PFD report

Isabella Shere · Prevention of Future Deaths report

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Issued 5 Mar 2024•Inner South London

Report record

Published report and response evidence

This page connects the concerns raised in this report with statements found in recipients’ published responses. A link shows a clear evidence connection; it does not assign responsibility.

View original report
Concerns
6

Raised in this report

Recipients
3

Named on the report

Responses found
2

Of 3 recipients

Stated actions
15

Described in responses

Recipients and published responses

Source document

Full report text

This is the full text from the original published report.

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Concerns and recipient responses

Select any concern, action or position to view the source wording.

Concerns raised6

  1. Related-question recommendations encouraging further consumption of the material
  2. Pop-up question functionality detracting from users appreciating the seriousness of the subject matter
  3. Upvoting functionality detracting from users appreciating the seriousness of the subject matter
Responses linked to these concerns

Each statement is shown once, even when linked to more than one concern.

Actions described in response An action is something a recipient says it has done, is doing, or plans to do in response to a concern raised.4

  1. Action

    Work with Ofcom to implement the Online Safety Act as quickly as possible to protect children from harmful online content.

    Stated by Department for Digital, Culture, Media and SportStated in progressThe respondent said that this action was in progress when they made their response on 6 June 2024.
  2. Action

    Publish draft Children’s Safety Codes, Children’s Access Assessments Guidance and Children’s Risk Assessment Guidance through the Protection of Children Consultation.

    Stated by OfcomStated completedThe respondent said that this action was complete when they made their response on 6 June 2024.
  3. Action

    Publish the Protection of Children statement, final guidance and Children’s Safety Codes by the end of April 2025.

    Stated by OfcomStated plannedThe respondent said that this action was planned when they made their response on 6 June 2024.

Respondent positions A position is what a recipient says about a concern when it does not describe a specific action.3

  1. Position

    Ofcom is responsible for overseeing and enforcing the Online Safety Act regime.

    Stated by Department for Digital, Culture, Media and SportRedirects responsibilityThe respondent said that another organisation was responsible for deciding or taking action.

Source evidence

How this individual concern was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the report wording shown below. Response links show a clear evidence connection; they do not assign responsibility.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Related-question recommendations encouraging further consumption of the material

Wider context from the report

“(4) When viewing content ████████, a list of related questions is displayed, suggesting further similar content to users and encouraging further consumption of this material. ”

Is this part of a recurring concern?

No recurring-concern membership is currently published.

Open source report

Source evidence

How this individual concern was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the report wording shown below. Response links show a clear evidence connection; they do not assign responsibility.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Pop-up question functionality detracting from users appreciating the seriousness of the subject matter

Wider context from the report

“(6) There is an upvoting function which allows users to vote on the most useful answers to questions ████████. There is pop up question which can appear which asks ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████ Both of these functions detract from user appreciating the seriousness of the subject matter that is being consumed. ”

Is this part of a recurring concern?

No recurring-concern membership is currently published.

Open source report

Source evidence

How this individual concern was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the report wording shown below. Response links show a clear evidence connection; they do not assign responsibility.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Upvoting functionality detracting from users appreciating the seriousness of the subject matter

Wider context from the report

“(6) There is an upvoting function which allows users to vote on the most useful answers to questions ████████. There is pop up question which can appear which asks ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████ Both of these functions detract from user appreciating the seriousness of the subject matter that is being consumed. ”

Is this part of a recurring concern?

No recurring-concern membership is currently published.

Open source report

Source evidence

How this individual concern was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the report wording shown below. Response links show a clear evidence connection; they do not assign responsibility.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Question-following functionality encouraging further consumption of the material

Wider context from the report

“(5) There is a function to follow questions ████████████████████████ encouraging further consumption of this material. ”

Is this part of a recurring concern?

Yes — Social media features failing to control amplification of harmful content.

Open source report

Source evidence

How this individual concern was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the report wording shown below. Response links show a clear evidence connection; they do not assign responsibility.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Insufficient monitoring and moderation of question-and-answer content

Wider context from the report

“(7) There is not sufficient monitoring and/or moderation of the content of questions/answers in accordance with Quora’s own platform policies. ████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ”

Is this part of a recurring concern?

Yes — Unreliable monitoring and moderation of harmful social-media content.

Open source report

Source evidence

How this individual concern was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the report wording shown below. Response links show a clear evidence connection; they do not assign responsibility.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Failure to restrict children’s access to content without age verification

Wider context from the report

“(3) Children are able to access the site through search engines without being required to create an account and access content ████████ without being asked if they are an adult or being required to input their date of birth. ”

Is this part of a recurring concern?

No recurring-concern membership is currently published.

Open source report

Source evidence

How this respondent action was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Work with Ofcom to implement the Online Safety Act as quickly as possible to protect children from harmful online content.

Verbatim wording from the response

“Part of our Government’s mission is to reduce the lives lost to suicide, and the Online Safety Act will help with this aim. My department is working closely with Ofcom to ensure that the Online Safety Act is implemented as quickly as possible so that children are protected from encountering harmful content online, especially at their most vulnerable moments, as happened with Miss Shere.”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
Page 3 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response

Source evidence

How this respondent action was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Publish draft Children’s Safety Codes, Children’s Access Assessments Guidance and Children’s Risk Assessment Guidance through the Protection of Children Consultation.

Verbatim wording from the response

“Phase two: Protecting Children We published our consultation Guidance for service providers publishing pornographic content on 5 December 2023. This included draft guidance on age assurance and other duties for services providing pornographic content. Following this, we published our consultation Protecting children from harms online (‘Protection of Children Consultation’) on 8 May 2024. This consultation includes our draft Children’s Safety Codes which set out more than 40 practical steps that services can take to keep children safer online.”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Ofcom
Page 4 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response

Source evidence

How this respondent action was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Publish the Protection of Children statement, final guidance and Children’s Safety Codes by the end of April 2025.

Verbatim wording from the response

“Services that conclude they are likely to be accessed by children are required to carry out children’s risk assessments. Our Protection of Children statement, including final Children’s Risk Assessment Guidance, will be published in spring 2025. By this point, services will have had three months to complete their first children’s access assessment and determine whether they need to comply with the children’s safety duties.”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Ofcom
Page 7 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response

Source evidence

How this respondent action was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Publish final Children’s Access Assessments Guidance.

Verbatim wording from the response

“We intend to publish our final Children’s Access Assessments Guidance in early 2025. Regulated services, such as Quora, will then have three months to complete children’s access assessments. If they conclude they are likely to be accessed by children, they will need to carry out a children’s risk assessment.”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Ofcom
Page 6 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response

Source evidence

How this respondent position was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Ofcom is responsible for overseeing and enforcing the Online Safety Act regime.

Verbatim wording from the response

“I am responding in place of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, given my department’s responsibility for the online safety policy. The Online Safety Act received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023 and will place duties on tech companies to protect their users online, especially children. The Online Safety Act regime will be overseen and enforced by Ofcom, the independent regulator.”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
Page 1 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response

Source evidence

How this respondent position was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Regulated online services, rather than the regulator, must assess and mitigate risks and implement measures protecting users from illegal and harmful suicide content.

Verbatim wording from the response

“• Imposes a number of duties on those regulated services, which focus on improving the systems and processes online services operate to ensure the safety of their users, rather than on the presence of individual pieces of content.”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Ofcom
Page 2 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response

Source evidence

How this respondent position was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Ofcom cannot enforce the online safety duties until its Codes of Practice receive approval and are brought into force through the statutory process.

Verbatim wording from the response

“Although the Act is now law, the duties are not yet in force. The Act requires us to draft Codes of Practice and consult on them before submitting them to the Secretary of State for approval. If approved, the Codes must then be laid before parliament for 40 days. Following approval by Parliament, the Codes will come into force 21 days after they have been issued. We explain our plans to implement the regime (consultation and enforcement timings) for Ofcom’s Illegal Harms Consultation and Protection of Children Consultation below. More information on our approach to implementing the Act can be found in our published Roadmap.”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Ofcom
Page 3 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response

Other statements in published responses

These actions and other statements could not be clearly connected to one concern in this report.

Recipient-stated actions An action is something a recipient says it has done, is doing, or plans to do in response to a concern raised.11

  1. 1

    Consider the report’s online-safety concerns when deciding how the government should move forward.

    Stated by Department for Digital, Culture, Media and SportStated in progressThe respondent said that this action was in progress when they made their response on 6 June 2024.
  2. 2

    Publish a call for evidence on additional duties for categorised services.

    Stated by OfcomStated completedThe respondent said that this action was complete when they made their response on 6 June 2024.
  3. 3

    Publish draft Illegal Harms Codes of Practice and Illegal Content Judgements Guidance through the Illegal Harms Consultation.

    Stated by OfcomStated completedThe respondent said that this action was complete when they made their response on 6 June 2024.
  4. 4

    Take coroners’ and other experts’ evidence into account in continuing online safety policy development.

    Stated by OfcomStated in progressThe respondent said that this action was in progress when they made their response on 6 June 2024.
  5. 5

    Engage expert stakeholders, including government, law enforcement, charities and industry, to develop evidence and understanding of suicide and self-harm risks.

    Stated by OfcomStated in progressThe respondent said that this action was in progress when they made their response on 6 June 2024.
  6. 6

    Submit the Illegal Harms Codes of Practice to the Secretary of State after issuing the consultation response.

    Stated by OfcomStated plannedThe respondent said that this action was planned when they made their response on 6 June 2024.
  7. 7

    Operate a dedicated Triage team to identify, prioritise and escalate emerging online safety harms and risks.

    Stated by OfcomStated completedThe respondent said that this action was complete when they made their response on 6 June 2024.
  8. 8

    Submit the Children’s Safety Codes to the Secretary of State after providers complete children’s access assessments.

    Stated by OfcomStated plannedThe respondent said that this action was planned when they made their response on 6 June 2024.
  9. 9

    Operate continuous regulatory supervision of the largest and riskiest online services to drive safety improvements.

    Stated by OfcomStated in progressThe respondent said that this action was in progress when they made their response on 6 June 2024.
  10. 10

    Publish final Illegal Harms guidance and a statement responding to stakeholder consultation issues.

    Stated by OfcomStated plannedThe respondent said that this action was planned when they made their response on 6 June 2024.
  11. 11

    Grow internal expertise on suicide and self-harm harms.

    Stated by OfcomStated in progressThe respondent said that this action was in progress when they made their response on 6 June 2024.

Recipient positions A position is what a recipient says about a concern when they do not describe a specific action.1

  1. 1

    The Ministry of Justice has responsibility for the relevant criminal offences falling within its remit.

    Stated by Department for Digital, Culture, Media and SportRedirects responsibilityThe respondent said that another organisation was responsible for deciding or taking action.

Source evidence

How this respondent action was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Consider the report’s online-safety concerns when deciding how the government should move forward.

Verbatim wording from the response

“Thank you for the opportunity to respond to this Report to Prevent Future Deaths, regarding the tragic death of Isabella Charlotte Shere. Following the change of government, I am considering the issues you have raised in your report and I am grateful to you for bringing them to my attention. I have taken advice from my officials in preparing this response and wanted to reply promptly to avoid further delay.”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
Page 1 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response

Source evidence

How this respondent action was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Publish a call for evidence on additional duties for categorised services.

Verbatim wording from the response

“Phase three: Additional Duties on Categorised Services On 25 March 2024, we published our Call for evidence: Third phase of online safety regulation. We will publish further detailed proposals in relation to the additional duties on categorised services in 2025.”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Ofcom
Page 4 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response

Source evidence

How this respondent action was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Publish draft Illegal Harms Codes of Practice and Illegal Content Judgements Guidance through the Illegal Harms Consultation.

Verbatim wording from the response

“Phase one: Illegal Harms Our first step in protecting users from illegal harms was the publication of our consultation Protecting people from illegal harms online (‘Illegal Harms Consultation’) on 9 November 2023. As part of this consultation, we published draft Codes of Practice which set out how”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Ofcom
Page 3 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response

Source evidence

How this respondent action was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Take coroners’ and other experts’ evidence into account in continuing online safety policy development.

Verbatim wording from the response

“Evidence included in reports from coroners and other experts will play an important role as we implement the regime, and we will of course take the evidence in your report into account as we continue our policy development. We hope that this response provides helpful information about the significant steps Ofcom is taking as we continue to work through the implementation of the Act.”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Ofcom
Page 10 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response

Source evidence

How this respondent action was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Engage expert stakeholders, including government, law enforcement, charities and industry, to develop evidence and understanding of suicide and self-harm risks.

Verbatim wording from the response

“As part of our preparatory work for implementation, we have been actively engaging with a range of expert stakeholders including the government, law enforcement, and charities such as Samaritans to develop our understanding, expertise and evidence base in relation to suicide and self-harm, and to ensure that we are aware of developing areas of risk. We have also been concentrating on growing our internal expertise in relation to this complex and important harms area. We will continue our programme of engagement with relevant experts as we consult on our initial proposals on how services can comply with their duties.”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Ofcom
Page 4 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response

Source evidence

How this respondent action was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Submit the Illegal Harms Codes of Practice to the Secretary of State after issuing the consultation response.

Verbatim wording from the response

“The Online Safety Act requires Ofcom to submit our Codes of Practice on illegal harms to the Secretary of State and to publish associated guidance within 18 months of Royal Assent. Once we issue our statement, services will have three months to undertake their illegal content risk assessments. At this point we will also submit the Codes of Practice to the Secretary of State, which, subject to their approval, are to be laid in Parliament for 40 days.”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Ofcom
Page 6 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response

Source evidence

How this respondent action was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Operate a dedicated Triage team to identify, prioritise and escalate emerging online safety harms and risks.

Verbatim wording from the response

“In the meantime, we are already encouraging in-scope service providers to take meaningful steps to improve safety on their platforms. To this end, we are committed to driving industry improvements by engaging with the largest and riskiest services via continuous ‘regulatory supervision.’ We also have a dedicated team for identifying, prioritising and escalating emerging issues, particularly on services where we do not have an existing supervisory relationship, which we call the Triage team. The purpose of the Triage team is to ensure Ofcom responds effectively, promptly, and proportionately to new or growing harms and risks, focusing our reactive work on the most harmful issues.”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Ofcom
Page 3 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response

Source evidence

How this respondent action was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Submit the Children’s Safety Codes to the Secretary of State after providers complete children’s access assessments.

Verbatim wording from the response

“Providers who have completed children’s access assessments and determined that their services are ‘likely to be accessed by children’ within the meaning of the Act will have three months from completion of a children’s access assessment to carry out children’s risk assessments. At this point we will also submit the Children’s Safety Codes to the Secretary of State, which, subject to their approval, are to be laid in Parliament for 40 days.”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Ofcom
Page 9 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response

Source evidence

How this respondent action was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Operate continuous regulatory supervision of the largest and riskiest online services to drive safety improvements.

Verbatim wording from the response

“In the meantime, we are already encouraging in-scope service providers to take meaningful steps to improve safety on their platforms. To this end, we are committed to driving industry improvements by engaging with the largest and riskiest services via continuous ‘regulatory supervision.’ We also have a dedicated team for identifying, prioritising and escalating emerging issues, particularly on services where we do not have an existing supervisory relationship, which we call the Triage team. The purpose of the Triage team is to ensure Ofcom responds effectively, promptly, and proportionately to new or growing harms and risks, focusing our reactive work on the most harmful issues.”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Ofcom
Page 3 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response

Source evidence

How this respondent action was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Publish final Illegal Harms guidance and a statement responding to stakeholder consultation issues.

Verbatim wording from the response

“We expect to publish final versions of our illegal harms guidance, together with a statement setting out our response to issues raised by stakeholders, around the end of 2024.”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Ofcom
Page 6 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response

Source evidence

How this respondent action was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

Grow internal expertise on suicide and self-harm harms.

Verbatim wording from the response

“As part of our preparatory work for implementation, we have been actively engaging with a range of expert stakeholders including the government, law enforcement, and charities such as Samaritans to develop our understanding, expertise and evidence base in relation to suicide and self-harm, and to ensure that we are aware of developing areas of risk. We have also been concentrating on growing our internal expertise in relation to this complex and important harms area. We will continue our programme of engagement with relevant experts as we consult on our initial proposals on how services can comply with their duties.”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Ofcom
Page 4 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response

Source evidence

How this respondent position was interpreted

PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

PFD Monitor interpretation

The Ministry of Justice has responsibility for the relevant criminal offences falling within its remit.

Verbatim wording from the response

“I will address the concerns you have listed (referred to as (1)-(7) in your report) in my response, as per my department’s remit, and having engaged with the Ministry of Justice on the relevant offences which fall within their remit.”

Source location

2024-0298 Response from Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
Page 1 · response
Published 6 June 2024

Open published response
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Information checked against the published report and official responses · Data reviewed 7 Sep 2026 · About data quality and limitations

Data last updated 7 September 2026