Google denies breaching law by promoting suicide forum linked to 164 UK deaths

Google has denied breaching the Online Safety Act by promoting a “nihilistic” suicide forum associated with 164 deaths in the UK where it is supposed to be banned.

The UK’s internet regulator fined the forum’s US-based operator £950,000 because the site, which “presents a material risk of significant harm”, can still be accessed in the UK despite British laws criminalising encouraging or assisting suicide.

However, a link to the website still appears in Google’s search results allowing users with basic software to circumvent the block and access screeds of advice on suicide methods.

Google’s promotion of the site, not named by the Guardian, was raised by the Molly Rose Foundation, an online safety campaign, whose chief executive Andy Burrows told Radio 4’s Today programme: “If you search for it by name it will still come up in search results – a clear cut breach of the act, but on that matter Ofcom has so far declined to take action.”

The site listed by Google was the second entry beneath a link to the Samaritans. The associated url links to a page where the forum’s operators say access has been “voluntarily restricted to users in the United Kingdom due to legal risks associated with the UK Online Safety Act 2023”.

However it includes the website’s address which can then be used to access the full site using VPN software that simulates a computer being based in a different country.

When set to simulate internet access from the US, Germany and France, the full forum was easily accessible, including detailed advice on the efficacy of various methods of suicide.

The Molly Rose Foundation, set up in the memory of Molly Russell, a 14-year-old who took her own life after viewing negative online content, including about suicide, cited a section of the 2023 Online Safety Act that states search services must “take or use proportionate measures relating to the design or operation of the service to effectively mitigate and manage the risks of harm to individuals.

Google denied it has breached the law. Ofcom regulations allow search engines to respond to “navigational” queries, it said, adding that its results prioritise user safety by including a prominent help box with support resources, such as the Samaritans, alongside contextual news coverage. It said it aims to balance robust safety protections with the principle of ensuring information access and will implement any formal court orders to restrict access to specific sites.

Molly Rose, along with the campaign group Families and Survivors to Prevent Online Suicide Harms, have said coroners had warned the UK government about risks of further deaths from the forum “and a substance it promotes, glorifies and instructs for use as a suicide method”.

Adele Zeynep Walton, whose sister Aimee Walton took her life after accessing the site, said: “Families like mine have been agonisingly waiting for action against the website that took our loved ones and at least 164 UK lives. While we’ve waited further lives have been lost and we’ve had to fight every step.”

Ofcom has been urging the site to obey British laws criminalising intentionally encouraging or assisting suicide since last spring.

The Online Safety Act also allows Ofcom to seek a court order requiring internet service providers to block UK access to the site. The regulator is preparing an application to have the site’s connections effectively cut if its concerns relating to the breach are not addressed.