Instagram posts about suicide and depression viewed by 14-year-old Molly Russell before she took her own life were ‘safe’, the site’s head of health and wellbeing told a court.

Meta executive Elizabeth Lagone was shown content the teen viewed in the final months of her life, which Molly’s family claim encouraged suicide and self-harm.

She told the coroner’s court it was ‘safe for people to be able to express themselves online’. She added the posts were ‘complex’ and often a ‘cry for help’.

But Ms Lagone conceded two posts would have violated Instagram’s policies. The site barred ‘encouraging or promoting self-harm’, only allowing users to post related content if they were coming together to support each other.

Ms Lagone told the court: ‘We are sorry that Molly viewed content that violated our policies and we don’t want that on the platform.’

Of the 16,300 posts that Molly, of Harrow, north-west London, had saved, shared or liked on Instagram in the six months before her 2017 death, 2,100 were depression, self-harm or suicide-related.

During a heated exchange over allowing children on its platforms, the Russell family’s lawyer, Oliver Sanders KC, asked Ms Lagone: ‘Why on earth are you doing this?’

At one stage shouting, he asked why Instagram let children use the platform when it was ‘allowing people to put potentially harmful content on it’ and suggested Meta ‘could just restrict it to adults’.

He said: ‘Instagram portrays as trying to strike this very, very difficult balance between who gets harmed by content you are posting.

‘You are running risks and it really comes back to the question the coroner asked you; “Why on earth are you doing this?”’

Ms Lagone told the inquest the topic of harm was an ‘evolving field’ and that Instagram policies were designed with consideration to users aged 13 and over.

Molly’s father Ian Russell earlier told the inquest he had been shocked by the ‘dark, graphic, harmful material’ available for children to view online.

He said much of the content seemed to normalise self-harm and suicide. The inquest continues.

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