The pair met this week to campaign for stronger regulation of social media companies. It comes after Brianna’s mother said new online safety laws don’t do enough to protect children after her daughter was stabbed to death in a park.
The father of tragic teenager Molly Russell has called for “bolder” regulation of tech companies after meeting with Brianna Gee’s mother.
Molly, 14, took her own life in 2017 after viewing harmful content on social media. Brianna, 16, was murdered last year by two schoolchildren, one of whom had been watching violent videos online. Molly’s father, Ian Russell, and Brianna’s mother, Esther Gee, met earlier this week.
And on Friday, he said he believes the heads of technology companies are “resistant to change,” adding, “The world is waking up and realizing that nothing is going to change unless we start regulating big tech companies.” ” he said.
Mr Russell, 60, added: “What we need in the UK at the moment is for Ofcom, the regulator appointed by the government to have powers in the Online Safety Act, to introduce it. We need Ofcom to do that.”It’s much bolder. ”
Earlier this week, Brianna’s mother Esther, 37, said new online safety laws don’t do enough to protect children. And when she met with Molly’s father on Thursday, she said: “I had no idea what Brianna was looking at online, whether she was visiting self-harm sites or eating.” I only found out after she was taken from us.” Failure scene. ”
She said the “trans hate” directed at her daughter after articles about her were posted on social media was “horrifying”. Esther reported a comment about her daughter on X (formerly Twitter), but she said the company didn’t remove it, saying it didn’t violate its policies.
She said: “I’ve done a few interviews now, and once that article gets posted on Twitter, the comments are really nasty and anti-trans hate directed at Brianna. Now, I’m a total supporter of free speech. I support you, but when I actually reported one of these comments, they came back and said they had no problem with what they were saying. It was complete hate. I don’t think there’s a place like that online.”
In an interview with The Times on Friday, Gee said of her daughter’s killers: “In some ways it helped that they didn’t show remorse.
Because if they had done that and they had regretted what they had done, I could have felt guilty that they would have been sent to prison for a long time. ”
Molly, from Harrow, north London, was found dead in her home in November 2017 after viewing self-harm attacks on the internet. The coroner found social media contributed to her death. Brianna, from Birchwood, Warrington, was stabbed to death in a park in nearby Culcheth by Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe, now 16, who were sentenced to life imprisonment last month. Jenkinson had witnessed extreme acts of violence on the dark web.