Online suicide forums and self-harm facilitation sites
Ofcom received 3 coroners' reports about this hazard between 25 Oct 2023 and 12 Mar 2025.
They came from 3 different coroners in 3 coroner areas. A similar concern was raised again 2 times after the first warning.
A published response was found for 2 of the 2 earlier reports, stating 5 specific actions.
The story, report by report
Spacing grows with the time between reports.
“The concern here is that this site & potentially similar self-harm & suicide”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ Ofcom responded, stating 2 specific actions.Response (PDF) ↗Response (PDF) ↗
“we are committed to driving industry improvements by engaging with the largest and riskiest services via continuous 'regulatory supervision.'”
“this Welsh Government will actively engage with, and contribute to, the three phases of Canolfan Cyswllt Cyntaf / First Point of Contact Centre: 0300 0604400”
- 2 months later
“(3) [REDACTED], is a forum that permits material to be exchanged and viewed within its open chatrooms whereby suicide is encouraged, assisted, counselled and procured through the provision and exchange of information and methods.”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ Ofcom responded, stating 3 specific actions.Response (PDF) ↗Response (PDF) ↗Response (PDF) ↗
“seeking to tackle at source the suppliers of harmful substances for the purposes of suicide”
Web search (Tavily): No evidence found either way
Read "Reducing the Threat of Improvised Explosive Device Attacks by Restricting Access to Explosive Precursor Chemicals" at NAP.edu ↗“We are currently in the process of putting in place regulation to implement the Online Safety regime. Until the relevant procedural steps outlined below are completed, the duties on regulated services are not yet fully in force. Further detail on Ofcom's planned approach to online safety regulation is set out below. Whilst the regime is at this early stage, we are supporting all in scope services to be compliant with the provisions of the Act and intend to seek to engage constructively with services”
1 more stated action in the Promises tab.
- 1 year 3 months laterIdentical hazardConfidence 0.90 · higha different coroner
“[the deceased] accessed an online 'suicide forum' where she was able to access information on how to take her own life”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ Repeated from the earlier report:'suicideforum'information
Ofcom responded.Response (PDF) ↗Response (PDF) ↗
- All reports to Ofcom
Each row is one judged link between an earlier and a later report. Open a row to read both quotes, found word for word in the originals.
2023 → 2025Rhiannon Williams1 year 3 months after Chloe Macdermott · different coronerIdentical hazardConfidence 0.90 · high
Identical hazardConfidence 0.90 · highBoth reports highlight suicide forums that enable users to obtain information and methods for self‑harm.
Chloe Macdermott · 19 Dec 2023
“(3) [REDACTED], is a forum that permits material to be exchanged and viewed within its open chatrooms whereby suicide is encouraged, assisted, counselled and procured through the provision and exchange of information and methods.”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ Rhiannon Williams · 12 Mar 2025
“[the deceased] accessed an online 'suicide forum' where she was able to access information on how to take her own life”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ Stated action in the response to the earlier report
“The act's illegal safety duties will apply to all in-scope 'user-to-user' services which allow users to post content online, or to interact with each other - including online forums. This means that once these duties are in force, they will be required to have systems and processes in place to proactively prevent users from encountering priority illegal content via their service and to minimise the length of time for which such content is present.”
2023 → 2025Rhiannon Williams1 year 5 months after Bronwen Morgan · different coronerClosely relatedConfidence 0.90 · high
Closely relatedConfidence 0.90 · highBoth reports highlight the danger of vulnerable individuals accessing online platforms that provide information or methods for self‑harm and suicide. The earlier report focuses on a specific self‑harm/suicide facilitating site, while the later report cites a suicide forum and a social media platform used to obtain method details.
Bronwen Morgan · 25 Oct 2023
“The concern here is that this site & potentially similar self-harm & suicide”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ Rhiannon Williams · 12 Mar 2025
“[the deceased] accessed an online 'suicide forum' where she was able to access information on how to take her own life”
Original on judiciary.uk ↗ Stated action in the response to the earlier report
“we are committed to driving industry improvements by engaging with the largest and riskiest services via continuous 'regulatory supervision.'”
Stated action
“we are committed to driving industry improvements by engaging with the largest and riskiest services via continuous 'regulatory supervision.'”
Stated action
“this Welsh Government will actively engage with, and contribute to, the three phases of Canolfan Cyswllt Cyntaf / First Point of Contact Centre: 0300 0604400”
Stated action
“seeking to tackle at source the suppliers of harmful substances for the purposes of suicide”
What happened next: No evidence found either way
The sources discuss chemical supply chains, toxic substances, and policies targeting hazardous materials in products and packaging, but none address suicide prevention or actions by an organisation to tackle suppliers of harmful substances for suicide.
“This chapter characterizes the movement of precursor chemicals through domestic supply chains and the potential vulnerabilities inherent in those supply chains, based largely on the presentations provided during the data-gathering meetings.”
No evidence found does not mean the action did not happen.
Stated action
“We are currently in the process of putting in place regulation to implement the Online Safety regime. Until the relevant procedural steps outlined below are completed, the duties on regulated services are not yet fully in force. Further detail on Ofcom's planned approach to online safety regulation is set out below. Whilst the regime is at this early stage, we are supporting all in scope services to be compliant with the provisions of the Act and intend to seek to engage constructively with services”
Stated action · timescale: once these duties are in force
“The act's illegal safety duties will apply to all in-scope 'user-to-user' services which allow users to post content online, or to interact with each other - including online forums. This means that once these duties are in force, they will be required to have systems and processes in place to proactively prevent users from encountering priority illegal content via their service and to minimise the length of time for which such content is present.”
No specific action could be extracted with a verified quote.
No specific action could be extracted with a verified quote.
- Each report's concerns were extracted by Nemotron 3 Nano on Nebius Token Factory, each with a quote copied from the report.
- Concerns from reports to Ofcom at least six months apart were compared by meaning (Qwen3 embeddings) and wording (TF-IDF).
- The closest pairs were judged by Nemotron 3 Super with reasoning on. Only identical or closely related, with confidence of at least 0.70, are shown.
- Every quote was checked by code as an exact substring of the original text. Names of staff and family are redacted, and the deceased are named by report title only.
| Link | Meaning | Wording | Judge | Coroner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 → 2025 | 0.71 | 0.23 | Identical · 0.90 | different |
| 2023 → 2025 | 0.73 | 0.12 | Closely related · 0.90 | different |
Judge model: nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b. How Nemotron did the work · Full methodology.
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This shows that a similar concern was raised again after an earlier report. It does not say why, and it is not a finding about any organisation or person. To report an error, see the corrections route.