Ian Russell called on Sir Keir Starmer to act urgently in order to protect young people online.

The father of a teenage girl who killed herself after viewing harmful content on social media has told Sir Keir Starmer that the UK is “going backwards” on online safety.

Ian Russell, chairman of the Molly Rose Foundation (MRF), in a letter to the Prime Minister on Saturday, said regulator Ofcom’s implementation of the Online Safety Act has been a “disaster”.

Mr Russell said unless there are changes to the legislation, “the streams of life-sucking content seen by children will soon become torrents: a digital disaster”.

Passed in late 2023, the Online Safety Act is the UK’s first major legislation to regulate social media, search engine, messaging, gaming, dating, pornography and file-sharing platforms.

It gives Ofcom the power to fine firms that fail to meet these duties – potentially up to billions of pounds for the largest sites – and in serious cases can seek clearance to block access to a site in the UK.

In December, the regulator published the first set of online safety........

© Shropshire Star