Suicide forum found to be in breach of Online Safety Act after failing to block UK users | Internet safety
A suicide forum linked to deaths in England has been ruled to have breached the Online Safety Act after failing to properly block access for UK users when ordered to do so last year.
Online regulator Ofcom said it could now approach the courts to request internet service providers block access to the site in the UK. This will depend on how the site, which is also facing penalties, responds over the next 10 days.
Campaigners said coroners had raised concerns about links between the forum and suicides in England since at least 2019. The family of Vlad Nikolin-Caisley, 17, from Southampton, said he committed suicide in 2024 after using the site, which Ofcom did not name.
Ofcom launched an investigation in April last year because encouraging or assisting suicide is a criminal offense in the UK.
The forum implemented a geoblock to restrict people’s access to devices that appeared to be physically located in the UK, but also published a message on its landing page promoting ways to bypass the block. This was removed, but in November Samaritans discovered that the forum was directly accessible to UK users via a “mirror site” (a different domain of the same site).
Bereaved families and the Molly Rose Foundation, set up after the suicide of 14-year-old Molly Russell who was drawn to harmful social media content, complained the regulator did not act quickly enough and said last autumn there were “serious questions to be answered about why Ofcom delayed taking action on multiple breaches of the law”.
Their analysis found that coroners had raised concerns about various substance or suicide forums with government agencies at least 65 times since 2019. The report also noted that there was evidence of forum-related deaths occurring in the UK since geoblocking.
Ofcom found the forum had failed to comply with its duties under the Online Safety Act. This includes assessing the risk of illegal content and quickly removing illegal content once it becomes aware of it.
The regulator said: “After monitoring the service for a period of time, we became concerned that the blocking was ineffective and/or not being maintained consistently and as a result we proceeded with an interim infringement order. The forum provider now has 10 working days to respond to our interim findings and this will be carefully considered before making our final decision.”
Andy Burrows, chief executive of the Molly Rose Foundation, said: “This forum exists to groom and coerce vulnerable, often young, people into ending their lives, and this action from Ofcom could not come soon enough. “It is crucial that the regulator takes action to shut down the site quickly, with fines or criminal sanctions appropriate to the level of harm caused.
“Working with survivors and bereaved families, we have identified at least 135 UK deaths linked to the forum. Ofcom must act decisively to prevent further deaths.”
