Ian Russell has buried his daughter. The least he deserves, you’d think, is for her death to mean something lasting.
Molly Russell was 14 when she died in 2017, after spending months consuming graphic content about self-harm and suicide on Instagram and Pinterest. The coroner’s inquest in 2022 concluded that the platforms had contributed to her death. Her father has spent years since then pushing for proper, durable protections for children online.
So when the Prime Minister appeared to fast-track new social media restrictions, skipping ahead of the existing Online Safety Act framework, Ian Russell didn’t feel grateful. He felt suspicious.
“If this is being brought forward for a political reason rather than because it’s the right thing to do, that’s deplorable,” Russell told journalists this week. He’s worried the rushed approach could produce legislation with holes in it wide enough for tech companies to exploit for years.
His concern isn’t with tougher rules in principle. It’s with the method. The Online Safety Act, which finally passed in 2023 after years of parliamentary wrangling, was supposed to be the comprehensive answer. Ofcom is still in the process of drawing up the specific codes of conduct that will give the Act its teeth.
Cutting across that process with a separate announcement, critics argue, risks creating a fragmented legal patchwork. Tech giants are famously good at finding the gaps.
The Prime Minister’s proposals, reportedly including age verification requirements and restrictions on algorithmic content feeds for under-16s, aren’t without merit. Australia moved in a similar direction last year, banning under-16s from social media entirely, and the debate has been raging across every English-speaking democracy since.
But good intentions rushed into bad law have a long history in British politics. Ian Russell knows better than most what’s at stake if the details are wrong.
Molly would be 22 now. The question is whether the politicians invoking her name are genuinely committed to getting this right, or whether they’re simply looking for a headline before the next election cycle rolls around.
