Children’s exposure to suicide, self-harm, and eating disorder content on social media

Our new research has found half of girls are still being exposed to high risk suicide, self-harm and depression content after the Online Safety Act came to force.

The findings show exposure to harmful content has barely changed since the Online Safety Act came into force. Molly Rose Foundation has repeatedly warned this was inevitable given Ofcom’s unambitious approach to regulation and the Prime Minister’s reluctance to fix structural weaknesses in the Act.

Molly Rose Foundation urged the Prime Minister to take decisive action today to address safety risks at the heart of social media platforms, including banning personalised algorithms for children unless strict safety conditions are met.

They also called on Ofcom to open an investigation into TikTok with three quarters (76%) of teens who saw high risk content seeing it on the platform.