{"id":375650,"date":"2026-01-17T18:44:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T18:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/375650\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T18:44:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T18:44:07","slug":"molly-russells-dad-says-under-16-social-media-ban-would-be-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/375650\/","title":{"rendered":"Molly Russell’s dad says under-16 social media ban would be wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russell expressed concerns about the “unintended consequences” of a ban, which he said would “cause more problems”.<\/p>\n

“At the heart of it are companies that put profit over safety,” he said. “That has got to change – and I don’t think that we’re that far away from it changing it – which is why its slightly exasperating that we’re going through these same arguments again now about bans.<\/p>\n

“It’s not far away – we can build on what we’ve got far better than simply implementing sledgehammer techniques like bans that will have unintended consequences and cause more problems.”<\/p>\n

An inquest in 2022 found social media content contributed “more than minimally” to Molly’s death.<\/p>\n

The Molly Rose Foundation, a suicide prevention charity named after Russell’s daughter, and organisations including the NSPCC, Parent Zone and Childnet, called a ban the “wrong solution”.<\/p>\n

“It would create a false sense of safety that would see children – but also the threats to them – migrate to other areas online,” they wrote in a joint statement, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Though well-intentioned, blanket bans on social media would fail to deliver the improvement in children’s safety and wellbeing that they so urgently need.”<\/p>\n

Instead of this “blunt response”, a “broader and more targeted” approach was needed, said the statement, which was also signed by two child mental health practitioners.<\/p>\n

Existing law should be “robustly enforced” to ensure social media sites, personalised games and AI chatbots were not accessible to under-13s, it said, while all social media platforms should have evidence-based blocks for features that are considered risky for children of different ages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russell expressed concerns about the “unintended consequences” of a ban, which he said would “cause more problems”. “At…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-375650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}