Online safety updates: Families tell BBC new Ofcom social media rules not tough enough – BBC News

Stuart Stephens, the father of 13-year-old Olly Stephens who was killed after a dispute on social media, says that children are “desensitised” by what they see on those platforms.

Stuart asks: “How can anyone deny that social media is harmful to under-18s?”

He says there is “graphic and horrific” content on social media platforms and asks Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan if that can be stopped.

Donelan says she agrees that children should not have access to harmful content and that it has to be “stripped out” of social media platforms.

She adds that companies should be fined “up to 18% of their global turnover” if they breach online safety rules.

Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan is also in the studio today.

She says in a perfect world, the new legislation, which she describes as putting “meat on the bones” of online safety, would be in place tomorrow, except that it needs to be “bulletproof” for the tech companies.

“These are companies that are multi-billion pound organisations — what we don’t want to do is do it so fast that it has lots of loopholes or they can easily litigate and it’s chewed up in the courts for years,” she says.

So, while it will take time to make the legislation robust enough, she reminds the tech companies that they don’t need to wait for it to become law — they can begin making changes now, and some of them are.

Hollie Dance, the mother of Archie Battersbee who died at the age of 12 in 2022, says she was unaware that Archie was on TikTok.

“How are you going to impose and verify their age?” she asks Ofcom boss Melanie Dawes.

Dawes responds by saying social media platforms “are not doing enough” to enforce their minimum age requirements.

“We know that a third of teenagers online are actually using an adult age, so that has to change,” she says.

Dawes adds that 40% of children aged five to seven are using social media, describing it as a “very risky environment”.

She says Ofcom will hold social media platforms to account if they do not follow age restriction rules.

A little earlier we heard from an emotional Esther Ghey – mother of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey – who asked how many children are struggling with their mental health, because of harmful content online.

Lisa Kenevan, the mother of 13-year-old Isaac Kenevan, believes her son died after taking part in a dangerous TikTok challenge.

She asks how Ofcom follows up on individual complaints, adding that she made a complaint to TikTok about a video which they didn’t take down.

She says she then tried to flag the content to Ofcom, which told her they couldn’t deal with individual social media complaints.

Dawes says Ofcom doesn’t have the power to look at individual complaints on social media platforms, but says there are laws that look at making sure tech companies have proper moderating systems in place.

She adds that platforms need to take action to make sure dangerous challenge content isn’t being fed to under-18s.

Ruth Moss’ 13-year-old daughter, Sophie Parkinson, died by suicide in 2014 after looking up ways to end her life online.

Moss wants to know how Ofcom can measure and evaluate the success of its new measures.

Melanie Dawes, Ofcom’s chief executive, says that the current problem is that social media companies don’t measure what it is like to be a teenager online.

“We are going to have to force through new ways. We will do that through testers,” Dawes answers.

“You are 13, you go online, do you still see the content you get today, do you still see pornography, suicide material, hateful content, bullying frequently? We can test that. And we are going to be demanding data from the platforms and publishing reports on it.”

Ruth then asks Dawes how the regulator will keep on top of transforming technology.

Dawes says that the laws are not restricted to one form of service or one form of technology.

“We are very aware that we are managing a very changing environment here,” she says.

Sitting alongside the parents this morning is Melanie Dawes, the chief executive of Ofcom.

She says it’s clear that harmful content online has been normalised, and that Ofcom today is demanding change.

Among those demands are that social media companies implement proper age checks that identify younger users and radically alter algorithms to those users.

Among the group of bereaved parents speaking to BBC Breakfast is Lorin Lafave, whose 14-year-old son Breck Bednar was murdered in 2014, after he was lured to his killer’s flat through an online video gaming forum.

Lorin asks Dawes what reassurances there are that tech companies will adhere to Ofcom’s demands.

Dawes says there will be a commercial incentive, and that Ofcom will be publishing “a lot of information” about which companies are adhering and which are not, so that the public can make informed choices about which to use.

“We don’t want anyone to escape now from the truth, which is that there are serious issues to address here,” Dawes says.

Ian Russell, the father of Molly Russell, says the process of getting tougher social media measures passed has been “frustrating”.

Russell has been campaigning for new online safety rules since Molly took her own life in 2017 after viewing self-harm content on social media sites.

Russell says what’s happened to him and other bereaved families is “wrong”, but that there’s power in coming together.

He adds that he hopes the digital lives of young people will now be safer thanks to their campaigning.

We’re hearing now from Esther Ghey, the mother of Brianna Ghey, who was murdered by 15-year-olds Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe in 2023.

Jenkinson and Ratcliffe had watched videos of the torture and murder of real people on the dark web – internet sites which are only accessible via an encrypted browser – in the weeks before they killed Brianna.

Esther says it’s “really important” that social media companies work alongside Ofcom to protect younger people online.

“I wonder how many children are actually struggling with their mental health, how many of them have been affected by self-harm that we don’t actually know about,” she adds.

Quote Message: This is a pivotal point and we are all standing united to make sure that change happens.”

Copyright: PA Media

On BBC Breakfast, we’re now going to continue hearing from the families of 12 young people whose deaths were linked to social media and harmful content online.

Their appearance comes as Ofcom, the regulator responsible for online safety, publishes its proposed new rules for tech firms, which it says will help keep children safe.

We’ll also be hearing from Ofcom chief Dame Melanie Dawes and Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan.

You can watch the programme live at the top of this page by clicking the play button and we’ll also bring you updates on what they have to say.

Earlier, we heard from Lisa Kenevan, whose son Isaac died aged 13 after taking part in a “black out” challenge online.

She tells BBC Breakfast that Isaac was “loving, every day he told us that he loved us… highly inquisitive, highly intelligent”.

A little earlier, Mariano Janin, father of Mia Janin who died by suicide in 2021 at the age of 14, told BBC Breakfast that the internet needs to have some boundaries to be safer.

“We need to have a safer internet, regulated social media. We need to learn to live with this, this is a modern tool of our everyday lives,” he said.

He adds that tech companies need to “understand the concept of safeguarding and wellbeing of our kids”.

The boss of Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, says the new proposed measures announced today mark “a big moment” for online safety.

Dame Melanie Dawes says the codes are needed to tackle harmful content that young people are being “fed” online, adding that that practice had become “normalised”.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Dawes says tech companies will now be required to look at their services and outline the risks to young people.

Pressed on whether that meant companies were being “allowed to mark their own homework”, she says Ofcom would be doing the marking in a transparent manner.

We’ll be bringing you more of what Dawes has to say on the new safeguards when she speaks to BBC Breakfast alongside bereaved parents shortly.

Lisa Kenevan’s son Isaac, 13, officially died by misadventure. She believes he was taking part in the TikTok “choking challenge”.

She says he was a “normal, happy boy, the zest of life” before he died.

Lisa says: “To have all these people on a couch, a club that we would never want to be in, it pulls us all together for a greater voice, and we just want accountability.

“If we stop one parent going through what we’re going through then we’ve done a good job.

Quote Message: But the sad thing is the snail’s pace that is happening with Ofcom and social media platforms taking responsibility, the reality is there’s going to be more cases.”

Liam Walsh is the father of Maia Walsh, who died aged 13 after viewing harmful content online.

In an emotional interview on BBC Breakfast, he says Maia got “pulled into a circus” on TikTok, which included suicidal ideology.

“Things went from rosy, beautiful, positive and embracing of life,” he says, until what she was seeing online “caught her on a bad day and it took her”.

The government has insisted the measures announced by Ofcom today “will bring in a fundamental change in how children in the UK experience the online world”.

Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan urged big tech to take the codes seriously: “To platforms, my message is engage with us and prepare,” she says.

“Do not wait for enforcement and hefty fines – step up to meet your responsibilities and act now.”

Most of the tech companies contacted by the BBC did not reply or declined to comment on the record.

These include Meta, the owner of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, as well as X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Reddit, Discord, Twitch (owned by Amazon), YouTube (owned by Google) and Apple.

Photo-sharing site Flickr said it was committed to safety without commenting on the specific draft measures.

Ruth Moss, whose 13-year-old Sophie Parkinson died after taking her own life in 2014, says that when she went to look at her daughter’s social media “there was a barrage of really distressing material”.

Ruth tells BBC Breakfast that Sophie was required to have a tablet for her school, which “we found it really difficult to control”.

She says there was parental control on content at home, with the school also having measures in place.

“But she would access the internet on the way, on the bus coming home. And I was horrified to see the amount of quantity and the actual content was really distressing,” Ruth says.

“She actually managed to investigate and research how she was going to die by suicide and it was blatant. No 13-year-old should see that sort of material.”

Asked what she wants to hear from Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan, who will appear on the programme after 8am, Ruth adds:

Quote Message: TikTok did not exist when Sophie was alive. So I want confirmation that this is not just a box-ticking exercise that ends today, that as technology changes the government will listen to parents and adapt and make sure that this is an ongoing issue to be dealt with.”

The mother of a 14-year-old who died after what she believes could have been an online challenge says it’s “wrong” she can’t access some of his social media accounts without a court order.

Ellen Roome says her son Jools Sweeney, 14, was “a happy, regular, normal child” before he died.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Roome says there is still some uncertainty around her son’s death.

“We don’t know why he did what he did. The coroner didn’t rule that it was suicide because they couldn’t prove he was in a suicidal mood,” she says.

Ellen says she has tried to access his social media, including his TikTok account but the company has denied her request.

“TikTok have just said no – without a court order you can’t do that.”

Ellen, along with other families who make up Bereaved Parents for Online Safety group, are campaigning for the right to allow families and coroners to access data from tech companies.

Most of the tech companies contacted by the BBC have declined to respond to the draft measures announced by Ofcom today.

Esther Ghey, whose daughter Brianna was murdered age 16 in February 2023, is among the parents who have signed the letter. She has previously called for age restrictions on smart phones to prevent young people from accessing harmful material.

Ian Russell – whose daughter Molly, 14, took her own life in 2017 after viewing suicide and self-harm content on social media – has also signed the letter. Along with Esther Ghey, he met Ofcom leaders recently to discuss the reforms.

Mariano Janin is another signatory. In March, he spoke to the BBC after the death of his 14-year-old daughter Mia in 2021, who was subjected to cyber-bullying.

Breck Bednar, 14, was murdered in 2014 after being lured to his killer’s flat after being groomed through online gaming. Another eight families will also share their stories this morning.

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Copyright: BBC

Campaign group Bereaved Families for Online Safety have written to the prime minister and leader of the opposition.

They welcome today’s steps to protect children as an “important moment” but warn “much more still needs to be done”.

The letter accuses Ofcom of a “lack of ambition” and says its proposals don’t do enough to tackle grooming and sexual abuse, or content that promotes violence, suicide and self-harm among young people.

The parents have urged Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer to take further action after the next general election regardless of who is in power, appealing to them“as senior politicians but also fathers”.

Their letter calls for stronger social media regulation, intervention in the AI industry and more education in schools about online safety, mental health and suicide prevention.

Firms which don’t comply, the families say, should face bans from operating in the UK.

Quote Message: As bereaved parents, we have consistently been driven by a belief we can and must act to make sure no other child loses their life – and that no other family suffers in the way that we have done.

Quote Message: We owe our children nothing less than ensuring the online world changes completely and comprehensively, and we know many millions of parents also share that vision.” from Bereaved Families for Online Safety