Online safety bill to criminalise encouraging self-harm

The long-awaited online safety bill is set to criminalise encouraging self-harm as it attempts to beef up its protections.

While encouraging suicide is already illegal, there is widespread concern about material on the internet that encourages, often vulnerable young people, to harm themselves.

There have been cases, as found by the inquest into the death of Molly Russell, where certain material has contributed to young peoples’ avoidable and tragic deaths.

Senior coroner, Andrew Walker said material viewed by 14-year-old Molly Russell on social media “shouldn’t have been available for a child to see”.

The inquest found unsafe online content contributed “in a more than minimal way” to the death of a girl who took her own life.

New Ipsos polling shows that more than three in four (77 per cent) UK adults are worried about children seeing content promoting or advocating self-harm while online. 

Once the behaviour is criminalised, under the online safety bill’s duties covering illegal content online, social media companies, such as Meta and TikTok, will have to remove and limit people’s exposure to material that deliberately encourages somebody to injure themselves. This includes posts, videos, images and other messages that encourage, for example, the self-infliction of significant wounds.

Not only will social media companies be required to remove this content from their platforms, but any person who sends these communications will face prosecution. The government will set out more detail about the offence, including the maximum penalty.

It comes as the government announced this week new offences to crackdown on abusers who share intimate images without consent, further strengthening the Bill’s measures to tackle deepfake and revenge pornography.

“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,” Digital Secretary Michelle Donelan said.

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