Heartbroken parents and abuse survivors who have endured years of “life-changing, avoidable harm” linked to social media say they have been denied a voice in official discussions about holding tech companies accountable.
Mariano Janin, whose 14-year-old daughter Mia committed suicide after online bullying, and the parents of 13-year-old Oliver Stephens, who was murdered after a social media row, are among those who have accused Ofcom of excluding them from a consultation process to address online harms.
Ian Russell, whose 14-year-old daughter Molly committed suicide after viewing self-harm content on Instagram and Pinterest, and parents who believe their children’s deaths were linked to viral challenges on social media, also signed an open letter criticizing to the regulator, backed by 20 activists. with lived experience.
The families, along with survivors of online harassment and abuse, say Ofcom has so far failed to adequately engage with them, despite them having “deeply valuable insights” about the “devastating effects of online harm”.
Their frustration centers on a consultation process into Ofcom’s approach to protecting people from unlawful online harm, which they say included more than 2,000 pages of “incredibly technical and inaccessible material”.
While people were able to respond individually, they say there was “little or no proactive effort or means provided for those with lived experience to understand or respond to the proposals, even after raising our concerns with Ofcom”, which they said, It had “the effect of being exclusive.”
In a letter sent last week to the regulator’s chief executive, Melanie Dawes, they said this had led Ofcom to draft proposals that were “too weak to address the scale and magnitude of online harms faced by children.” “. the focus is too much on “simply requiring platforms to test systems” that they “already know firsthand don’t work,” on “isolated parts of the user journey rather than an overall user experience,” and on removing material illegal after this. detected, rather than more preventative measures. The criticism of Ofcom comes ahead of another consultation relating to online safety, due to be launched this month, which will examine the growing trend of children as young as five going online. Under the Online Safety Act, Ofcom is responsible for supervising technology companies and has the power to fine those who break the law.
Ofcom denied excluding people from its consultations and said the lived experiences of bereaved families and survivors of online abuse were “invaluable in shaping our online safety policy work”. He said he had heard a “wide range of voices”, including victims’ groups and bereaved families, and had spoken to 15,000 children and 7,000 parents through a research programme. He offered to meet the signatories of the letter during the consultation on his next proposals. “We strongly agree that continued dialogue and a collaborative approach is in everyone’s best interest,” a spokesperson said.
The letter’s coordinator, Frida, a survivor of online abuse, said the meetings and research were welcome, but that until now the approach to engaging survivors had been “piecemeal”. She said: “I think a lot of people with lived experiences of online harm have been excluded.”
The signatories including Lisa Kenevan, who believes her son Isaac died after taking part in a “choke challenge” on social media, and Liam Walsh, who has campaigned for TikTok to allow him access to his deceased’s activity daughter on social media after she spotted herself. – harm videos – call on Ofcom to reopen the consultation on unlawful harm, which ended in February, and to launch a “specific engagement with victims and survivors”. They also want a designated person at Ofcom responsible for interacting with them.
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Janin, whose daughter Mia committed suicide in 2021 after being bullied, including by pupils who shared one of her TikTok posts in a Snapchat group chat, where they mocked her, questioned whether Ofcom was “fit for purpose”.
He said: “If they really want to change things, I think they need to study all the information they can collect from families and schools. They need all that information. “We need to get involved.”
He called for tougher measures to ensure social media companies were held accountable for failures that had affected him and other grieving families. “My case is irreversible. Nothing will bring Mia back. But we see a new case every week. Why do we treat this so politely?
“Before you get a driving license, you must prove that you will be a good driver and that you will not harm anyone. Why do normal citizens have all these rules when social media companies don’t?
Janin concluded: “It’s the other way around: we should set the bar high and they should demonstrate that they can use their platforms safely.”