What was in the news and academic press about self-injury in March?
The Government of Canada proposed Bill C-631 which would enact the Online Harms Act. Its aim is to ensure the safety of people online, especially that of children, and reduce harmful content on social media. The act targets child pornography, intimate content published without consent, hate speech, bullying and other harmful content such as posts promoting self-harm. The bill would also impose on online platforms the duty to act responsibly by preventing exposure to harmful content and quickly make such content inaccessible. Fees could be given to large companies that do not adhere to the act.
While the bill would not apply to private messaging, it sparks off worries about its potential limitation of freedom of speech and the hardening of some sentences. Complaints drawn before the Canadian Human Rights Commission for instance could lead to penalties of up to $50,000 and those advocating genocide could face life in prison. While a survey found that 68% of Canadians support the Government’s plan to make social media safer, half of Canadians also do not trust the Government to regulate online contact in a way that protects freedom of speech2.
Bill C-63 refers to content promoting self-harm as “content that induces a child to harm themselves”. But it does not include a clear definition of what kind of content is considered harmful. It states that it applies to content that advocates for self-harm or that, “given the context in which it is communicated, could cause a child to inflict injury on themselves, to have an eating disorder or to die by suicide”. While we may assume that what harmful content is is obvious and does not need to be defined, it is important to keep in mind that not all mentions of self-harm online are harmful and that researchers and health professionals only can categorize such content based on evidence. Some content, for instance, seeks to raise awareness.
This bill is proposed in a context of growing concern over the influence of social media on children’s mental health across the globe. The United Kingdom passed a similar act in October 2023. Media and the FBI also warn of malevolent online groups coercing vulnerable children and teenagers into harming themselves on camera3.
Faced with this new pressure from governments, social media platforms are taking measures to protect their younger users. Meta recently started censoring content about suicide and self-harm to underage users. But some mental health professionals believe change is not fast enough.
Danish psychologist Lotte Rubæk, who leads the self-injury team in child and adolescent psychiatry in the Capital Region of Denmark, quit her role as an adviser on suicide and self-injury for Meta4. She argues Meta’s concern about mental health is not genuine, and accuses the company of ignoring the recommendations of experts on the topic. Rubæk claims Meta is more interested in profit than in the well-being of users, and keeps them addicted to the app in order to collect and sell more data. Rubæk was invited by Facebook to join the group of experts in 2020. Now in retrospect she believes it was for them an attempt at silencing her as she was vocal about the harms of Instagram.
Unfortunately social media are too often pointed out as the culprit for poor children’s mental health, and we need to understand that children might be exposed to such content because they were drawn to it, or even searched for it in the first place due to pre-existing mental health issues. A 2022 study5 about the danger of TikTok found that teenagers were recommended self-harm and suicide videos in less than 3 minutes. But to obtain such alarming results, the researchers had to pause and like videos about mental health and body image. The idea that children and teenagers self-harm simply because they have been exposed to content online is oversimplifying6 and self-harm content appears to be mainly a risk for those who already self-injure, by reinforcing or triggering the behavior7. While it is urgent to make the internet safer, it is also important to sit down and listen to younger generations without putting the blame on online cultures they value. Instead of demonizing online culture, we need to understand why they turn to it, what functions it holds, and how we can meet their needs in a safe and caring way.
For more information about young people, self-injury and the Internet, and how to help teenagers use the Internet safely, I recommend this open-access article and this podcast. Dr. Stephen P. Lewis was President of the International Society for the Study of Self-Injury and is the co-founder of Self-injury Outreach and Support. He is a key figure in research about self-injury and the Internet.
References
[1] Government of Canada. (2024, February 26). BILL C-63. Parliament of Canada. https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-63/first-reading
[2] Leger. (2024). Online Content Regulation. https://leger360.com/surveys/content-regulation/
[3] Boburg, S., Verma, P., & Dehghanpoor, C. (2024, March 13). On popular online platforms, predatory groups coerce children into self-harm. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2024/764-predator-discord-telegram/
[4] Bryant, M. (2024, March 16). Leading adviser quits over Instagram’s failure to remove self-harm content. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/16/instagram-meta-lotte-rubaek-adviser-quits-failure-to-remove-self-harm-content-
[5] Center for Countering Digital Hate. (2022). Deadly by Design. Center for Countering Digital Hate. https://counterhate.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/CCDH-Deadly-by-Design_120922.pdf
[6] Lewis, S., & Westers, N. J. (2021). Self-Injury and the Internet, with Dr. Stephen Lewis [The Psychology of Self-Injury S1: E5]. https://the-psychology-of-self-injury.simplecast.com/episodes/self-injury-and-the-internet-with-dr-stephen-lewis
[7] Lewis, S. P., Heath, N. L., Michal, N. J., & Duggan, J. M. (2012). Non-suicidal self-injury, youth, and the Internet: What mental health professionals need to know. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 6(13). https://doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-6-13
Exploring self-harm 