The father of a schoolgirl who killed herself in 2017 after viewing graphic material about self-harm, suicide and depression on social media hopes her inquest will finally provide answers.
Molly Russell, 14, died in Harrow prompting loved ones to launch a campaign for better internet safety.
Her father, Ian Russell, blames long-term exposure to harmful material on sites such as Instagram and Pinterest.
An inquest starting on Tuesday will finally examine whether algorithms used by online firms to keep users hooked contributed to her death.
Mr Russell told BBC News: “I hope that we will learn lessons and that it will help produce the change that’s needed to keep people safe, to keep people alive.”
Campaigners hope Molly’s story proves a “watershed moment” for new legislation to regulate big tech companies. The Online Safety Bill is still making its way through Parliament.
Previous hearings heard how Molly engaged with tens of thousands of social media posts in the six months before she died days before her birthday in November 2017, including “pretty dreadful” content which “raised concerns”.
The inquest was delayed in March after thousands of pages of new evidence about her internet history were submitted.
Senior employees from social media giants Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, and Pinterest, are due to give evidence in person over the next two weeks at North London Coroner’s Court, Barnet.
Meta is likely to be quizzed about internal documents revealed by Frances Haugen, a former employee turned whistleblower, including the impact of the platform on young people’s mental health.
The court previously heard how on Twitter, Molly tweeted or retweeted 460 times, liked 4,100 tweets, was following 116 accounts and had 42 followers.
She was a much more active user of Pinterest, with more than 15,000 engagements, including 3,000 saves, in the last six months of her life. Molly did not have a Facebook profile.
But in the last six months of her life she was engaging with Instagram posts about 130 times a day on average.
This included 3,500 shares during that timeframe, as well as 11,000 likes and 5,000 saves.
Coroner Andrew Walker previously challenged social media companies to “help make the internet a safer place”, before adding “the earlier the parties turn their minds to that matter, the better solutions we may have in due course”.
Since his daughter’s death, Mr Russell has been a vocal campaigner for reform of social media platforms and set up the Molly Rose Foundation.
