‘I thought social media was silly fun – now my son is dead and I wish I’d never given it to him’
The mother of a teenage boy believed to have died while taking part in an online challenge gone wrong has called for social media platforms to be removed until tech companies prove they are safe.
Ellen Roome is among several parents who met Sir Keir Starmer on Tuesday as part of a government consultation on a possible social media ban due to end this week.
It will be just over four years since Ms Roome’s son Jools Sweeney died in 2022, aged 14.
Defined The teenager, who Ms Roome described as a “really happy, fun-living, popular kid”, was out playing football and eating pizza with friends before he was found dead at the family home in Cheltenham.
Ms. Roome believes her son’s social media accounts may confirm her suspicions that he is taking part in a viral challenge, but she cannot access them. He is also calling for a new investigation into how social media contributed to his son’s death.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4 Today Ms Roome said: “They spend millions and billions of pounds building their systems. They might spend some money to actually fix their systems and say it’s now a safe product and give it back. But until it’s safe I say with all my heart: take it away.”
Ms Roome said her son had started using social media during the Covid lockdown and, like his parents, he believed it was harmless.
“When she first started using it in 2020, she was in lockdown, she was an only child, I thought TikTok was just stupid dancing and we weren’t talking about social media like we do now,” she said.
“At the time I thought it was harmless, as a group of parents with children the same age we thought it was just silly fun. Now that we know and it has been proven not to be so, I wish I had never given it to him.”
Government consultations on what action should be taken on social media, titled Growing Up in an Online World, could pave the way for an Australian-style ban on under-16s using social media or lead to other measures such as limiting scrolling or an overnight curfew for children.
But Ms Roome accused the government of moving too slowly and called for a “drastic decision” to be taken away from everyone on social media.
He said: “[Sir Keir Starmer] I’ve been trying to figure this out for a long time… let’s get together, let’s stand up, do something, let’s make a radical decision. I don’t care if they take it to adults and kids until it’s safe, just take it, fix it and then we can give it back.
Parliament has agreed to give the government flexible powers to regulate or block children’s use of social media through the Children’s Welfare and Schools Act.
On Tuesday morning, Technology Minister Liz Kendall said social media would be unstoppable in the fight against its harms.
But former Cabinet colleague Wes Streeting warned MPs were “asleep at the wheel” on social media and technology regulations.
he said Today program: “Our approach to cell phones and social media is basically like saying, ‘Kids need to learn how to use woodworking; let’s give three-year-olds, five-year-olds some saws, some nails and hammers, and let’s leave them unsupervised and see what happens, because they need to learn how to use tools.”
On Monday, in a report submitted as part of a consultation by the Academy of Medicine of the Royal Colleges, doctors warned that social media is as dangerous for children as smoking.
A government spokesman said: “We are consulting on a wide range of measures, from restricting social media access to potential enforcement curfews, to ensure we get the balance right and protect young people from harm.”
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