An inquest into the 14-year-old’s death heard how the teenager was looking at a lot of images of self-harm on Pinterest and was emailed by the service recommending depression-related content. Molly, from Harrow, north-west London, took her own life in November 2017 after seeing a significant amount of online content on social media about depression, suicide, self-harm and anxiety. The north London coroner’s office heard evidence on Thursday from Jude Hoffman, Pinterest’s head of community operations, who tracked the last 100 “pins” or posts seen by Molly before she died. The material Molly saw included graphic images of self-harm and references to depression and death. Hoffman said: “It is important to note that I deeply regret that he was able to access some of the content that was shown.” Asked by Oliver Sanders KC, the barrister representing Molly’s family, if he was sorry it happened, Hoffman said: “I’m sorry it happened.” Hoffman admitted that emails sent by Pinterest to the teenager, such as “10 depression pins you might like” contained “the type of content that we wouldn’t want anyone to spend a lot of time with.” US-based Hoffman had been ordered to appear in person by the senior coroner, Andrew Walker. The senior executive said the technology available to the company now for moderate content was “simply not available to us” before Molly’s death. The investigation outlined Pinterest’s guidelines for the platform at the time, which recommended removing content that promoted self-harm, while “triggering” or “disturbing” content should be reduced or hidden from view. One of the images of self-harm seen by Molly before her death appeared on an internal Pinterest slide deck explaining guidelines for dealing with self-harm content Sanders said that “children especially” would find it “very difficult … to make sense” of the content Molly saw, to which Hoffman replied, “Yes.” Hoffman admitted that some of the images he was shown were ones he “wouldn’t show my children”. The inquest was told Molly made a number of boards on Pinterest, including two of interest in the process. Sanders said one board was called “stay strong,” which tended to “have more positive” material about recovery pinned to it, while the other board, with “much more depressing, negative content,” was called “nothing to worry about ». Asked if content posted by Molly would now be removed per Pinterest’s guidelines, Hoffman said a “share” of it would be. Asked if an image that ran in May 2017 that contained suicidal phrases should have been removed, Hoffman said: “I think so, yes.” Earlier on Thursday, Molly’s father Ian Russell, 59, was recorded via posts by his daughter on Twitter reaching out to celebrities and social media influencers for help. Russell described how his teenager was “calling into the void” for help on Twitter. Salice Rose, an influencer who has discussed her experience with depression online, was one of the people Molly tried to reach out to. Russell said it was “dangerous” for people like Molly to seek support from well-meaning influences who could not offer specialist support. On Thursday morning she also told the inquest: “I believe social media helped kill my daughter. I think there’s still a lot of that content and I think there’s a lack of transparency. “Children should not be on a platform that poses a risk to their lives.” The investigation continues. In the UK, you can contact the youth suicide charity Papyrus on 0800 068 4141 or email [email protected] and in the UK and Ireland you can contact the Samaritans on freephone 116 123 or email [email protected] samaritans.org or jo @samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In Australia, the Lifeline crisis support service is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
