Molly Russell

MOLLY VS THE MACHINES
Directed by Marc Silver
Certificate: 15
☆☆☆☆

MOLLY Russell was 14 when she died. Her life, and the events leading up to her death, are carefully told in this investigation of a “Wild West Web” culture.

Molly came home from school, watched TV with her family, went up to her bedroom – and took her own life.

Her parents discovered social media had exposed her to ever-increasing amounts of distressing and harmful content.

Molly’s father Ian and her family are joined by Molly’s friends – who are now in their 20s – to reflect on why this happened, while the film also traces the history of our internet use and considers its impact.

This is an unshackled capitalistic enterprise, a place where regulation and responsibility is against the creator’s creed. Highgate Newtown-based film-maker Marc Silver illustrates the human impact of 30 years of global connectivity with few rules and one aim: money.

It feels like an end-of-days neo-liberal hell, or, as President Clinton puts it: “A global free trade zone…[with a] private sector to regulate itself as much as possible”.

At Molly’s inquest, the coroner concluded that social media content was partly responsible: yet Meta did not accept that much of what she saw was not suitable. For Marc, the idea that tech companies will not or cannot control their products means we have to take responsibility and create tech-free spaces in our lives.

“Telling this story was never solely about the harm done to a 14-year-old girl, or the rights of all children, or the tech policy changes needed to protect them,” he reflects, “but a warning about the motives of the firms who control these machines.”

Molly’s father Ian – a grieving focal point – sums it up: “When you say goodnight to your kid and you close the door and they are safely in their bedroom and you make sure the front door is locked, you have taken steps as you do every night without thinking, to protect them.

“What I wasn’t sufficiently aware of – and I don’t think many parents are – is that if that child has a smartphone with them, there is a window which allows them to connect to the outside world and decisions about what was suitable and not suitable for a 13-, 14-year-old to see, where being made remotely, in Silicon Valley, almost experimentally.

“I have no doubt Instagram helped kill my daughter.”