Peer-reviewed article
Online Suicide and Self-harming Communications: Providing Protection for Children under Online Regulation?
Daniel Patrick Fenwick ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This article examines how well the UK's Online Safety Act 2023 protects children aged 13-17 from online content that promotes suicide and self-harm. Research shows that children and teenagers are more likely than adults to imitate harmful behaviour they see online, and that those with existing mental health problems are particularly at risk. The article critically reviews whether the Act's content moderation rules and regulatory approach are actually effective in protecting young people from this harm.
Key points
- Correlation found between suicidal or self-harming behaviour in under-18s and visiting sites depicting self-harm and suicide with text promoting such activity
- Age is a risk factor: risk of encountering and being influenced by such content increases with age of children and teenagers
- Children and teenagers are more susceptible to contagion effect than adults and more likely to imitate behaviours encountered online
- The Online Safety Act 2023 created a regulatory regime covering in-scope online services, including social media platforms where such content may appear and be promoted by algorithms
- The article concludes the OSA regime is proving to be ineffective in a range of respects
Limitations
This is a critical legal analysis rather than an empirical study, so it does not provide new quantitative data on the prevalence of such content or the scale of harm. The document describes the regulatory framework and existing research but does not present original evidence on whether specific interventions reduce children's exposure to or engagement with self-harm content.
Abstract
Online content promoting suicide and self-harm has been found by a number of researchers to be a major and rising concern for users aged 13-17, on the basis of finding a correlation between suicidal or self-harming behaviour in under-18s and visiting sites depicting images of self-harm and suicide, accompanied by text advocating or promoting such activity. Ofcom has found that age is a risk factor: the risk of encountering and being influenced by such content increases with the age of children and teenagers. Further, those with existing mental health challenges may be more likely to engage with this content, and self-harming behaviour or suicidal ideation may therefore increase. Children and teenagers, the Ofcom Report pointed out, are also more susceptible to a contagion effect than adults: they are more likely to imitate behaviours encountered online and give in to impulse. The Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA) in the UK was introduced partly to address the harm to under-18s created by the presence and influence of self-harm and suicide sites/communications, by creating a regulatory regime covering in-scope online services, including such sites and also social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, on which such content may appear, and be promoted by recommender algorithms. This article will critically examine the efficacy of the OSA in relation specifically to regulation via content moderation and other methods of protecting children from harm caused by encountering such content online, concluding that the OSA regime in a range of respects is proving to be ineffective. This article will focus most closely on the legal but harmful scheme under the OSA aimed at under-18s, not adults, in relation to curbing the harm caused by content encouraging children to engage in self harm or suicide.