The mother of British transgender teen Brianna Ghey has spoken out in support of a ban on social media for children under 16.
Warning: This story contains details some readers may find distressing
Brianna was killed by 15-year-olds Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe in the English town of Warrington on February 11, 2023.
The pair lured her to a park before stabbing her 28 times all over the body with a hunting knife. The 16-year-old died from her wounds.
Speaking at the screening of an ITV documentary, Brianna: A Mother's Story, in London last week, her mother Esther Ghey criticised social media companies for failing to act against harmful content online and for putting "lives before profit".
"It is an absolute cesspit," Ms Grey said, in comments reported by British news agency PA Media.
"Even if, say, if I do an interview — and I'll try not to look at comments, but I can never help myself — and I'll look at the comments, and you'll see people saying about my child, trying to tell me what gender my child was, and also really, really horrific comments too.
"And it's mentioned in the documentary, as well, that when you report things the support isn't there.
"I've reported so many comments, and I always get the response that they haven't done anything wrong, that it's not something that they can take down. And our children have access to those comments."
Brianna: A Mother's Story sees Ms Grey talk about her daughter at length, explores child safety issues on social platforms, and features some findings from the murder investigation.
Having previously campaigned for age controls on smartphone use, Ms Grey said a mandatory minimum age of 16 should also be in place for social media accounts.
'Sick' influences online
Discourse around the harmful exposures of the digital world has recently come to the fore with the release of Netflix drama Adolescence. The series depicts a 13-year-old boy so driven by misogynistic communities online he is driven to stab his young female classmate to death.
Social media is known to have played a part in motivating Brianna's killers. Prosecutors in her case said in 2023 that Jenkinson and Ratcliffe had shared hundreds of messages in the lead-up to the murder, sharing fantasies about murder and torture, with the former admitting she enjoyed watching videos about serial killers, murder and torture.
Ms Grey said she believed all children on social media were at risk of being radicalised, even those whose parents thought they were immune because they did not show those tendencies at home.
"No matter how much love and compassion you pump into your child when you're bringing them up, and how much empathy you can teach them as well, they will then go online and they'll see the way that other people are speaking about other people, and they might think that that's right," she said.
"And that's without even going into the amount of harm that's online, like the dangerous challenges where young people are losing their lives due to these sick challenges that people are uploading, misogyny, hate, misinformation, and that is just the tip of the iceberg."
In November, Australia became the first country in the world to pass laws blocking children under 16 from using social media, including popular platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram.
YouTube was exempted on the basis of being an "important source of education", according to the government, as opposed to the "short-form entertainment" model other apps are structured around. Other platforms carved out of the legislation included messaging services such as Whatsapp.
One government poll says 77 per cent of Australians back the legislation, but it has also received unfavourable reviews from some researchers and mental health experts who argue social media can also be constructive for certain groups of young people, particularly those who are marginalised.
