Instagram's regrettable failure to remove graphic self-harming images from the social media website is potentially fatal when these pictures could contribute to suicides.
Vulnerable young people actively looking for the scenes is why a company worth around £80-billion must do more and, if it doesn’t step up and behave responsibly, then MPs and Ministers need to come down on it like a ton of bricks.
Bosses promising to delete the dangerous images was both an admission and welcomed, so the fact many distressing sights are still viewable is unforgivable by a corporation which could hardly plead poverty or a lack of resources.
Actions always speak louder than words deleting the images must be the priority for Instagram it clearly isn’t when young lives are at stake.
This isn’t censorship. It’s leadership, the leadership of the well-paid, clever people at the top of an organisation with an obligation to protect users from material which could influence them in a direction that would leave families grieving.
So come on, Instagram. Clean up your act. Now.
Johnson needs to stop fooling us with funding falsehoods
Boris Johnson's NHS spending promises deserve to be treated with extreme caution after his £350m a week lie down the side of that Brexit red bus.
Our health service - brought to its knees by Tory austerity - would be thriving if Conservative announcements were always translated into real cash, with the supposed extra £1.8 billion requiring scepticism until full details are examined and we see the colour of the cash.
The new Prime Minister foisted on us by the Tory Party regularly speaks with a forked tongue requiring an operation to insert the truth.
When he’s offering another sticking plaster to a gaping wound inflicted by the most severe spending squeeze in the history of the NHS, Johnson’s fooling the great British public.
Blood on his hands
Donald Trump has blood on his hands because his divisive, racist, violent outbursts incite people to loathe others.
Pinning individual murderous mass shootings on the US President may be wrong but spreading bigotry and being in the pocket of the gun lobby is a deadly combination.
