A year after the UK’s Online Safety Act came into force, a new study has found that harmful social media content is still reaching teenagers at nearly the same rate as before the law took effect. Research by the Molly Rose Foundation (via The Guardian) found that a third of all UK teenagers and nearly half of all girls encountered suicide, self-harm, depression, or eating disorder content on social media in the span of just one week.
What the data shows
The study surveyed 1,825 children aged 13 to 17 across 21 UK schools in April and May 2026. Here’s what it found:
- Over a third of children (34%) were exposed to high-risk content in the past week. The figure was 37% before the Online Safety Act came into force in July 2025. The researchers say this change is not statistically significant.
- Girls were disproportionately affected, with nearly half (47%) encountering harmful content in the past week, compared to 23% of boys.
- The numbers were worse for vulnerable groups. Exposure reached 57% among children with low wellbeing and 40% among those with special education needs and disabilities.
- Three-quarters of children who saw harmful content saw it on TikTok, more than three times the rate of the next most common platform, Instagram, at 23%.
- Algorithmic recommendation feeds drove between 59% and 62% of all harmful content exposure.
- Among children who saw content encouraging or promoting suicide, one in five encountered it 10 or more times on at least one platform within a single week.
What the law was supposed to do
The Online Safety Act’s Protection of Children Codes legally require platforms to prevent children from encountering content that promotes suicide, self-harm, or eating disorders. Violations can result in fines of up to £18 million or 10% of a company’s global revenue.
Despite those requirements, the foundation says exposure has barely moved. It attributes the failure largely to weak enforcement by Ofcom and calls for stricter controls on algorithmic recommendation systems.
Ian Russell, father of Molly Russell, who died by suicide in 2017 at age 14 after viewing harmful content online, said the findings were “shocking but sadly unsurprising.” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected to announce next week whether the government will pursue a social media ban for children under 16. The foundation’s own research, however, suggests that a blanket ban is unlikely to work without also targeting the recommendation algorithms that keep pushing harmful content in front of young users.
