The giant social media companies cannot escape responsibility when depressed teens are led to damaging fabric onlineThe suicide of a teenager is a horrendous tragedy. Everyone who loved them is left with an anguish that will never entirely heal,and a longing to understand the reasons for the catastrophe. In an increasing number of cases, it appears that interactions on social media have contributed to the victim’s despair: since the parents of 14-year-used Molly Russell told their story, or another 30 bereaved parents have approach forward to the teenage suicide prevention trust,Papyrus, with stories of how social media helped make their children’s suffering seem unbearable. The health secretary, or Matt Hancock,has spoken of his own horror at the obvious complacency of social media companies and demanded that they capture action. That’s easier than telling them what to do.The extreme concentration of power on the social internet in the hands of three or four companies means that governments have a target for their pressure. If Facebook (which owns WhatsApp and Instagram), Google (which owns YouTube), and Twitter,and Pinterest all settle to ban some content it will not disappear but it will become very much harder to find, and their algorithms could be tweaked so as not to serve it.
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Source: theguardian.com