Online Safety Bill: Olly Stephens' parents hopeful for social media law

Stuart and Amanda Stephens watched the House of Commons debate from the public gallery

The parents of a murdered teenager say they are feeling "positive" there will be new laws to make it harder to share harmful content on social media

Stuart and Amanda Stephens attended a debate on the Online Safety Bill in the House of Commons.

They have campaigned for tighter restrictions on tech firms after it transpired a fatal attack on their son Olly was planned on social media.

The government has said it wants the bill to pass during this session.

Thirteen-year-old Olly Stephens was stabbed to death near his home in Reading by teenagers who plotted his killing across numerous social media platforms.

Olly Stephens was stabbed to death near his home in 2021

Stuart and Amanda Stephens have previously spoken about their increasing exasperation with the government for repeated delays to the bill.

The proposed legislation is intended to end self-regulation for social media firms and force them to remove harmful content.

They watched the report stage of the bill in the House of Commons from the public gallery, along with other parents including Ian Russell, father of Molly who took her own life in 2017 after watching images of self-harm and suicide on Instagram and Pinterest.

Together, the parents have formed the Bereaved Families for Online Safety initiative, supported by the NSPCC to campaign for a safer internet for children.

A joint statement said the Online Safety Bill was a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to save families like ours from the horrific, unending pain of losing a child".

Mr Stephens said afterwards that he had "faith" the bill would be passed.

He said: "Children are curious, they can find anything, anywhere [on social media] - it's the responsibility of the companies to control that feed.

"Hopefully this will set the standard globally, other countries will adopt the same policies and we all stand together. We're feeling a lot more positive."

Having seen the debate from the public gallery, Mrs Stephens said there had been "a lot of empathy" for parents in their position.

'Ground-breaking legislation'

"They mentioned our names and our children's names and that means the world - that feeling of care and who has been affected by this," he said.

"I got the feeling the power will be taken away from the social media companies. They wont be able to continue as they are - not caring, not doing anything. Ofcom will have teeth.

"It's given me more of a feeling of hope that it is going to happen now".

Speaking during the debate in the Commons, shadow culture minister Alex Davies-Jones said the bill was "unnecessarily overly-complicated" and paid tribute to the families who lost children to online harm.

"I sincerely hope this evening's debate will do justice to their incredible hard work and commitment in the most exceptionally difficult of circumstances," she added.

Culture secretary Michelle Donelan said the Online Safety Bill was a "ground-breaking piece of legislation".

"The sooner we pass this bill, the sooner we can start protecting children online. It will need to evolve as technology changes."

She said a planned two-day committee stage "will not delay or derail the bill" from receiving royal assent during the current parliamentary session.