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Life after Molly: Ian Russell on big tech, his daughter’s death – and why a social media ban won’t work

Life after Molly: Ian Russell on big tech, his daughter’s death – and why a social media ban won’t work

Molly Russell was just 14 when she took her own life in 2017, and an inquest later found negative online content was a significant factor. With many people now pushing for teenagers to be kept off tech platforms, her father explains why he backs a different approach Ian Russell describes his life as being split into two parts: before and after 20 November 2017, the day his youngest daughter, Molly, took her own life as a result of depression and negative social media content. “Our life before Molly’s death was very ordinary. Unremarkable,” he says. He was a television producer and director, married with three daughters. “We lived in an ordinary London suburb, in an ordinary semi-detached house, the children went to ordinary schools.” The weekend before Molly’s death, they had a celebration for all three girls’ birthdays, which are in November. One was turning 21, another 18 and Molly was soon to be 15. “And I remember being in the kitchen of a house full of friends and family and thinking, ‘This is so good. I’ve never been so happy,’” he says. “That was on a Saturday night and the following Tuesday morning, everything was different.” The second part of Russell’s life has been not only grief and trauma, but also a commitment to discovering and exposing the truth about the online content that contributed to Molly’s death, and campaigning to prevent others falling prey to the same harms. Both elements lasted far longer than he anticipated. It took nearly five years to get enough information out of social media companies for an inquest to conclude that Molly died “from an act of self-harm while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content”. As for the campaigning, the Molly Rose Foundation provides support, conducts research and raises awareness of online harms, and Russell has been an omnipresent spokesperson on these issues. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Jan 26
Online abuseGrok AIX
Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries, study suggests

Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries, study suggests

Exclusive: German research into responses to health queries raises fresh questions about summaries seen by 2bn people a month • How the ‘confident authority’ of AI Overviews is putting public health at risk Google’s search feature AI Overviews cites YouTube more than any medical website when answering queries about health conditions, according to research that raises fresh questions about a tool seen by 2 billion people each month. The company has said its AI summaries, which appear at the top of search results and use generative AI to answer questions from users, are “reliable” and cite reputable medical sources such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Mayo Clinic. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Jan 24
GoogleAI (artificial intelligence)YouTube
Grok AI generated about 3m sexualised images in 11 days, study finds

Grok AI generated about 3m sexualised images in 11 days, study finds

Estimate made by Center for Countering Digital Hate after Elon Musk’s AI image generation tool sparked outrage Grok AI generated about 3m sexualised images in less than two weeks, including 23,000 that appear to depict children, according to researchers who said it “became an industrial-scale machine for the production of sexual abuse material”. The estimate has been made by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) after Elon Musk’s AI image generation tool sparked international outrage when it allowed users to upload photographs of strangers and celebrities, digitally strip them to their underwear or into bikinis, put them in provocative poses and post the images on X. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Jan 22
Grok AIXAI (artificial intelligence)
The Agentic AI Revolution – Managing Legal Risks

The Agentic AI Revolution – Managing Legal Risks

Meta's eye-catching end-of-year acquisition of Manus, a Singapore-based developer of AI agents, for a purported value of more than $2 billion[1], reflects a wider sector shift towards the development and deployment of semi-autonomous, outcome-focused, software agents, which are capable of performing complex tasks without direct and constant human input. The Meta deal notably follows Salesforce's...... Continue Reading

iptechblog.com
Jan 20
Artificial IntelligenceCybersecurityEurope
‘We could hit a wall’: why trillions of dollars of risk is no guarantee of AI reward

‘We could hit a wall’: why trillions of dollars of risk is no guarantee of AI reward

Progress of artificial general intelligence could stall, which may lead to a financial crash, says Yoshua Bengio, one of the ‘godfathers’ of modern AI Will the race to artificial general intelligence (AGI) lead us to a land of financial plenty – or will it end in a 2008-style bust? Trillions of dollars rest on the answer. The figures are staggering: an estimated $2.9tn (£2.2tn) being spent on datacentres , the central nervous systems of AI tools; the more than $4tn stock market capitalisation of Nvidia, the company that makes the chips powering cutting-edge AI systems; and the $100m signing-on bonuses offered by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta to top engineers at OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Jan 17
AI (artificial intelligence)ComputingTechnology
He called himself an ‘untouchable hacker god’. But who was behind the biggest crime Finland has ever known?

He called himself an ‘untouchable hacker god’. But who was behind the biggest crime Finland has ever known?

How would you feel if your therapist’s notes – your darkest thoughts and deepest feelings – were exposed to the world? For 33,000 Finnish people, that became a terrifying reality, with deadly consequences Tiina Parikka was half-naked when she read the email. It was a Saturday in late October 2020, and Parikka had spent the morning sorting out plans for distance learning after a Covid outbreak at the school where she was headteacher. She had taken a sauna at her flat in Vantaa, just outside Finland’s capital, Helsinki, and when she came into her bedroom to get dressed, she idly checked her phone. There was a message that began with Parikka’s name and her social security number – the unique code used to identify Finnish people when they access healthcare, education and banking. “I knew then that this is not a game,” she says. The email was in Finnish. It was jarringly polite. “We are contacting you because you have used Vastaamo’s therapy and/or psychiatric services,” it read. “Unfortunately, we have to ask you to pay to keep your personal information safe.” The sender demanded €200 in bitcoin within 24 hours, otherwise the price would go up to €500 within 48 hours. “If we still do not receive our money after this, your information will be published for everyone to see, including your name, address, phone number, social security number and detailed records containing transcripts of your conversations with Vastaamo’s therapists or psychiatrists.” Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Jan 17
CybercrimeCyberbullyingCounselling and therapy
UK politics: West Midlands crime commissioner resists calls for immediate sacking of chief constable – as it happened

UK politics: West Midlands crime commissioner resists calls for immediate sacking of chief constable – as it happened

Simon Foster says he will give report into force’s handling of Maccabi Tel Aviv fan ban ‘careful consideration’ in deciding Craig Guildford’s fate Here are extracts from three interesting comment articles about the digital ID U-turn. Ailbhe Rea in the New Statesman in the New Statesmans says there were high hopes for the policy when it was first announced. I remember a leisurely lunch over the summer when a supporter of digital IDs told me how they thought Keir Starmer would reset his premiership. Alongside a reorganisation of his team in Number 10, and maybe a junior ministerial reshuffle, they predicted he would announce in his speech at party conference that his government would be embracing digital IDs. “It will allow him to show he’s willing to do whatever it takes to tackle illegal immigration,” was their rationale. Sure enough, Starmer announced “phase two” of his government, reshuffled his top team and, on the Friday before Labour party conference, he duly announced his government would make digital IDs mandatory for workers. “We need to know who is in our country,” he said, arguing that the IDs would prevent migrants who “come here, slip into the shadow economy and remain here illegally”. In policy terms, I don’t think you particularly gain anything by making the government’s planned new digital ID compulsory. One example of that: Kemi Badenoch has both criticised the government’s plans to introduce compulsory ID, while at the same time committing to creating a “British ICE” that would go around deporting large numbers of people living in the UK. In a country with that kind of target and approach, people would be forced to carry their IDs around with them in any case! The Online Safety Act, passed into law by the last Conservative government with cross-party support and implemented by Labour, presupposes some form of ID to work properly. Here is the political challenge for Downing Street: the climbdowns, dilutions, U- turns, about turns, call them what you will, are mounting up. In just the last couple of weeks, there has been the issue of business rates on pubs in England and inheritance tax on farmers. We welcome Starmer’s reported U-turn on making intrusive, expensive and unnecessary digital IDs mandatory. This is a huge success for Big Brother Watch and the millions of Brits who signed petitions to make this happen. The case for the government now dropping digital IDs entirely is overwhelming. Taxpayers should not be footing a £1.8bn bill for a digital ID scheme that is frankly pointless. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Jan 14
PoliticsUK newsPMQs
Keir Starmer tells MPs he is open to social media ban for young people

Keir Starmer tells MPs he is open to social media ban for young people

PM says he is alarmed at reports about children’s screen time and has shifted position on Australian-style policy UK politics live – latest updates Keir Starmer has told MPs he is open to the idea of an Australian-style ban on social media for young people after becoming concerned about the amount of time children and teenagers are spending on their phones. The prime minister told Labour MPs on Monday evening he had become alarmed at reports about five-year-olds spending hours in front of screens each day, as well as increasingly worried about the damage social media is doing to under-16s. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Jan 13
Keir StarmerLabourInternet safety
UK media regulator investigating Elon Musk’s X after outcry over sexualised AI images

UK media regulator investigating Elon Musk’s X after outcry over sexualised AI images

Liz Kendall describes content as vile and illegal and says Ofcom has the government’s backing to use its full powers The UK media watchdog has opened a formal investigation into Elon Musk’s X over the use of the Grok AI tool to manipulate images of women and children by removing their clothes. Ofcom has acted after a public and political outcry over a deluge of sexual images appearing on the platform, created by Musk’s Grok, which is integrated with X. Failing to assess the risk of people seeing illegal content on the platform. Not taking appropriate steps to prevent users from viewing illegal content such as intimate image abuse and CSAM. Not taking down illegal material quickly. Not protecting users from breaches of privacy law. Failing to assess the risk X may pose to children. Not using effective age checking for pornography. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Jan 12
XAI (artificial intelligence)Technology
UK threatens action against X over sexualised AI images of women and children

UK threatens action against X over sexualised AI images of women and children

Government signals support for possible Ofcom intervention on Grok as scrutiny of X’s AI tool intensifies Business live – latest updates Elon Musk’s X “is not doing enough to keep its customers safe online”, a minister has said, as the UK government prepares to outline possible action against the platform over the mass production of sexualised images of woman and children. Peter Kyle, the business secretary, said the government would fully support any action taken by Ofcom, the media regulator, against X – including the possibility that the platform could be blocked in the UK. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Jan 12
Internet safetyGrok AIAI (artificial intelligence)
‘Dangerous and alarming’: Google removes some of its AI summaries after users’ health put at risk

‘Dangerous and alarming’: Google removes some of its AI summaries after users’ health put at risk

Exclusive: Guardian investigation finds AI Overviews provided inaccurate and false information when queried over blood tests Google has removed some of its artificial intelligence health summaries after a Guardian investigation found people were being put at risk of harm by false and misleading information. The company has said its AI Overviews, which use generative AI to provide snapshots of essential information about a topic or question, are “ helpful ” and “ reliable ”. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Jan 11
GoogleAI (artificial intelligence)Technology
Elon Musk’s X threatened with UK ban over wave of indecent AI images

Elon Musk’s X threatened with UK ban over wave of indecent AI images

Platform has restricted image creation on the Grok AI tool to paying subscribers, but victims and experts say this does not go far enough Elon Musk’s X has been ordered by the UK government to tackle a wave of indecent AI images or face a de facto ban, as an expert said the platform was no longer a “safe space” for women. The media watchdog, Ofcom, confirmed it would accelerate an investigation into X as a backlash grew against the site, which has hosted a deluge of images depicting partially stripped women and children. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Jan 9
Grok AIXElon Musk
No 10 condemns ‘insulting’ move by X to restrict Grok AI image tool

No 10 condemns ‘insulting’ move by X to restrict Grok AI image tool

Spokesperson says limiting access to paying subscribers just makes ability to generate unlawful images a premium service UK politics live – latest updates Downing Street has condemned the move by X to restrict its AI image creation tool to paying subscribers as insulting, saying it simply made the ability to generate explicit and unlawful images a premium service. There has been widespread anger after the image tool for Grok, the AI element of X, was used to manipulate thousands of images of women and sometimes children to remove their clothing or put them in sexual positions. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Jan 9
Grok AIXSocial media
Reddit overtakes TikTok in UK thanks to search algorithms and gen Z

Reddit overtakes TikTok in UK thanks to search algorithms and gen Z

Platform is now Britain’s fourth most visited social media site as users seek out human-generated content Reddit, the online discussion platform, has overtaken TikTok as Britain’s fourth most visited social media service, as search algorithms and gen Z have dramatically transformed its prominence. The platform has undergone huge growth over the last two years, with an 88% increase in the proportion of UK internet users it reaches. Three in five Brits online now encounter the site, up from a third in 2023, according to Ofcom . Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Jan 3
RedditSocial mediaInternet
Elon Musk’s 2025 recap: how the world’s richest person became its most chaotic

Elon Musk’s 2025 recap: how the world’s richest person became its most chaotic

How the tech CEO and ‘Dogefather’ made a mess of the year – from an apparent Nazi salute during his White House tenure to Tesla sales slumps and Starship explosions The year of 2025 was dizzying for Elon Musk . The tech titan began the year holding court with Donald Trump in Washington DC. As the months ticked by, one public appearance after another baffled the US and the world. Musk appeared to give a Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration, staunchly championed a 19-year-old staffer nicknamed “Big Balls,” denied reports of being a drug addict while advising the president, and showed up at a White House press conference with a black eye – all in the first half of the year alone. “Elon’s attitude is you have to get it done fast. If you’re an incrementalist, you just won’t get your rocket to the moon,” Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, told Vanity Fair in an expansive interview earlier this month. “And so with that attitude, you’re going to break some china.” Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Dec 31, 2025
Elon MuskTeslaSpaceX
AI showing signs of self-preservation and humans should be ready to pull plug, says pioneer

AI showing signs of self-preservation and humans should be ready to pull plug, says pioneer

Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio warns against granting legal rights to cutting-edge technology A pioneer of AI has criticised calls to grant the technology rights , warning that it was showing signs of self-preservation and humans should be prepared to pull the plug if needed. Yoshua Bengio said giving legal status to cutting-edge AIs would be akin to giving citizenship to hostile extraterrestrials, amid fears that advances in the technology were far outpacing the ability to constrain them. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Dec 30, 2025
Artificial intelligence (AI)MetaComputer science and IT
‘Undermines free speech’: Labour MP hits back at US government over visa ban on UK campaigners

‘Undermines free speech’: Labour MP hits back at US government over visa ban on UK campaigners

Chi Onwurah speaks out after Marco Rubio accused five Europeans, including two Britons, of ‘seeking to suppress American viewpoints they oppose’ A senior Labour MP has accused the Trump administration of undermining free speech after Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, announced sanctions against two British anti-disinformation campaigners. Chi Onwurah, the chair of parliament’s technology select committee, criticised the US government hours after it announced “visa-related” sanctions against five Europeans, including Imran Ahmed and Clare Melford. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Dec 24, 2025
Elon MuskDonald TrumpTechnology
Activist group says it has scraped 86m music files from Spotify

Activist group says it has scraped 86m music files from Spotify

Platform with 700m users says it is investigating after Anna’s Archive claims to have scraped tracks and metadata An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online. Observers said the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their technology. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Dec 22, 2025
SpotifyArtificial intelligence (AI)Computing
Hackers access Pornhub’s premium users’ viewing habits and search history

Hackers access Pornhub’s premium users’ viewing habits and search history

ShinyHunters group reportedly behind the hack affecting data of 200m users thought to be from before 2021 Hackers have accessed the search history and viewing habits of premium users of Pornhub, one of the world’s most popular pornography websites . A gang has reportedly accessed more than 200m data records, including premium members’ email addresses, search and viewing activities and locations. Pornhub is a heavily used site and says it has more than 100m daily visits globally. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Dec 17, 2025
HackingPornographyInternet
Google AI summaries are ruining the livelihoods of recipe writers: ‘It’s an extinction event’

Google AI summaries are ruining the livelihoods of recipe writers: ‘It’s an extinction event’

AI Mode is mangling recipes by merging instructions from multiple creators – and causing them huge dips in ad traffic This past March, when Google began rolling out its AI Mode search capability, it began offering AI-generated recipes. The recipes were not all that intelligent. The AI had taken elements of similar recipes from multiple creators and Frankensteined them into something barely recognizable. In one memorable case , the Google AI failed to distinguish the satirical website the Onion from legitimate recipe sites and advised users to cook with non-toxic glue. Over the past few years, bloggers who have not secured their sites behind a paywall have seen their carefully developed and tested recipes show up, often without attribution and in a bastardized form, in ChatGPT replies. They have seen dumbed-down versions of their recipes in AI-assembled cookbooks available for digital downloads on Etsy or on AI-built websites that bear a superficial resemblance to an old-school human-written blog. Their photos and videos, meanwhile, are repurposed in Facebook posts and Pinterest pins that link back to this digital slop. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Dec 15, 2025
TechnologyFoodArtificial intelligence (AI)
AI deepfakes of real doctors spreading health misinformation on social media

AI deepfakes of real doctors spreading health misinformation on social media

Hundreds of videos on TikTok and elsewhere impersonate experts to sell supplements with unproven effects TikTok and other social media platforms are hosting AI-generated deepfake videos of doctors whose words have been manipulated to help sell supplements and spread health misinformation. The factchecking organisation Full Fact has uncovered hundreds of such videos featuring impersonated versions of doctors and influencers directing viewers to Wellness Nest, a US-based supplements firm. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Dec 5, 2025
HealthUK newsUS news
One in 10 UK parents say their child has been blackmailed online, NSPCC finds

One in 10 UK parents say their child has been blackmailed online, NSPCC finds

Harms include threats to release intimate pictures as charity warns against parents sharing photos or details of children online Nearly one in 10 UK parents say their child has been blackmailed online, with harms ranging from threatening to release intimate pictures to revealing details about someone’s personal life. The NSPCC child protection charity also found that one in five parents know a child who has experienced online blackmail, while two in five said they rarely or never talked to their children about the subject. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Nov 28, 2025
Internet safetyChildrenYoung people
Small changes to ‘for you’ feed on X can rapidly increase political polarisation

Small changes to ‘for you’ feed on X can rapidly increase political polarisation

Study finds that a week of political content can bring about a shift in views that previously would have taken three years Small changes to the tone of posts fed to users of X can increase feelings of political polarisation as much in a week as would have historically taken at least three years, research has found. A groundbreaking experiment to gauge the potency of Elon Musk’s social platform to increase political division found that when posts expressing anti-democratic attitudes and partisan animosity were boosted, even barely perceptibly, in the feeds of Democrat and Republican supporters there was a large change in their unfavourable feelings towards the other side. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Nov 27, 2025
XUS politicsInternet
How Amazon turned our capitalist era of free markets into the age of technofeudalism | Yanis Varoufakis

How Amazon turned our capitalist era of free markets into the age of technofeudalism | Yanis Varoufakis

Amazon Web Services owns the basic infrastructure for other businesses to operate online, turning even governments into its serfs. But now some people are fighting back For the past six years, every Black Friday – that made-up carnival of consumption – Amazon workers and their allies have mobilised across the world in coordinated strikes and protests . At first glance, these disputes look like the standard struggle between a giant capitalist employer and the people who keep it running. But Amazon is no ordinary corporation. It is the clearest expression of what I call technofeudalism: a new economic order in which platforms behave like lords owning the fiefs that have replaced markets. To appreciate Amazon’s extraordinary power, we must recall the system it is helping to bury. Capitalism relied on markets and profit. Firms invested in productive capital, hired workers, produced commodities and lived or died by profit and loss. But the emerging order is one in which the most powerful capitalist firms have exited that market altogether. They own the digital infrastructure that everyone else must use to trade, work, communicate and live. Yanis Varoufakis is the leader of MeRA25 and the author of Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Nov 27, 2025
AmazonSurveillanceWorkers' rights
Foreign interference or opportunistic grifting: why are so many pro-Trump X accounts based in Asia?

Foreign interference or opportunistic grifting: why are so many pro-Trump X accounts based in Asia?

A new feature on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter allows users to see the location of other accounts. It has resulted in a firestorm of recriminations When X rolled out a new feature revealing the locations of popular accounts, the company was acting to boost transparency and clamp down on disinformation. The result, however, has been a circular firing squad of recriminations, as users turn on each other enraged by the revelation that dozens of popular “America first” and pro-Trump accounts originated overseas. The new feature was enabled over the weekend by X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, who called it the first step in “securing the integrity of the global town square.” Since then many high-engagement accounts that post incessantly about US politics have been “unmasked” by fellow users. Continue reading...

theguardian.com
Nov 27, 2025
XInternetTechnology
UK Government Publishes New Software and Cyber Security Codes of Practice

UK Government Publishes New Software and Cyber Security Codes of Practice

As cyber security continues to make be headline news it is timely that on 7 May 2025 the UK government published a new voluntary Software Security Code of Practice: Software Security Code of Practice - GOV.UK This Code is designed to be complementary to relevant international approaches and existing standards and where possible reflects internationally...... Continue Reading

iptechblog.com
May 15, 2025
CybersecurityData BreachData Protection
Clock is Ticking for Responses to UK Government Consultation on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence

Clock is Ticking for Responses to UK Government Consultation on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence

The authors wish to thank Sumaiyah Razzaq for her contributions to this post. Ever since the emergence of generative AI, a major concern for all participants has been the extent to which copyright works can and should be used in training AI models. The application of UK copyright law for this purpose is disputed, leading...... Continue Reading

iptechblog.com
Feb 14, 2025
Artificial IntelligenceCopyrightData Protection
A New Era for Consumer Law and Regulation

A New Era for Consumer Law and Regulation

Consumer law and regulation has been thrusted into the limelight in recent months. The main reason for this is the introduction of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC Act), which received Royal Assent on 24 May 2024. The changes introduced by the DMCC Act are significant and will result in both increased consumer...... Continue Reading

iptechblog.com
Sep 5, 2024
AdvertisingCompetition and Markets AuthorityConsumer Law