A mother suing TikTok over her teenage son's death said a decision to hold a landmark new inquest would help better protect children.
Oh?
Jools Sweeney, a 14-year-old from Gloucestershire, died in April 2022 and his parents believe social media played a role in his death – pointing to an 'online challenge gone wrong'. There are fears he may have been a victim of attempted 'sextortion', too.
The first inquest wasn't so very wrong, but it clearly didn't exonerate the negligent parents enough:
The fresh ruling overturned an inquiry held four years ago, which only lasted 23 minutes and heard no oral evidence. Jools's mother, Ellen Roome, challenged the narrative conclusion recorded in 2022, taking legal action against the senior coroner for Gloucestershire.
Her lawyers told a hearing on Thursday that a 'number of lines of inquiry' had not been pursued. And, in the High Court in London, Lord Justice Warby and Ms Justice Heather Williams on Thursday quashed the original conclusion and ordered the inquest be reopened.
And so we're off to the races, and the only people to benefit from this are the lawyers. Oh, and the government, which relishes any excuse to crack down on social media, of course.
Ms Roome said: 'Every bereaved family deserves to know that every possible avenue, including a child's digital life, has been properly investigated. We hope this is a turning point, not only in finding the truth about Jools, but in making the online world safer for every child.
'Our greatest hope is that one day no family has to walk this path. No parent should ever have to bury their child because dangerous content was allowed to reach them.'
Who allowed it to reach him, then, if not you? A 14 year old doesn't buy a phone without help from his parents, and most social media has age-restrictions and warning for use, which you as a parent should have known.
Thursday's ruling came as Ofcom announced an investigation into the social media platform over potential failures in stopping children accessing harmful content. The watchdog has questioned whether the social media giant's age checks are fit for purpose.
Not if it's ignored by the very people now clamouring for Big Daddy Governmement to step in and parent their children for them, no.
A TikTok spokesman said: 'We are confident that we meet our Online Safety Act obligations and will work with Ofcom to demonstrate this.'
I'm confident they will too, and I'm also conifent it won't make a blind bit of difference.
Many/most 'campaigning' bereaved parents do so in the hope that the noise of the campaign to find 'someone to blame' will drown out the obvious questions about the quality of their parenting and any potential feelings of guilt they may be silently bearing. It's also a helpful distraction activity to dilute any immediate grief issues.
ReplyDeleteIt usually works, especially if the parents are articulate, attractive and media-savvy, as happens to be the case here.
Government will be prepared to collude with any convenient campaign which supports its own objectives, especially the more illiberal ones, as happens to be the case here too.
A 14 year old boy has a different surname from his mother. not unusual in this day and age, but can't help wondering if the father is still around and publicly supporting the boy's mother.
ReplyDeletePenseivat