{"id":22103,"date":"2026-02-24T13:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T12:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/24\/molly-vs-the-machines-review-a-powerful-story-of-love-loss-and-the-dangers-of-social-media\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T13:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T12:38:07","slug":"molly-vs-the-machines-review-a-powerful-story-of-love-loss-and-the-dangers-of-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/24\/molly-vs-the-machines-review-a-powerful-story-of-love-loss-and-the-dangers-of-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Molly vs the Machines review \u2013 a powerful story of love, loss and the dangers of social media"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before she took her own life at 14, Molly Russell accessed thousands of harmful posts on Instagram and Pinterest. A new documentary recreates the inquest where her father was told the images were safe<\/p>\n

Molly Russell was 14 when she took her own life in 2017<\/a> after months of viewing content relating to self-harm and suicide on social media. Nearly a decade later, her best friends from school, interviewed for this documentary, have grown into articulate, impressive women in their early 20s. Watching them, you can\u2019t help but be struck all over again by the terrible tragedy of Molly\u2019s death and the loss to her family, who will never see the young woman Molly would be now. Her father, Ian Russell<\/a>, says life before Molly\u2019s death was absolutely normal; in the years since, he has become a leading campaigner for better online protection for children.<\/p>\n

On the night Molly died, Russell says, they sat down together as a family, in front of the TV. Molly\u2019s last message to her friend Nieve was two laughing emojis. She had been feeling depressed, but no one suspected how bad it was. Nor were they aware of the content being fed to Molly by Instagram and Pinterest\u2019s algorithms. In the months before her death she accessed thousands of harmful social media posts. One reads: \u201cDear me, I hate you. You\u2019re weak. You deserve the pain. You\u2019ll never be good enough. I hope you die.\u201d At the inquest into Molly\u2019s death, Meta\u2019s head of health and wellbeing policy, Elizabeth Lagone<\/a>, told the court the majority of posts Molly saw were \u201csafe\u201d for children. Nothing to see here.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nBefore she took her own life at 14, Molly Russell accessed thousands of harmful posts on Instagram and Pinterest. A new documentary recreates the inquest where her father was told the images were safe
\nMolly Russell was 14 when she took her own life in 2017 after months of viewing content relating to self-harm and suicide on social media. Nearly a decade later, her best friends from school, interviewed for this documentary, have grown into articulate, impressive women in their early 20s. Watching them, you can\u2019t help but be struck all over again by the terrible tragedy of Molly\u2019s death and the loss to her family, who will never see the young woman Molly would be now. Her father, Ian Russell, says life before Molly\u2019s death was absolutely normal; in the years since, he has become a leading campaigner for better online protection for children.
\nOn the night Molly died, Russell says, they sat down together as a family, in front of the TV. Molly\u2019s last message to her friend Nieve was two laughing emojis. She had been feeling depressed, but no one suspected how bad it was. Nor were they aware of the content being fed to Molly by Instagram and Pinterest\u2019s algorithms. In the months before her death she accessed thousands of harmful social media posts. One reads: \u201cDear me, I hate you. You\u2019re weak. You deserve the pain. You\u2019ll never be good enough. I hope you die.\u201d At the inquest into Molly\u2019s death, Meta\u2019s head of health and wellbeing policy, Elizabeth Lagone, told the court the majority of posts Molly saw were \u201csafe\u201d for children. Nothing to see here. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before she took her own life at 14, Molly Russell accessed thousands of harmful posts on Instagram and Pinterest. A new documentary recreates the inquest where her father was told the images were safe Molly Russell was 14 when she took her own life in 2017 after months of viewing content relating to self-harm and …<\/p>\n

Molly vs the Machines review \u2013 a powerful story of love, loss and the dangers of social media<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":22104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22103"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}