LONDON
\nA 14-year-old British girl died from an act of self-harm while suffering from the \u201cnegative effects of online content\u201d, a coroner said on Friday, in a case that shines a spotlight on social media companies.
\nMolly Russell was \u201cexposed to material that may have influenced her in a negative way and, in addition, what had started as a depression had become a more serious depressive illness\u201d, Andrew Walker ruled at a coroner\u2019s court in London.
\nThe teenager \u201cdied from an act of self-harm while suffering depression\u201d, he said, but added it would not be \u201csafe\u201d to conclude it was suicide.
\nSome of the content she viewed was \u201cparticularly graphic\u201d and \u201cnormalised her condition\u201d, said Walker.
\nOf the 16,300 posts Russell saved, shared or liked on Instagram in the six-month period before her death, 2,100 related to depression, self-harm or suicide, the inquest was told.
\nRussell, from Harrow in north-west London, died in Nov 2017, leading her family to set up a campaign highlighting the dangers of social media.
\n\u201cMolly was a thoughtful, sweet-natured, caring, inquisitive, selfless, beautiful individual \u2014 although a few words cannot possibly encapsulate our wonderful girl,\u201d her father Ian said in a statement.
\n\u201cWe have heard a senior Meta (Instagram parent company) executive describe this deadly stream of content the platform\u2019s algorithms pushed to Molly as \u2018safe\u2019 and not contravening the platform\u2019s policies.
\n\u201cIf this demented trail of life-sucking content was safe, my daughter Molly would probably still be alive and looking forward to a life full of purpose and promise that lay ahead for our adorable Molly.\u201d
\nThe week-long hearing became heated when the family\u2019s lawyer, Oliver Sanders, took a Meta executive to task.
\nA visibly angry Sanders asked Elizabeth Lagone, the head of health and wellbeing at Meta, why the platform allowed children to use it when it was \u201callowing people to put potentially harmful content on it\u201d.
\n\u201cYou are not a parent, you are just a business in America. You have no right to do that. The children who are opening these accounts don\u2019t have the capacity to consent to this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON A 14-year-old British girl died from an act of self-harm while suffering from the \u201cnegative effects of online content\u201d, a coroner said on Friday, in a case that shines a spotlight on social media companies. Molly Russell was \u201cexposed to material that may have influenced her in a negative way and, in addition, what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-286916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n