The internet, according to the ruling, “affected her mental health in a negative way and contributed to her death in a more than minimal way.”
Sitting in the witness box of a small London courtroom this week, a Meta executive faced an uncomfortable question: Did her company contribute to the suicide of a 14-year-old named Molly Russell?
Videos and images of suicide, self-harm and depressive content that the teenager viewed in the months before she died in November 2017 appeared on a screen in the courtroom. The executive was read a post that Molly had liked or saved from Instagram, and heard how it was copied almost verbatim in a note filled with words of self-loathing later found by her parents.
