Google denies breaching law by promoting suicide forum linked to 164 UK deaths

Google has denied breaching the Online Safety Act by promoting a “nihilistic” suicide forum associated with 164 deaths in the UK, where it is supposed to be banned. The UK’s internet regulator fined the forum’s US-based operator £950,000 because the site, which “presents a material risk of significant harm”, can still be accessed in the UK despite British laws criminalising encouraging or assisting suicide. However, a link to the website still appears in Google’s search results allowing users with basic software to circumvent the block and access screeds of advice on suicide methods. Google’s promotion of the site, not named by the Guardian, was raised by the Molly Rose Foundation, an online safety campaign. Its chief executive, Andy Burrows, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “If you search for it by name it will still come up in search results – a clear-cut breach of the act, but on that matter Ofcom has so far declined to take action.” The site listed by Google was the second entry beneath a link to Samaritans. The associated url links to a page where the forum’s operators say access has been “voluntarily restricted to users in the United Kingdom due to legal risks associated with the UK Online Safety Act 2023”. However, it includes the website’s address, which can then be used to access the full site using VPN software that simulates being a computer based in a different country. …