Bill, puts self-harm on a par with encouraging or assisting suicide, which carries a maximum jail sentence of 14 years.

Ministers said that the change was to help combat “avoidable and tragic” cases such as that of Molly, 14, who took her own life after being bombarded with self-harm and suicide content on social media. An inquest into her death found that social media “more than minimally contributed” to her death.

The Sunday Telegraph has found Instagram posts on which the schoolgirl “binged” before ending her life were still available on the social media platform even after the inquest in September.

Michelle Donelan, the Culture Secretary, said: “I am determined that the abhorrent trolls encouraging the young and vulnerable to self-harm are brought to justice. So I am strengthening our online safety laws to make sure these vile acts are stamped out and the perpetrators face jail time.

“Social media firms can no longer remain silent bystanders [and] they’ll face fines for allowing this abusive and destructive behaviour to continue on their platforms under our laws.”

The announcement coincides with what would have been Molly’s 20th birthday today. The Molly Rose Foundation, a charity set up by her family and friends, said it appeared a “significant” move. But it added that the Bill needed to ensure it covered all legal but harmful content that damaged Molly’s mental health including posts such as “Who would love a suicidal girl?”

“It’s therefore important that other ‘harmful but legal’ content, of the type we know was harmful to Molly, is also within scope of the Bill. These are complex and vital matters we need to get right for the sake of young people in the future,” said the foundation.

Assisting self-harm in the real world by providing instruments to do it will become an offence in a separate law. By also criminalising it online, it joins one of a dozen “illegal” priority harms on the face of the Bill alongside terrorism, child abuse, fraud, revenge porn, harassment and cyberstalking.

It will cover any posts, videos, images and other messages that encourage the self-infliction of wounds.

The inclusion of self harm as an “illegal” harm is the first of three stages of online protection that ministers propose as part of the Bill, which is due to return to the Commons for its final stages on Dec 5.